Trial and Error

I’ll start this post by acknowledging that youth hostels in Europe are usually not the best, but easy enough to survive for a few nights. Our hostel in Nuremberg was almost impeccably average – something that seems to be required to be a successful youth hostel. The only issue was what some of you may have heard about by now – the haunting specter of a woman who wandered into occupied rooms on our last night and stared menacingly at the occupants. It was an exciting night.

So, with that out of the way – Nuremberg! Nuremberg quickly won my heart by being a walled city with a lot of bridges and a few rivers, not to mention a castle. Sound familiar? Inside the city there are very square blocks filled with shops that are easy to get lost in. In fact, the city is small and the layout simplistic, yet with all the narrow streets and unexpected turns, it feels a bit like a maze.

Still, getting lost was itself quite fun, and there are a number of beautiful statues and buildings to see wedged in between the river and roads. Closer to the wall is the monument, the Way of Human Rights, consisting of a long road which starts at a white marble archway. On the road there are 27 concrete pillars with quotes about human rights on them in German and one other language. Deeper within the city are a couple of beautiful churches, though one is made less beautiful by the depiction of the Judensau – an anti-Semitic medieval sculpture depicting a few Jewish merchants suckling from a pig. The church is not interested in removing it, but instead prefers to use it as an educational opportunity.

While I was there, the city was preparing for “The Blue Night,” a music festival. In one of the squares, I was lucky enough to see the makings of a water show on one of the stages. Nearby, there was a fountain where some tourists were trying to move a metal ring stuck inside, an activity which seems to promise good luck.

Of all the museums--and there are quite a few--one of the more interesting is the German National Museum, where you can find nearly anything for anyone. For people interested in history, of course, there are the usual artifacts that litter museums; however, there are also exhibitions on German villages in the 1800’s. Art enthusiasts will find that the museum goes above and beyond expectations, providing guests not only with numerous galleries, but also having a great variety of artifacts, both religious to secular, spanning the 15th century through the 20th. Even music lovers will, to their delight, find a large exhibition on musical instruments.

Moving out of guidebook mode, the highlight of the trip, for me, was visiting the original sight of the Nuremberg trials. History is not my forte, and to my shame I probably would know little of politics in general, international or otherwise, but seeing how the Allied powers handled the war crime trials was fascinating. Did you know that the Russian judge tried to get a death sentence for each of the people put on trial, regardless of guilt? In a quick, perhaps ignorant aside, this part of the trip was where we started to see the subtle overtones of Communism and the USSR. Before the courthouse, we went to the Zeppelin field, where Hitler made many of his speeches. It was quite an exciting feeling (for better or worse) to be able to stand where he stood.

I'll close with the following bit of trivia: even before we reached Nuremberg, we took in one easily-overlooked remnant of National Socialism, namely, the Nazi Burger King. I repeat, NAZI. BURGER. KING. Let that sink in for a moment. Alright, good. The building, which now hosts a very capitalist American fast food business, was once a very functional building for the Nazi Party. This can be seen not only by the odd architecture (does a Burger King need 10 foot iron doors at the side?), but also by the shadow of a removed eagle.

Pictures will be added to this post soon. Special thanks to James H for editing.