[Graffiti on the door of a closed shop. Likely in Nuremberg. Photo is mine.]

The Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders, in open court before an international tribunal, had a profound long-term effect in bringing Germans back to democracy and humanity.

~~Anthony Lewis

{Author’s note: If you know me and have read some or all of my 727 published blogs some things that I say may either come as a surprise to you or you might say: “Oh, he’s like that. This doesn’t surprise me at all.” I’m going to speak my mind more that I ever did in my past blogs. I will mention the Holocaust so if references to mass murder and my condemnation of ‘deniers’ offend you, this post may not be for you.}

I am angry, sad and disappointed. But, I’ll get to that later.

Nuremberg. Nuremberg.

Yes, it’s a recent Hollywood movie. But I’m not going to use my blog space to critique a film.

Some backstory: Many years ago I saw Judgement at Nuremberg. It opened my eyes. War movies suddenly weren’t so glorious anymore. I’m a pacifist so any glorification of war is abhorrent to me. In the film, I remember Spencer Tracy walking across the vast space where thousands of Nazis stood in formation. It was a powerful scene.

[One of the propaganda rallies at Zeppelin Field, Nuremberg. I took the photo from a display at the Museum in the Hall of Congress. I do not know the original source. Note the area where the three swastikas are hanging.]

THE IMPORTANCE OF NUREMBERG DURING THE MEDIEVAL TIMES~~

Long before WWII, Nuremberg was a bustling intellectual city. It thrived on the students and the industry. Because of it’s central location in what would one day become modern Europe, it thrived on commerce and river trade. Then came the late 1920’s and ’30’s. The Third Reich began it’s vile rise to power. In August 1934, Hitler consolidated the power of the presidency and Chancellorship to declare himself the Fuhrer. The German High Command and Hitler needed a place to begin to build the foundations of the Third Reich. He chose Nuremberg because it was in the geographical center of Germany. He built Zeppelin Field to hold massive rallies.

It was not about policy of the government. It was all about Performance. Showmanship, and a very sophisticated system of Propaganda. The symbols, the lights, the design of the stadium all made it easy for those Germans who were more interested in finding a simple fix to the economic problems that to think for themselves.

Germany came out of WWI with a broken country. So, the easy solution was to join the party that promised to MAKE GERMANY GREAT AGAIN.

And we know how that turned out. We do if one reads history and possesses critical thinking skills.

But it was all short-lived. The vast rallies only took place from 1933 to 1938. Then it was war. And war is expensive.

[Our local Nuremberg guide, Alex points out the viewing stand where Hitler would stand and deliver his racial slurs and rants, often lasting more than two and a half hours How did those soldiers pee? Photo is mine.]

Our group walked from the Hall of Congress to Zeppelin Field. I wanted to stand where those nameless, faceless Nazis stood and listened to the lies that would alter the moral state of the mid-20th Century.

There was a great deal of construction going on all around us. A week-end rock concert used the space the day before. There was a lot of cleaning up do do. I stepped away from the group and faced the grandstand where Hitler stood decades ago.

I wanted to inhale the putrid odor of hate. I wanted to see if the very air still hung thick with the pollution of blatant racism.

This is what I saw. This is what is left of the Temple of the Thousand Year Reich:

[That’s it. That’s all that is left. It’s now been repurposed as a sports and concert venue. NOTE: The first concert to be held in the space was in 1978. It was a Bob Dylan concert. Photo is mine.]

I felt nothing while I stood there. The stench of all those vile words had dissipated. I was glad there was nothing in the air that I breathed. But…

THE TRIALS

Then something extraordinary happened. The war ended and the Axis lost. And, here is the most interesting thing. It was decided that for the first time in history, the leaders of the Nazis should be made to face the consequences of what they had done.

The first war crimes trial in history was held in the Hall of Justice. Unfortunately, the actual courtroom where the guilty were tried and convicted (most of them) was closed on the Tuesday that we were there.

[The Hall of Justice where the War Crimes Trials were held. The jail where the defendants were kept is behind this building. Photo is mine.]

THE FUTURE?

The trials continued into the 1950s. Most, if not all of the top architects of the The Reich paid for their crimes. For the first time, planners of genocide and mass death, ethnic cleansing and the instigators of death by the cruelest means, were held responsible.

But the reason I’m sad and discouraged is that IT REALLY ISN’T OVER. Turkey refuses to take responsibility for the Armenian genocide,. The Native Americans, people who want to love whomever they choose, the artists, the free thinkers.

All are at risk of the same irrational thinking about how they can live.

Wars are started, not for defense but for profit.

Billionaires are making the Nazi salute in public and then laughing about it.

Doing such a think is illegal in Nuremberg.

People in our own government are slowly making actions, once considered shameful, the norm.

Our guide in Nuremberg, Alex, was born in 1974. He was taught, early in his education, the horrors of what his own countrymen did in the 1920s to the 1940s. He accepts that responsibility.

But, he also said that he is “scared to death” at the rise of the nationalist parties in Europe and around the world.

Think carefully about what you hear. Be critical thinkers.