Greg and Carey wanted to do the WWII tour in Nuremberg. It’s a four hour tour and I’m not really sure what to expect.

Our guide is Alex who has a second job as a yacht instructor and when he gets tired of teaching people how to drive their new yachts he comes home and does tours. He also lived in Hopkinsville KY for four years. Small world.

We started our drive by passing through the industrial part of town. Many factories here were used by the Nazi’s to produce tanks and other supplies for the war. Because of this, much of the city was destroyed.

There are 520k residents here, about 1M if you include the suburbs. This was the location for the Nazi Party Rally Grounds from 1933-1938. These rallies were held for a week in September and 500k-1M people would travel here for these.

The size of the grounds is equal to four times the size of Central Park which is mind blowing.

Our first stop was the zeppelin fields and grandstand which was finished in 1936. This is where the rallies were held which were to get the Germans in line with the Nazi ideology. This was also the site used to deport prisoners to concentration camps because there are lots of railroad tracks close.

Next stop was Congress Hall. Construction stopped on this when the war started so it’s only 2/3 complete. This was being built so Hitler could accommodate 50k people one day a year to hear one speech from him. The design was based off the colosseum and was to have light shining down directly on him during the speech like a God.

They used the cheapest bricks possible on the inside but stones that looked like marble on the outside.

This area now houses a museum and will be the temporary opera house while the current one is renovated. This apparently is a hot topic in Germany because the temporary structure will cost taxpayers 300M euros and will only be used for 10 years. Their original building will cost 1B euros to renovate.

Our final stop was the Palace of Justice that was built in 1916. This is the site where the famous Nuremberg trials occurred in Court Room 600. This was the first time an entire nation was put on trial. Changes were made to this courtroom by the US to accommodate the numerous media and observers but the courtroom aside from that is exactly the same.

I could type all kinds of facts that were discussed but it’s a lot. I think the takeaway from our guide was how diligent the US was to ensure that the trial was fair so no one could come back on them later to say it wasn’t.

The other thing Alex shared was that for years the Germans wanted to hide history. Even at the grandstand, the Germans tried to remove all the columns by saying they were in disrepair. The truth is that they didn’t want a reminder of what had happened there but the removal got too expensive. Also the newer generation wanted to accept the past and learn from it to ensure it’s never repeated.

Also at Congress Hall, the government tried to plant a bunch of trees to hide the structure so no one would ask questions.

It was a heavy day but yet a beautiful day at the same time. I thought the four hours was going to drag on but it went quickly.

Time to head back for dinner!