This is the courthouse where the “Nuremberg Trial” was held from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946. On trial were 21 high-ranking representatives of the Nazi regime, charged with conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the end of this marathon trial twelve defendants were sentenced to death by hanging, three to life imprisonment, four to imprisonment from 10 to 20 years, and three of the defendants were acquitted.
This trial was held in Nürnberg not so much for symbolic reasons as for the practical reason that this large courthouse with a large adjoining prison had been only very slightly damaged during the war, so it was the best place in Germany to hold such a large trial.
Guided visit to the courtroom
According to the city’s museum website, Courtroom 600 was used for ordinary trials, about whatever happened to come up, until March 1, 2020. Since then, “for the first time in its more than 100-year history,” the room is “no longer a place of jurisdiction and its transformation process from courtroom to place of remembrance has been completed.” This means that the room will be available more often for guided visits about the Nuremberg Trial, in addition to a permanent exhibition in adjoining parts of the building.
In the summer of 2022, however, the courtroom will be closed for renovation work.
My photos in this post are from 2005. I revised the text in 2022.
See more posts on Nürnberg, Germany.
Interesting and meaningful.
I visited this room during my trip to Nuremburg in 2017, and I was surprised to find it a rather small room (unlike the large, grand ones like in the US Supreme Court). Small as the courtroom was, I felt the rich energy surrounding the room– noble, yet sad in its dark history. Definitely worth a visit to learn more about the horrors during and after WWII.
Whilst the outcome of the trials were brutal, it was a fitting end, to a degree, to a shameful period of history. I wonder how the world will or would deal with Putin if an opportunity like Nurnberg (Nuremburg) was to arise.