Hitler's rallying city

Yesterday we arrived in Nuremberg, and after checking into our rather luxurious hotel (interestingly, part of the Australian-owned Adina group), we headed off to walk through the Old Town. Like so many other places we've visited in Germany (or just about any other country in Europe for that matter), Nuremberg is a medieval city which once would have been totally encased by a stone wall, with watchtowers every couple of hundred metres. Not much of the walls still exist, but the watchtowers are a real feature. 

Part of the medieval wall which once would have encircled the city of Nuremberg

One of the watchtowers

As luck (or misfortune) would have it, once again we have arrived at a place in the middle of major events. On our way in on the bus, we passed the largest camping site we've ever seen, full of young German hippies, skinheads and assorted lovers of rock (no, it's not a convention of geologists). The festival is called Rock in the Park, and there must be thousands of tents occupied by tens of thousands of people listening to terrible German head bashing music. Ordinarily, this would not have worried us (each to their own, we're very tolerant travellers), but the campground just happens to be on one of the most significant historic sites in the whole of Nuremberg, if not Germany. The campground is actually on the site of the Nazi party rallies of the 1930s. Hitler had a real love of Nuremberg, for various reasons, and Nuremberg loved Hitler just as much. Some historians consider Nuremberg the most 'Nazi' city of them all, which explains why Hitler chose it for his huge party rallies. It probably also explains why the allies chose Nuremberg as the venue for the trials which led to the conviction, and subsequent execution, of the party's leadership. 

St Lorenz church

Craftsmen's courtyard, now a quaint little eating complex

Of course a visit to Nuremberg would not be considered complete, therefore, without a visit to the rally site (now the campground, remember) or the documentation centre, which is housed in one of the buildings where Hitler would have addressed the thousands of his adoring fans. The centre is information-dense (it took us almost three hours) and quite sobering. I often wonder how Germans working at the centre, or indeed those visiting it, feel about the sins of their forebears. But then, I guess it's no different to Australians being forced to face the reality of atrocities and genocide committed by our forebears on our own indigenous peoples.

A lovely scene looking along the river

The other event in town is the Summer in der Park festival. Basically, they have shipped in tons of sand, erected a pool and created a beach-like setting. Because it was Germany, they filled the pool with beer rather than water (just joking, but probably more than a few Germans had mentioned the idea).

View from the Imperial Castle

Like many cities in Germany, Nuremberg was bombed extensively by the allies, particularly in 1944 and 1945. One of its lovely churches, St Lorenz, was almost completely destroyed, but was rebuilt after the war. Looking at it, you could never detect the reconstruction (those guys from Restoration Rescue do a great job). Apparently, the pipe organ of St Lorenz is one of the biggest in the world. 

Although it's a parking lot for those attending the rock concert, this is part of the circular building Hitler had constructed for his party rallies. Nuremberg is a sobering reminder to us all what happens when we allow the cult of personality reign. It's also of reminder of the need for a healthy disrespect for authority, whatever form it should take.

After lunch, which I'm still currently digesting, we're off to look at some more of what the city has to offer. We've not got a lot of time left before we head of for our penultimate destination tomorrow, so we need to make the most of the afternoon.