The inner courtyard
An enormous roofless semicircle. Standing in the middle explains the scale better than any figure.
Superikonoskop — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tuxyso — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Tilman2007 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tilman2007 — CC BY-SA 4.0
Because the decision was to keep it as evidence. Demolishing it would erase the proof; leaving it unexplained would ignore it. The city chose a third way: keep it, with an exhibition explaining what happened and why. That is the logic of the Documentation Centre.
The exhibition is aimed at adults and teenagers. The content is difficult and includes material on persecution and war. Young children will get little from it and may find it upsetting. Teenagers get a great deal, and this is one of the better places to explain the period to them.
No — they are separate sites. The trials were held in Courtroom 600 at the Palace of Justice, elsewhere in the city, which has its own exhibition. Many people mix the two up. You can see both in one day if you start early.
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This is a huge semicircular brick building that the Nazi regime began in 1935 and never finished. It was meant to hold fifty thousand people as the party's congress hall. Work stopped when the war began, and it has stood without a roof ever since. The building is part of a wider area once used for the large party rallies. The whole space was designed to look imposing and to be filmed for propaganda. The city did not demolish what remained; it left it standing and explained it instead, which was a deliberate decision — the site stays as evidence. At one end of the building is the Documentation Centre, a permanent exhibition explaining how the Nazis came to power, how this space was used, and what followed. The exhibition is serious, direct and built for learning. It suits adults and teenagers more than young children.
An enormous roofless semicircle. Standing in the middle explains the scale better than any figure.
A permanent exhibition on the rise of Nazism and the use of this site. Direct, clear and without sensationalism.
The old rally platform, a short walk away. Disused and cracked, and you can stand on it.
Bayernstraße 110, 90478 Nürnberg