Allison Abroad: Day 10 - Nuremburg, Germany

This morning we took the train into Nuremburg. We went straight to the Palace of Justice, which is where the Nuremburg trials in 1946 for Nazi war crimes were held. We were lucky because there was no court case being held in "Room 600" today so we got to see the actual room where the trial took place. It has been remodeled since the Nuremburg Trials but the similarities were still there. Actually, the room today looks like it did prior to 1946. The room was remodeled for the Nuremburg trials in order to make it easier to try the 24 people accused of war crimes.

The floor above the courtroom has been made into an exhibit which was very interesting. Of all the museums I have been to so far, this was by far the best. The first section talked about the reparations against Germany after WWI and about the Nazi party during WWII. The next (and longest) section dealt with the actual trial - judges, defense lawyers, prosecutors, witnesses, and of course the defendants, along with key points of the trial. The last section was about the 12 follow-up trials later on. Some of the details of the trial were really fascinating. This was the first time that the leaders of war crimes were tried before a fair court before the world. It was also the first time that a trial was simultaneously recorded in 4 languages - English, German, French, and Russian.

After the exhibit and lunch (where we found a really good Mexican restaurant) we talked to our tour guide for the museum for a few hours. He gave us lots of details about the trials. I had never read more than a few paragraphs in a history book about the trials so it was really interesting to listen to the details for hours.

Courtroom 600 during the Nuremburg Trials and today

Entrance to Room 600

Room 600

Model of Room 600 from during the Nuremburg trials

Original benches of the defendants from the trials

Every word on this map is the name of a city with a year in which major political crimes have been committed since the Nuremburg Trials in 1946. A city is mentioned if there have been more than 1000 people killed. Most of the perpetrators have not been tried because there is usually no one to try political crimes, as the government is the problem in the first place. There are way too many entries.

Mexican food in Germany!

In the afternoon, we tour the Old City of Nuremburg. The Old City is entirely enclosed by a wall that was build in 1397. It was full of really old buildings and churches.