Weekend in Nurnberg

I made my first weekend trip to the destination of Nurnberg, which is East of Heidelberg in Bavaria. I went with my roommates, Julie and Harmony. We made the trip by train, and we were greeted by a gorgeous train station to begin our visit.

The old part of the city is surrounded by a giant wall. We walked around the town and visited the old churches. They were amazing. Everything was so intricately detailed. One of the churches was where Johann Pachelbel (composer of Pachelbel's Cannon) spent most of his career. Here is a picture of part of the organ from this church:

This church, and most of the other old buildings in town, had to be restored because during World War II the town was heavily bombed by allied troops.

(Julie and I outside a church) ( a church in town, but not Pachelbel's)
After visiting a few churches in town we took the bus...

...(me and my roommate Harmony pictured above) over to the Document Center. Nurnberg was the center for Nazi party rallies, so Hitler wanted to construct a giant complex of buildings to serve his purposes. Building stopped once the war started. One of the buildings was half way finished, and it is now the "Document Center" which is a World War II museum focusing on Hitler's rise to power. The name of the permanent exhibit is "Fascination and Terror". The museum talked about how Hitler appealed to the traditional German values of the people to win them over. Then he made himself into a superman type person that was above human reproach using fascination, which led to terror. There was also an exhibit about the Nurnberg Trials. The Nazi war crime trials took place in Nurnberg because it was such a central hub for the party.

Here is a picture of the museum from the outside. It was 39 meters tall, and it was supposed to be 30 meters taller. After the museum, we went to Zeppelin field, which is where the Nazi party rallies were held.

That is a picture of Hitler giving a speech at the rally grounds. The photo is too narrow to show how wide it is. Here is a picture of the structure on which Hitler stood.

The structure looked almost like an altar. I'm sure it must have really feed into the idea that Hitler was beyond human. The structure used to be bigger, but the Americans demolished a portion that had a swastika at the end of the war. The Germans also tore down much of the building during the 60's.

This is Julie and I standing on the podium where Hitler would give speeches. It was very strange to be there. I have stood on the steps of the Lincoln memorial where Martin Luther King Jr. gave the "I have a dream" speech, and I remember being in such awe. Although I was still in great awe standing in Hitler's place, it was an awe of an extremely different kind. I almost felt wrong for standing there. Most of the seating of the rally grounds has been grown over. Germans don't pay to keep Nazi buildings in good condition, but they do keep a small section up because they have a soccer field in the middle of the grounds. It is very strange to me, but I guess maybe by using it for something for normal it removes the power the space once had.

One of the nights, we had a traditional Bavarian meal (Nurnberg is in the Bavarian state of Germany). My meal is on the left. It was bread, sausage, and sauerkraut. It was amazing. The sausage was some of the best I have ever had. The sauerkraut was very, very tasty. In fact, it was so rich that it was impossible to eat the huge heap of it on my plate. The bread was typical brown bread, but I had to eat it all to take an edge of the strong flavors from the rest of the meal. The meal in the foreground of the picture was Julie's. It had potatoes and meat with a fried egg on top. Hers was very good too, but once again, very rich. On the right side is Harmony's dish. The waitress did not speak very much English, so when Harmony pointed to an item on the menu and asked, "Can you tell me about this?", the waitress said, "ok" and wrote down the order. Harmony was crossing her fingers that the surprise dish would be good, but it turned out to be a boiled sausage that she could hardly handle.

The next day we went to Wurzburg, but I will write about that at another time.