Frazier Family Travels: Day 9: To Nuremberg

Day 9: To Nuremberg

We have a final morning in Munich before heading out to Nuremberg.

The one museum we are keen to see is the National Socialism Documentation Center. It was closed yesterday (Monday), so we moved our train to Nuremberg back an hour and should have plenty of time to tour the museum, retrieve our luggage and make the train to Nuremberg.

As we were walking to the museum, we finally figured out how German sidewalks are paved. In the picture below, the smooth part on the right is for bikes only. The left side is for pedestrians. Bikers go very fast because they have a dedicated lane and they will ring their bells at you if you're impeding them. The system makes sense, but I've strayed into the bike lane a few times and annoyed bikers. I'll do better now that we've figured it out.

Obey the law...

It was an easy, 20-minute walk to the museum. We generally knew where it was because of the Schwabing tour the day before.

The museum is configured nicely. You start on the 4th floor with wall exhibits that cover a time period and then more detailed tables that allow the museum goer to get more details on any particular time period. The fourth floor covers the pre-war rise of the Nazi party.

Here are a few pictures from the pre-war time. The top picture shows a brave German tearing off the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended WW1 and subjected Germany to terms that many Germans believed were harsh and punative. The narrative of how the German monarchy conspired with bankers and Jews to end WW1 even though the German military was winning on the battlefield was one important thread of the Nazi argument for why they should lead.

The second picture shows a Frenchman, depicted as a monkey, occupying the German industrial heartland and taking a young German woman prisoner. The museum emphasized the importance of making others your blood enemy, rather than normal people with normal counter-interests, in order to justify anything that follows.

Another theme of the pre-war rise of the Nazi party was the fear of communism. Communists were trying to take over governments all over Germany following WW1. They had more success in the Northern Prussian part of Germany (particularly Berlin), but the more conservative Southern Bavarian part of Germany (dominated by Munich) was not having it. After a brief period of communist takeover in Munich, the militarists/vigilantes violently expelled communist leaders and imposed an anti-communist leadership. Here's an example of imagery from the time showing "Bolshevism, Germany's Murderer" from 1919:

This guy might need some skin creme.

Overall, the fourth floor was the most interesting story about the rise of Hitler and Nazis. It attempts to answer the question: "How could this have happened?" The museum curator's commentary was a little disappointing because it repeatedly, gently implied that things would have been better if leftism/communism stayed in power and had simply used authoritarian measures, such as banning the Nazi party and Hitler from public life, This seems to miss the point -- and adds some authoritarian flavor from the curator. The commentary would have been better if it explained how communism must have been so bad that National Socialism/aggressive militarism seemed like a better alternative. A welcome perspective would have been how resisting both communism's and NS' authoritarian approaches could have produced a society in which more people feel included in a common government. Alas.

Hitler with his early circle. Plenty of folks from WW1 German military

The third floor covered the period of time following Nazi takeover up to commencement of WW2 in 1939. It detailed the gradual, complete cultural control of the Nazi party over daily life. Was really quite striking how so many people liked what the Nazis were doing for years in the lead up to WW2.

Marienplatz with Nazi flag (that's the glockenspiel from the other day)

The second floor covered the more familiar time period of active war and crimes against humanity. Moving sculpture:

The museum also had very interesting commentary on post war reconciliation, de-Nazification, and institution-building to promote democracy in a post-war Germany. Seems like there was some progress made until the late 1940's when the new German constitution was ratified, Germans took over many responsibilities from the US military, and then Germans wanted to quit focusing on the past.

All in all, this was a spectacular museum. We stayed 1 1/2 hours, but could easily spent 3.

After, we stopped at a local park, which was a botanical garden, on the way back to our hotel. There was a beautiful beer garden in the park as well as a children's play area. We relaxed our minds here after such an intense morning at the museum.

Beautiful beer garden

Weatherproof table tennis. Owen!

Then, on to Nuremberg! We had seat reservations in first class, which is new for us.

The seats are much more spacious and comfortable, and they have electrical outlets for wannabe bloggers to use their laptop without battery worries! Masks are still required on public transportation in Germany (also Italy), but not Austria.

The ride was smooth, quiet, and quick. One hour and 15 minutes. We arrived around 2 pm.

Nuremberg train station.

It was such a nice day and we wanted to stretch our legs. So, we avoided a taxi and walked for 20 minutes to our hotel, the Sorat Hotel Saxx Nuremberg. The walk was generally easy until we got to the old town portion with stone streets. Nuremberg is a very old city that still has significant portions of its medieval castle walls. Our hotel is deep in the old town. Great location on a main market square.

View from our window. In the foreground is a re-creation of a medieval fountain that was rebuilt after WWII. As a major industrial and cultural target, Nuremberg was heavily bombed. In olden times, this fountain provided water for the townspeople because the local river was polluted by meat and leather producers that dumped waste.

We got situated in our great room and then set out for lunch. After all the mushy traditional food lately, April proclaimed she needed something with texture and spice. She found the Australian Bar & Grill!

April's sweet relief!

Happy about the incoming "normal" food! She had a kangaroo burger (yes, really)...

I had a Kellerbier from a brewery called Monchshof. It was very good. April had a Coke instead of beer because she misses her precious West Coast IPAs -- which are nowhere to be seen in Germany (even in an Australian themed restaurant).

April is correct. You can't beat a good burger. Kangaroo is a little dry...

We booked a tour for after our late lunch. We walked through a neighborhood with lots of shops, mostly antiques. April found some red pepper flakes for her purse. Maybe she can resume eating Bavarian food now that she can spice it up.

Spicy relief.

Our tour,, near the large castle, was of the famous Nuremberg beer cellars and "Red Beer." There is a fascinating history of beermaking in Nuremberg, with government regulation dating back to the 1300's. Commercial brewers were required to ferment their beer in 10x16 meter cellars at least 10 feet beneath ground. This ensured proper temperature. The guide noted that beer was safer to drink than water because the alcohol/hops killed germs, but the water was polluted. Hence, the need for so much regulation of the primary thing that people drank. The beer regulation also led to a vast underground network of tunnels and subterranean rooms. The tour was in German, but they provided English audio guides that looked like telephones.

That's an audio guide. No cell phone reception down in the tunnels...

The tunnels were also used as bomb shelters during WW2

An image of the original Bavarian beer purity law (only use barley, hops, and water). They didn't know what yeast was or how beer was fermenting, so they didn't mention yeast.

At the end of the tour, we arrived in one of the few remaining Nuremberg breweries, Altstader. They make Nuremberg's famous red lager, using barley that is heated to a particular temperature to achieve a red color when added to a beer recipe.

They still use the old equipment. They also make "Beer brandy," which involves distilling some beer.

We enjoyed a small beer, and a pretzel, with our guide and then walked to the local square.

We decided to stop for a proper red beer. We were seated at the restaurant next to the Altstader brewery, but the restaurant only served Augustiner beer from Munich! But, Augustiner doesn't make Nuremberg red beer. Being already seated, we enjoyed an Augustiner lager and dunkel.

We weren't yet hungry after such a late lunch, so we thought we'd search for an IPA at a beer stand on the other side of the square from the restaurant. There was a small hillside populated with tables and people sitting on the stone street. Very relaxed atmosphere. We spoke with the bartender and, amazingly, he said a local brewery, Orca, makes an IPA.