Visit to the Museum at the Site of the Nuremberg Rallies

Hitler at Nuremberg

On the same day my friend Cliff and I visited the Dachau Concentration Camp, we also visited the museum of the history of the Nazis in Nuremberg. 

This Bavarian city was the site of several Nazi rallies before Hitler took power in Germany and became the spiritual center of the Nazi cult (Fuhrer cult) after the Nazis took absolute power in Germany. 

Fuhrer Cult 

Our visit began at a museum build inside a semicircular, multi-story building that was to be the site of meetings for thousands of Nazi leaders.  Nearby are the fields that were once the site of the infamous Nuremberg rallies.  The tens of thousands of Hitler worshippers who crowded this huge field were not enough of an audience for the Nazi cult, so they enlisted Leni Riefenstahl to make the award-winning film “Triumph of the Will.” 

The film focuses solely on Hitler, the one man who embodies the Reich.  Watching the film reminded me of a guest speaker in media class I took 40 years ago.  The videographer who addressed the class talked about his work and his career path and mentioned some of his clients. One client in particular caused a few of the students to catch their breath—a particularly loathsome politician. 

One of the students asked, “What about values? How do you pick your clients?” His answer, “Whoever the client is, I maintain the highest production values.” The class was over at that point.  Riefenstahl did the same on a much grander scale.  Whether she was a true believer or an opportunist, she made an award-winning film. She maintained production values promoting one of the most evil men that ever lived. 

After we saw the film about “Triumph of the Will” and the images and film of the Nuremberg rallies, Cliff said, “The Trump rallies really are sad events compared to these.” I agreed. Ten thousand racists yelling “Lock her up!” are hardly the grandeur of Nuremberg. But the spirit is there.  The American President call the press the “Enemy of the People” (Hitler’s lugenpresse or lying press is much the same) and calling Americans who oppose him human scum, another echo of Hitler’s calls for extermination of the Jews, really are in the Nuremberg spirit.

There are differences besides scale. Unlike Hitler, Trump whines like a baby. “Witch hunt!” he says declaring himself the biggest victim in world history. Whining will not lead to a hundred thousand Seig Heils.

America First Nazi Rally in Madison Square Garden 

on February 20, 1939

The echo of Trump in the 1930s American Nazi phrase “America First” looks very ominous when touring the spiritual home of the Nazi empire. But Trump is a coward and a bully who slinked away from service as a young man when Hitler volunteered for the most dangerous duty in the terrible trench warfare of World War I. No one will make the movie “Triumph of the Whine.”

In the area surrounding the museum are places that would have been developed into imperial sites for larger and more elaborate rallies as the Nazis conquered the world.  The conquest failed and when the war began, money for lavish parade sites dried up. 

Now one of the main rally sites has some massive blocks surrounding what is now a soccer pitch.  The sites are incomplete, grown over and inhabited by people walking, hiking and playing games. 

Because Nuremberg was the spiritual center of the Reich, the Allies chose it as the site to put the Nazi leaders on trial for war crimes. It is strange to think that even at the end of their wretched lives they were given the justice they denied to millions.