Occasionally, I would trek over to the area in the southwest part of the city where the rallies had been held. Much of the huge outdoor complex still remained and remains to this day. The principal buildings that have survived are the white marble tribunal and the never-completed Kongresshalle (below).
(above-Zeppelin tribunal (contemporary photo)
(below) Kongresshalle
The above buildings formed part of what was then-and still- named the Reichsparteitaggelaende (Reichs Party Day Lands), a huge park area that also contains a man-made lake (Dutzenteich) and the Nuremberg soccer team's home stadium. (Hitler planned one that would have held well over 100,000.) In addition, an SS caserne was located nearby, which was taken over by the US Army and became Merrill Barracks. It is now a document center.
The outbreak of war in September 1939 put a halt to further construction as well as the party day rallies themselves. The 1939 event was canceled.
While so much of Nuremberg was destroyed by air raids, the Nazi party rally grounds, located a few miles from the city center, survived. As the American army occupied Nuremberg in April 1945, one of their first acts was to dynamite the huge swastika that stood on top of the Zeppelin tribunal. Yet the structure itself was never destroyed. Initially, the grounds were renamed "Soldiers Field" and the army held their local sporting events and parades there. Eventually, the two side wings of the Zeppelin were removed.
Essentially ever since, the Zeppelin, where Hitler stood and spoke before hundreds of thousands of troops and followers, has sat there and slowly deteriorated ever since 1945. Weeds grow through the cracked marble stands, and a chain-link fence was enclosing it when I last visited. The structure is not considered safe.
A recent shot of the Zeppelin tribunal. The podium from which Hitler spoke can be seen in the center.
In the intervening years, the city has held car races in front of the Zeppelin and the bi-annual Volksfests are held in the shadow of the Kongresshalle in the spring and fall. The site has also been used for concerts.In 1978, Bob Dylan sang in front of the Zeppelin. At one point, Kongresshalle was used as a book depository-or so I was told in the 1960s.
As for the city, they have never really decided how to deal with the structures given their historical significance. Some have called for them to be torn down completely, while others prefer just letting the Zeppelin structure crumble away over time, while others have called for treating them as a memorial to the victims of the Nazi regime. One of the problems that raises, however, is the necessity to actually restore the structures, an idea which many find abhorrent. There have been exhibitions to the Nazi years at the Zeppelin and presently, the Kongresshalle houses a museum of "Fascination and Terror" (which I have visited).
It is a delicate issue by which the city is trying to come to terms with its central role in the Hitler regime. There is simply no way of ignoring it given the other Nuremberg links to the Third Reich, such as the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, the war crimes trials, and the image of the infamous Nuremberg Jew-baiter Julius Streicher and his pornographic, anti-Semitic newspaper, Der Stuermer".
One way Nuremberg has tried to deal with its past is by making human rights a part of the city's identity-no easy task. The below link gives more details on Nuremberg's involvement in human rights issues.
http://www.nuernberg.de/internet/portal_e/buerger/human_rights.html
Though the city today holds no neo-Nazi sympathies, outsiders may still not be ready to accept Nuremberg as 'The City of Human Rights". It just doesn't seem to digest well.
Personally, I hope that the Nazi structures are not torn down but maintained as a memorial and reminder, similar to other sites like Buchenwald and Dachau. Evil as they are, they represent history-a history which cannot be forgotten.
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