From the historical records of Nuremberg

Nuremberg is quintessential German for many. One German studies scholar has even recently documented the varied historical meanings of Nuremberg (Stephen Brockmann. Nuremberg: The Imaginary Capital, Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture. Rochester: Camden House, 2006). As an architectural reminder, there is a series of columns outside the German National Cultural History Museum, which is about a block away from the hostel where I have been staying. The columns display the articles from the UN charter declaration in several languages. Now this place is as much remembered as the site of the Allied War Crimes Trials after the Second World War, as it is for the larger than life Nazi Party parade grounds outside the old city and its maniacal former vocational instructor, Julius Streicher (first portrait on the right below).

Nuremberg’s architecture has an old feel to it, but people meticulously reconstructed the city after the war and incorporated more modern designs with the same kinds of stone and other materials. The red rock seems very characteristic for Nuremberg’s streets, but this has kind of a jarring affect for some when they realize that this was all once a pile of rubble at the end of the Second World War (see the photo on the right from the Nuernberg Stadtsarchiv). In many cases, only pieces of the original fountains or buildings remain in exhibition rooms of the National Museum. The reconstruction tries to recapture the feeling of old Nuremberg. The city's old wall still convey the powerful feeling of a fortress and much of the old inner city is now a highly commercialized business and tourist center.

For historiography, I think it helps to look at Nuremberg and the region of Franconia. It is perhaps the most important place for the return of the Nazi movement in 1925 after Hitler’s imprisonment in Landsberg (see Rainer Hambrecht, Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in Mittel- und Oberfranken (1925-1933), Nuernberg: Stadtarchiv Nuernberg, 1976.). Hitler's assertion of the Fuehrer principle drew important resources of support from cities in this region, especially the small business and craftsmen classes.

The story of the Nazi movement and its most characteristic leader, Streicher, is well documented, but it is worth recalling the political struggle that occurred here in the wake of the First World War. It is often overlooked in the grand narrative of the rise of the Nazi Party and their seizure of power, but this struggle over civil society illuminates the history of Germany's political development. In that context, the person in Hermann Luppe presents a key figure in the battle for civil society (on the right below Streicher). He was an active and capable local Democratic politician (and by that I mean, he actually believed in more democracy and more political and social reforms). He had served in other municipal governments elsewhere and was chosen by Nuremberg’s city council in 1920 as the Oberbuergermeister. He would become a thorn in the side of Bavaria's conservative politics and Julius Streicher’s main opponent (Matthias Braun notes how this would help Streicher and the Nazis profile themselves). Luppe went toe to toe with the Nazis and tried to fight them the way he thought best: through parliamentary procedure in the town council and through the municipal police and local courts if necessary. The Bavarian government brought the Nuremberg's police under state control and placed one of their own in the position of police chief, who was also pro-Nazi. The Nazis never legally forced Luppe out of office; in fact Luppe was continuously reelected in every election until 1933. Although Luppe helped hold together Nuremberg through its municipal institutions, the Nazis were able to nazify the town with what has become familiar to us now: the marches, rallies, flags and terror against local Jews and anyone else who stood up to defend their neighbors and the values of civil society (See Arnd Mueller, Geschichte der Juden in Nuernberg 1146-1945, Nuernberg: Selbstverlag der Stadtbibliothek Nuernberg, 1968). What lesson does this struggle offer us about civil society, its sustainability, fragility and defense?

Luppe felt his town’s efforts had become swept up in something larger that he could not control (see Hermann Luppe, Mein Leben, Nuernberg: Stadtarchiv Nuernberg, 1977). In 1933 his opponents arrested him and took him down town for interrogation. They also went after his son-in-law in Bavaria and his own son in the German navy, fulfilling some old personal vendettas. Still, Luppe was able to help the town council oversee major reforms in the 1920s with social services for the retired, poor, unemployed, sick and children. Despite the period’s economic upheavals, Nuremberg was able to secure resources for huge residential living space initiatives and public service buildings and facilities.

I have also found several other interesting individual voices in this week’s research at the Landeskirchliches Archiv and the city archives. I will have to keep expanding on some of these in this blog entry over the next few days, given the accelerated course of events for me right now. I will get a chance to look at the Protestant records for Nuernberg more early next week, but already, there is a very interesting case about a Pastor Meisner who directly spoke to the issue of Anti-Semitism in 1926 in Nuremberg and the New Testament message of love for one’s neighbor, despite such strong local views against Jews, upon which he elaborated in his sermon. What makes this piece even more interesting was the attempt to touch it up once the Nazis came into power in Nuremberg in 1933 and they began going after individual pastors like Meisner.

One of the most interesting figures for my work is a man named Otto Pallas. He wrote a set of memoirs about his life in Nuremberg and gave them to the city archive in 1983. No one has done much with his records. Matthias Braun did not know about him. Pallas was ten years old when the First World War began. He would go on to become a communist activist in Nuremberg and the Nazis would eventually send him to Dachau. What interests me right now is his recollections of the First World War, the hunt for spies, which he sees in the village in Franconia where he spends much of the war, and what he experiences at home, especially the return of his uncle from the front and his descriptions of wounded men. So please come back to read more in a few days. It is on to Stuttgart, other old memories and an interesting conference on fear at Schloss Solitude.