The good thing about living close to some big cities is that no matter how many times you visit, there's likely something new you can see! This time, my in-laws Warren and Carole were visiting, so we decided to take them to the Nazi Party Rallying Grounds in Nuremberg for a few hours one day.
This is one strange looking building from the outside. Technically it's called the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände, and judging by my poor German, that translates to something like, "Documentation Center Reich Party Grounds." German's like to throw a bunch of words together to form one really long massive word. Instead, we'll call it what it was: The Nazi Party Rallying Grounds. This picture doesn't even begin to show the breadth of the land that these grounds occupied. One of the wings of the "Congress Hall," which, if finished would have seated 50,000 people houses the museum.
We got our audio guides and away we went! It was super exciting to me to be able to visit a museum without my kids. What? You mean I can actually listen to the audio guide and read all of the information and look at all of the pictures? What???? (Well, not quite because we ran out of time because we wanted to go downtown before we had to go pick up the kids!)
Old German Marks, the unit of currency up until 2002 came in various forms over the years. At the time of WWII, it was known as the Reichsmark. Notice the high values of these marks due to inflation.
EVERY single time I visit anything to do with Hitler or the Nazi's, I feel incredibly creepy and weird. But we all know those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. (Ya hear that, America!?) We MUST learn how this crazy person gained control so that we never let this happen again. This museum had excellent information and stories regarding Hitler's rise to power. Naturally, it's never just one thing, but a collection of occurrences that led to this.
Many of us know about Mein Kampf, but did you know that after a failed attempt at a coup in Munich, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison? He only served eight months and was released on good behavior. He then wrote this book.
Let's play "Destroy the Nazis" with my Army men!
OMG What a creep!
Kind of like having a bust of a decent world leader in your house (maybe someone like Kennedy or Reagan), folks could purchase a bronze Hitler bust for the mantle. ("Shudders!")
Tons of great information about the use of the Nazi Party Rallying Grounds followed the section about Hitler's Rise to Power. The grounds were designed to show the power of the party, and indeed they did. Much of the stone that was used to build the structures on the grounds came from quarries near concentration camps, in which the inmates put forth all of their labor to mine. The area was originally 11 square km (although now is only about 4 square km), and consisted of a Zeppelin Field, the Congress Hall (again, this was never finished), the Luitpold Arena (it could hold 150,000 people which is about 43,000 more than Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor!), March Field, Great Road, German and Municipal Stadiums, and SS Barracks (later used by and known as the Merrell Barracks by the US Military until 1992).
Nazi Party gathering in the Luitpold Arena on the grounds. Can you even imagine!?
We had to skip over some of the museum, including some sections about the concentration camps which I fully intend to go back and see. But naturally I need to post a picture of the American troops taking over the area and liberating Nuremberg! A lot of the buildings on the Rallying Grounds were destroyed in the battles leading up to liberation.
The great Congress Hall wasn't totally destroyed, but then again it had never been completed in the first place.
This is what it would have looked like if it had been completed. You can see that it would have even had a roof!
One of the saddest displays was a mock railroad leading to an empty tunnel, with the names of the final destinations written on the wall. Auschwitz. Belzec. Chelmno. Majdanek. Sobibor. Treblinka. Each of the cards you see laying on the tracks is the name of someone who had been on the trains to these concentration camps.
I pretty much could have spent all day at the Dokuzentrum, but we wanted Warren and Carole to see the downtown Nuremberg area where the Christmas Market is always held. The square (which was relatively empty today), is home to the Frauernkirchen (Church of Our Lady) and was finished in 1361. Of course, like most other wonderful, old buildings in Europe, it was mostly destroyed in WWII.
All that was left was the western façade and sections of the Nave walls. (Photo source: www.mcgady.net).
Within the entrance to the western façade, you can see a bit of the original church in the form of sculptures surrounding the inner doorway.
It really is a pretty church! After some crepes and beer in the square, we headed back home. Until next time, Nuremberg!
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