Well if yesterday was the culture day then today was partially the depressing day. I started out going to the Nazi Documentation Center Museum and Rally Grounds. The museum tries its best to answer the question of how something this atrocious could happen. It traces the evolution of the National Socialist movement focusing on how it both energized and terrified the German people. It had a copy of the book Hitler wrote while in prison and before he came to power called Mein Kampf (the sale of which was forbidden in Germany until 2015). I also watched part of a propaganda film called Triumph of the Will that made Hitler out to be this savior of the people and it was required to be shown in all German schools. The Rally Grounds around the Museum are over four square miles. I only walked over to the Zeppelin Field where Hitler had his big rallies of up to 150,000 people at a time. I included a pic of the grandstand where he’d address the masses. Kind of chilling to think he stood there only about 70 years ago. There was also some very depressing pictures and video of some of the concentration camps. It is sad but it is history but hopefully something on this scale will never happen again.
I then went across town to the Nuremberg Palace of Justice where in court room 600 (pic) in Nov of 1945 the Nuremberg trials took place. It was during these trials that the world learned of the full scale of the holocaust. Legally speaking, before the Nuremberg trials, there was no such thing as a “crime against humanity”. After a year of trials, 12 Nazis were sentenced to death, 3 were acquitted and the rest were sent to prison. Both those two sites were pretty heavy to take in and took the better part of the day.
So after a quick siesta I needed some light evening entertainment so I took the tram out to the suburbs to go to the Volks Fest (which is sort of their version of the state fair). I figured I’d miss both the Cabarrus County fair and the NC State fair this year so I needed my fix! Of course there were plenty of rides and games and lots of food. BUT… these Germans need to take a queue from us healthy Americans… I couldn’t find a single deep fried Twinkie or Oreo! Come on people, what’s a fair without that! Lol. They of course did have lots of Brauts and Sausages and interestingly (I guess due to sort of a Scandinavian influence) lots of fish and herring. They also had lots of beer gardens set up with long tables and everyone drinking those huge mugs of beer. Well the funniest thing happened when I walked into one of them. All these people were standing on the table screaming out the words to “Sweet Caroline… Bop Bop Bop… Good Times Never Seemed so Good…” Now how ironic is that? If anyone wants to see the video of that, send me a note and I’ll mail it to you. I figured it would be too large to send with the pics.
And to end on a happy note, the weather was so beautiful today and this morning there was this stream of I assume a jet exhaust coming up out of one of the towers and thought it looked cool so I’m sharing it with you.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend! On to Munich tomorrow!!
Jeff
The Wandering Italian 