Nuremberg

I made a special trip from Munich to Nuremberg today.

My main aim was to satisfy my lawyerly forensic interests by visiting the courthouse where the Nazi War Crime trials took place.  One of the extras shows the dock of Courtroom 600 where the defendants sat.   The courtroom is still in use today and the dock is smaller than the original one but Goring sat in the corner nearest my lens.

The most disappointing aspect of the visit is that the exhibition in the attic (yes, somewhat hidden away) is completely in German . . . not a single word of English is visible on the panels, and there's no lack of free space in the graphic designs to cater for it.  

There is a (free) audio guide with an English language option provided but it needs a master’s degree to manipulate, has three different source settings which you need to adjust to correspond to the different symbols on the different exhibition panels and the instructions are stated, yes, 'only once' in the rapid-fire audio introduction that seems to be never ending and which is not available in written form to remind you what to press, when and where.  Imagine recording a five minute message for your granny on how to operate a 1980's video recorder, letting her hear it once and expecting her to record the climax of your favourite series for you to watch when you get home late, and you've got the idea!

I did trigger some recordings but they were sleep-inducing in their length, turgid pace and solemnity.   But beyond the lack-of-convenience point for the  'Express English-speaking Tourist', I do think there is a more fundamental issue about making the basic information available in English and Russian, the languages of the allied powers which brought the whole calamitous Nazi adventure to an end, and who also organised and ran the trials which were certainly not conducted in German!  

Why the essential information is only presented in German on a site which is international by it's very nature and probably the most important and visible holding to account of despotic behaviour in history, is beyond me.  I actually think the courtroom should have been preserved as was or, indeed, still be restored as was.    'Business as usual' seems to have won out but there is nothing  'business as usual' about the war crime trials conducted in this place.  Is it 'business as usual' at Runnymede where the Magna Carta was signed?    No, it is not.  There is a proper memorial marking an equally important upholding of the rights of man.

Someone, somewhere decided the language point and I really wonder about their motives.   Interestingly, when I asked my taxi driver to take me to the court of justice, he very quickly replied, 'American justice, you mean.'   Make of that what you wish.

I had expected and planned to be deeply submerged in the detail for two hours but was in and out within fifteen minutes.

The secondary aim was to visit the site where the Nazi Party rallies were held and it turned out to be much more redolent of the past as, hopefully, you can feel from the main photo above with a solitary figure occupying the tribune where Adolf Hitler stood to receive his homage.  It is called The Zeppelin Field from the time this type of aircraft used the place to embark and disembark in the early part of the twentieth century.  

The structure, so familiar from news reels, was the only part of Hitler and Speer's grand design to be ever realised . . . approximately 90,000 square meters (12 football pitches) with room for 200,000 people.   The centre area is used for sports activity today and the remaining structure is now listed (rightly so) to be preserved as an anti-democratic folly.  

There is definitely something of the Ozymandias about this place . . . (which I have paraphrased and updated) . . .

'My name is Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer of Fuhrers:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: within the decay
Of that colossal wreck, green and flat,
The twelve and level playing fields stretch far away.'

Note: the extras show different perspectives of today's scene in colour and black and white.