On November 15th we headed from Rothenberg (pronounced Rotenburg) and headed to Nuremburg. I thought my dad especially would like this town because of the history there. I never knew how interesting it would be to me also. We started out at the Nazi Documentation Center. This is a different museum than most on the Nazi museums. This traced the evolution of the Nazi movement, focusing on how it both energized and terrified the German people.
Here is AJ at the start of our tour showing an overview of the building that the museum was in. It came with an audio tour which was very interesting.
Here Mom, AJ and Michael are heading into the first of many movies. Luckily with the audio guide it was in English!
They had these throughout the museum, they were the bones of a Nazi.
This one had a bunch of toy army figures, the boys were enthralled with it.
This is a picture of the Brandenburg gate in Berlin. We were there with the boys back in May, walked right under it. It is amazing to think about all those soldiers standing there and then the ruin during the war.
Here is Dad learning some history - well he actually knew a lot about it since he is such a history buff, but he still learned a few tid bits. :-) One of the tid bits I learned was that Hitler was in jail before he took over power. I had no idea about that.
Mom and Dad looking at some pictures of Hitler. One thing, he did like photos of himself. He had one full time photographer to take pictures of just himself.
Now this photo is really overwhelming. This was one of their rallies. As far as the eyes can see are people. Every little dot on there are soldiers. They were held at the Zepplin Field (more about that later).
Dad, Mom, AJ and Michael outside in the middle of the Congress Hall.
They built this "railroad" and put the names of the Jews that were killed during the Nazi reign. They had to put four names per paper because if they put one name per paper it would have to be miles long to fit all of the names.
This museum is housed in one small wing of Hitler's huge, unfinished Congress Hall. It is the largest surviving example of Nazi architecture. The building was planned to host the mammoth annual Nazi Party gatherings. It was originally intended to be topped with a roof and skylight. Dad and I walked around the pond and here is a picture of the whole building. The boys thought it was too cold, so they stayed behind in the warm car with Grandma, who graciously said she would stay with them.
This is Zeppelin Field. This was the site of the Nazis' biggest rallies, including those famously filmed by Leni Riefenstahl. This is what it looked like before the bombs in WWII - you can see the Nazi symbol and the tall columns.
As you can see here, the columns are gone and so is the huge swastika. You can barely see him but Dad is standing there in the middle. This is exactly where Hitler stood when talking to 250,000 people at a time. It is amazing to think that Hitler stood there were Dad was.
Where you see the cement in front was used as a run way by the allies after they took over Nurenberg. If you look near the back you can see a white building. That didn't used to be there and that is where the end of this field is and where the troops marched in to listen to Hitler. There are stands around the outside of the field for common people to sit.
This is amazing, can you see the speck in the back of the picture? Not the group of people on the left, but farther away and down a few steps in red? Yeah I can barely see it also, but that is my dad and he is only halfway to where Hitler stood. That is showing how enormous this stadium was. On these seats were reserved for his higher command and special guests. I am guessing there were a lot.
After that we headed into the down town part. The town of Nuremberg has a long history. It was nicknamed the "most German of German cities." It was no coincidence that it appealed to Hitler, for that reason and it being in the center of Germany so it was convenient meeting point for Nazi support. It was one of the most important cities of medieval Europe and it appealed to Hitler as a way to legitimize his Third Reich by invoking Germany's glorious past. At the 1935 rallies, the Nazis devised the first laws - which came to be known as the Nuremberg Laws - that legally defined Jews as second-class citizens. It was also were they held the famous trials of the Nazi officers who had overseen some of the most gruesome atrocities in the history of humankind.
The boys at a "modern art" sculpture.
The streets of downtown. It was still busy even though it was a Friday afternoon. We were surprised.
In the market square where the Beautiful Fountain is. In the old times, the medieval tanneries, slaughterhouses and the hospital dumped their byproducts in the river. So this fountain brought clean drinking water into the square.
At the bottom the figures represents the arts, the pillars just above them are the four church fathers and the four Evangelists, showing that religion is higher than the arts. On up are more Emperors and at the very top are eight prophets. I also thought the cannon on the left was neat sticking through the fence.
This is the St Lawrence Church, once Catholic but now Protestant. The interior wasn't completely furnished until more than a century after the church was built. Most of the decorations inside were donated by wealthy Nurembergers trying to cut down on their time in purgatory.
This shows how much damage was done to the church during WWII. Actually 80% of Nuremberg was destroyed during WWII. One good thing about the church is that everything movable had been hidden away in bunkers, including the beautiful stained glass windows. I wasn't able to take pictures inside, but it was beautiful.
So this has to be the coolest police station ever!! After that we headed for the hotel and then for some dinner. They said there was a good German restaurant down the road, so we decided to try it. Unfortunately it was closed due to a Christmas party - it was a really early Christmas party.
So we went to a Chinese restaurant instead. It was really, really good food!! The service was excellent too!!!
This was their dessert - it also had dry ice underneath which made for some cool fog!!!
AJ thought the strawberries were really fun!
I also thought the fish were a nice touch. They had two of these big ones and then a coy pond downstairs.
Then back to the hotel room for a game of trash. The boys really love playing games and had so much fun playing every night with Grandma and Grandpa!!! I think as much fun as Grandma and Grandpa had playing with their boys!
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