nürnberg: nazis, starbucks, and random facts about an ox... germany part II

On Saturday, after finding enough energy to roll out of bed (see story from my previous post), I caught a train from Mainz to Nürnberg (Nuremberg, in English) to visit Melissa Loney, another Linfield ’10 grad, who is working with Adidas.  Nürnberg is beautiful!  I arrived on a gorgeously sunny day and Melissa met me in a gorgeously sunny yellow coat.  She showed me around the Altstadt (historical city center) and when we came across a Starbucks, my Pavlovian salivary response kicked in.  I swear I have not had Starbucks since I got here; the only one I came within drooling-distance of was in Madrid, when I was there with my family in December, and my dad wouldn’t let me go in.

 

<- December 2010: whyyyy not, Daddy?

January 2011: This time, my American consumer’s urge overpowered me, and Melissa and I indulged in a delicious cup of sin.->

 An interesting juxtaposition of the ox, the Latin inscription, 

the modern building abutting the stone portal, and STARBUCKS, right?

This photo piqued my interest, so for your edification, I embarked on a brisk internet search for more information, first of all, on the Latin inscription: according to this website the translation reads: “All things have their origin and increase, but lo! the bull you see never was a calf.” (get it? it’s a stone ox… the last time I checked, stone oxen don’t grow from stone calves…) There must be an interesting story behind this!  Search on, MacDuff!  

This forum has an entire discussion in German about the interesting Latin syntax in this phrase.  Read it if you A) are interested in Latin, B) can read German, and C) don’t have much else to do. I just spent a good hour here.  This website says that the portal was built in 1599 as an addition to the famous Fleischbrücke (the picture of Melissa and I guzzling our coffee was taken while we were standing on the Fleischbrücke—the “meat bridge”).  This website says that the oldest documented mention of the predecessor to the modern “meat bridge” existing alongside a butcher’s shop was in 1335.  This same website also claims that a common expression in Nürnberg is  „Na, des hätt mer der Ochs aff der Fleischbrüggn aaa g'sacht“, which means “Yeah, the ox on the Meat Bridge would have also told me that,” meaning, “Tell me something new, why dontcha?”

More searching uncovers a book published in 1677 detailing an Englishman’s travels abroad:

“Nurenberg is the fairest City that I saw in Germany; the Houses most of them Free-stone, very high; and divers of them painted on the outside, and adorned with gilded Balls on the top; many are of five or seven Stories high. Over the Gate at the entrance of the Shambles is a large Oxe carved in Wood, and painted over, with this inscription:

Omnia habent ortus suaque incrementa, sed ecce
Quem cernis, nunquam Bos fuit hic, Vitulus.”

The Shambles?  I’ve been to the famous street in York, but nowhere online could I find another mention of Nuremberg’s Shambles, besides numerous descriptions of the entire city of Nuremberg as a “shambles” as a result of intense British bombing during WWII.

"The Shambles" is a crooked, 

cobbled lane in York, England.

Photo taken January 2008 on a

Linfield Jan Term trip.->

A few last facts: 

This book, published in 1882, also mentions the Latin inscription, saying it is on a stone ox over the door of a slaughterhouse.  A somewhat-dated New York Times article about Nuremberg’s troubled past doesn’t mention the ox nor the portal, but it’s still interesting, in case you really, really have nothing better to do than learn about Nuremberg.

You have probably learned more than you ever wanted to know about the Fleischbrücke’s inscribed portal.  Let’s move on before I give you more dubiously sourced facts on some obscure topic that you really don’t give two Deutschmarks about.

***

On to the Nuremberg Trials Courthouse!

After WWII, the Allies set up a series of trials to convict the leaders of the Nazi party for crimes against international law.  In a wing of the courthouse, which is still used today, there is a smallish exhibit chalk-full of information.  Melissa and I spent all of Sunday afternoon reading about the historic trials.  Some of the most sobering and interesting parts of the exhibit (this post is on a random-fact high and I can’t stop now): 

1) The exhibit included the discussion & display of dozens of self-incriminating Nazi documents.  About 3000 documents were selected by Allied investigators, who combed Germany before the trial.  Some of the documents on display clearly stated the Nazis' intention to exterminate the "lesser races" in the countries surrounding Germany, to make enemies of the Reich disappear with as much mystery as possible in order to terrify family members of the victims, to more efficiently bring people to concentration camps for "desperately needed" work... utterly creepy.

2) Because the Nuremberg Trials put Nazis on trial for international crimes, German crimes against Germans were not considered.  The trials considered four crimes: 1) Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War, 2) Crimes Against Peace, 3) War Crimes, and 4) Crimes Against Humanity.  The first three counts naturally deal with international affairs, but for the fourth crime, the Nazis’ murder of German Jews, German homosexuals, German dissenters, etc., were not discussed.

3) The Nuremberg Trials were the first time simultaneous interpretation was used in the justice system; the trials wouldn't have been possible without teams of interpreters and document translators, who converted all trial materials into English, French, German, and Russian.

4) The exhibit didn't conclude with the end of the Nuremberg trials: last part of the exhibit was a world map documenting crimes against humanity from 1945-present.  Conclusion: The world is a violent place.  The ambitions of a handful of people can ruin and have ruined the lives of millions.

After becoming overwhelmed and fairly depressed by this powerful museum, Melissa and I went out to eat some amazing, traditional German food: spätzle, brotknudel, mushrooms in cream sauce.  We crashed at her apartment with some Frankish wine and had a movie night.

***

Even though we spent a good three hours at the Nuremberg Trials Courthouse, I still didn’t get my museum fix, so when Melissa went to work on Monday morning, I went to another Nürnberg museum about the Nazis.  In the 30’s, Nürnberg became the seat of the Nazis’ huge, staged “Party Rallies.”  Thousands of people poured into Nürnberg each year to watch displays of military force and listen to the Führer speak.  Because of the influx of rally participants and the Nazis’ love of grandeur, a huge complex, known as the “Party Rally Grounds,” was planned.  Several concentration camps were set up near rock quarries in order to provide the granite for the elaborate buildings, which included arenas, stadiums, parade grounds, and various other planned buildings which never came to fruition.  Several propaganda films were made at the rallies, in order to reach those who couldn’t attend the rallies—“Triumph of the Will” is the most famous of these films.

My allotted time in Nürnberg came to a close, and on Monday afternoon, I caught a train to Heidelberg.  Stay tuned for the third and final installment of my jaunt through Deutschland; I promise not to indulge my love of quoting random facts at you… at least, not too much.  Bis später :)