Day 9 - Coming to an End

Today marks the half way point of our sailing trip, but not the end of the trip nor this blog.

The morning we spent sailing the canal and going up a few more locks. By noon we had arrived in Nuremberg. During the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries Nuremberg was the most powerful city in Germany. It was extremely rich and powerful in politics and industry. In the 18th century it was the leader in industry. Nuremberg has the largest railroad yard in Germany and is where alot of the cargo transfers are made. Interestingly the railroad yard is pitched higher on one side so that they can use gravity to lock the train cars together. They just let them roll downhill and they connect, kind of like Bubby's train set. Up until the 21st century Nuremberg continued to be a big industrial town, but when the factories started moving to China the industry stopped. Today it has alot of banks, insurance and telecommunications companies that keep the people working, along with the tourism.

The focus on our field trip today was on WWII and the Nazis'. Recognizing that a majority of you don't know what that is I'm going to attempt a brief summary to catch you up so I can continue with our travelogue. Uncle D, correct me if I am wrong in my facts.

Before WWII, the Kaiser or King was president of the country, under him was a Chancellor who was the guy in charge of the government. Then like our country who have Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, etc. there were different groups called parties. Each group supported different ideas on how the government should be and how to manage the money and take care of the people, etc. The Chancellor is elected by not the people but by the different groups and usually by the group that has the most power. Adolf Hitler was a man who joined one of the groups/parties and started to work for them. He was an excellent speaker and so he was asked to go and speak to the people often. Eventually he was made the chairman of the group. Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Bavaria Germany but was unsuccessful and went to jail. But he was released early and promised the Chancellor that he wouldn't do it again. So he was allowed to go back to his group and he did. When Hitler was back in his group the Great Depression came, people lost their money from the banks, nobody had jobs, people were hungry and homeless, and the Kaiser/King died. Hitler took this opportunity to convince the people that he should be in charge of the government, and he did it in 1933. The group/party that Hitler was over was called the Nazis. Hitler started to convince the people to hate other kinds of people, to burn books that he didn't think were good, to hate anything that wasn't German. He wanted the Germans and himself to be rulers over everyone.

Photos, sculptures and engravings of Hitler

To get the people to listen to him and to make them believe he was the best leader he made Nuremberg into the propaganda city of Germany. He had a large arena designed at built in the city that was to hold 450,000 people, as you can see in the pictures it looked kind of like the coliseum in Italy built by the Romans. The arena was to be built in bricks and then covered in granite, but before it was half way through the construction was stopped because the war had begun. The granite was not near, so concentration camps were built near granite quarries (pits where the stone was found). Concentration camps were like prisons, but for people that Hitler didn't like (gypsies, jews, people that didn't like Hitler), he made them work, the soldiers hurt them and starved them.

The arena from across the lake, the lake was already there but used to it's advantage. The lake was to reflect the arena and make it look larger than actual size.

Inside the unfinished arena, this is exactly how they left it in 1939 to focus their efforts on war. This is all done in brick.

Another view of the arena interior

This is a photo of what the arena was supposed to look like when it was finished. The roof was enclosed save for an area of glass that would allow the sunlight to come down and radiate on the podium, making Hitler look like a god.

The granite slabs that were never used on the arena but mined by concentration camp prisoners.

An aerial map of the area and where things are.

Concentration camp map

Nazi game that was given to children to play, it taught them to hate Jews.

Next to the arena a parade field was built and finished. Thousands of people would come to parade around the grounds and listen to Hitler give speeches. Today it still stands and is used for rock concerts, race car races and other events.

The parade ground in 1930s, the small door in the middle is where Hitler would come out and down to the podium.

How the same structure from above looks today

These are the stairwells that led to the seats inside the arena

A view of the parade ground, note the stairwells from the other side

Most of Nuremberg was bombed, 92.5%, during the war. The allies would bomb the older and more central parts of the towns because they knew the buildings were made of wood and would burn faster and hotter. It was meant to frighten the germans to stop the war and give up.

After WWII ended, Hitler and several others killed themselves so they wouldn't get captured. But 21 men were captured and held for trial. The british and russian governments wanted to just kill the 21, but the americans wanted to have a trial. So together the countries came up with what they were going to be accused of and a trial was held in Nuremberg. The trials were held there because Nuremberg was the only city in American occupied area that had a courthouse still standing, all the others were destroyed. There was also a prison attached to the courthouse for the prisoners, the courthouse and prison are still being used today. For over 200 days the trial was held with 8 judges deciding who was guilty and who was not. Three of the 21 prisoners were found not guilty and the others were sent to prison. Some for a long time and some for a short time. There is a man on our cruise who was in WWII and returned afterwards to be a Generals aide. He was at the Nuremberg trials and showed us the picture of him that is in the courthouse. He was worried he would be sad when he came back to see the courtroom, but it has changed so much since the trial he didn't recognize it and he wasn't sad.

The Nuremberg courthouse, the 4 main windows on the top were where the courtroom is.

The courtroom today

The courtroom as it looked in 1945

The 21 defendants/prisoners and the American soldiers as their guards.

The bus drove us around the city quickly, but since most of the city was bombed than the buildings we saw were mostly redone. Although we did see the Opera house and hotel next door that Hitler went to often when he was in Nuremberg. Or final stop in Nuremberg was the city center to see a really unique fountain, we had 10 min to look at the city center and then had to get back on the bus.

Fountain in the platz

Church of Our Lady in the platz

When we got back to the boat we had dinner and then the captain let us ask him questions about the boat, being a captain and about the locks. Most of the time the captain hasn't seen us much, he is usually up driving the boat. He told us that his mother and father were boat captains and he grew up on a boat. Their family had a barge that they took cargo up and down the rivers. His parents would drop him off at school on Monday morning and then come back and pick him up Friday afternoon. I guess he was at a school that had places to stay too. He is single and has a house in Austria near Vienna, but he drives the boat 9 months out of the year and stays home during the winter.

A stowaway passenger, don't tell the captain or he'll walk the plank

Tomorrow we will be in Regensburg most of the day, probably looking at lots of churches but that's ok, it will be Sunday.