Friday May 30
Nuremberg
Last night a little before midnight we entered the
Danube-Main canal and around 6:30 am we passed the European Watershed divide
which means that from now on all water flows towards the North Sea. There are sixteen locks on the canal, the first
three dropping 27.5m. each and we have had a boat ahead of us going down on two
so we have had to wait for the water to drop and then refill before we could
enter.
While traveling along the canal this morning we had
a talk on the various attempts to build a connecting canal over the centuries
and the construction of the modern canal.
Nuremburg was probably founded around the turn of
the 11th century, according to the first documentary mention of the city in
1050, as the location of an Imperial castle between the East Franks and the
Bavarian March of the Nordgau. From 1050
to 1571, the city expanded and rose dramatically in importance due to its
location on key trade routes.
Nuremberg held great significance during the Nazi
Germany era. Because of the city's relevance to the Holy Roman Empire and its
position in the centre of Germany, the Nazi Party chose the city to be the site
of huge Nazi Party conventions – the Nuremberg rallies. The rallies were held
1927, 1929 and annually 1933-1938 in Nuremberg.
Between 1945 and 1946, German officials involved in
the Holocaust and other war crimes were brought before an international
tribunal in the Nuremberg Trials. The Soviet Union had wanted these trials to
take place in Berlin. However, Nuremberg was chosen as the site for the trials
for specific reasons:
The city had been the location of the Nazi Party's
Nuremberg rallies and the laws stripping Jews of their citizenship were passed
there. There was symbolic value in making it the place of Nazi demise.
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| Zeppelin Field |
After driving into town our first stop was at the Zeppelin
Field where the Nazis had built a large grandstand, with a parade area for
Hitler to review the army, Hitler Youth and other groups during the annual convention. A lot of the structure has been destroyed as
the authorities were concerned about the structural soundness of the buildings.
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| Congress Centre |
From the field it was a short drive to the Congress Centre
which has never been completed, it was designed to resemble the Coliseum with a
roof but Hitler was advised that a snow fall would collapse it; his reaction
was “we’ll rebuild it if it does”. These
two structures cost the German people billions of dollars and were designed to
be only used once a year.
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| Court 600 |
From these giant meeting places we drove to the Nuremberg
Court complex and went into Court 600, the room that the was used to conduct
the Nazi War Trials, our guide for this visit was a young German who is working
on a PHD on the Nuremberg War Trials so he was able to provide a very detailed
talk on the events.
Our next stop was at a city market square, with a short walk
to a restaurant where we sampled the local sausage and beer, while others in
the party enjoyed ginger bread and coffee.
Returning to the square we wandered among the stalls to admire the
displays of fruit, vegetables, flowers and gingerbread, the quality of the
produce on display appeared to be superior to anything we had seen at home.
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| Schoner Brunnen Fountain |
In this square is the famous fountain, without water, known
as Schoner Brunnen and Nuremberg’s most famous church, the Marienkirche.
Returning to the bus we set off for the boat and after
taking several wrong turns arrived to find the winch attached to the gangplank
and the Captain waiting to sail to catch the lock several hundred metres down
the canal. We were relieved to return
safely as the driver also took some wrong turns and drove through several red
lights on our trip into town.
After dinner we were entertained by two Bavarian singers
with traditional songs and many popular songs.
Unfortunately the time of their performance was limited as they had to
leave the ship at the next lock or continue with us for many kilometres.
Saturday May 31
Bamberg
During the post-Roman centuries of Germanic
migration and settlement, the region which afterwards included in the Diocese
of Bamberg was inhabited for the most part by Slavs. The town, first mentioned
in 902, grew up by the castle (Babenberch) which gave its name to the Babenberg
family. On their extinction it passed to the Saxon house. The area was
Christianised chiefly by the monks of the Benedictine Fulda Abbey, and the land
was under the spiritual authority of the Diocese of Würzburg.
In 1007, Holy Roman Emperor Henry II made Bamberg a
family inheritance, the seat of a separate diocese. The emperor's purpose in
this was to make the Diocese of Würzburg less unwieldy in size and to give
Christianity a firmer footing in the districts of Franconia, east of Bamberg.
In 1008, after long negotiations with the Bishops of Würzburg and Eichstätt,
who were to cede portions of their dioceses, the boundaries of the new diocese
were defined, and Pope John XVIII granted the papal confirmation in the same
year. Henry II ordered the building of a new cathedral, which was consecrated
May 6, 1012.
Bamberg was first connected to the German rail
system in 1844, which has been an important part of its infrastructure ever
since. After a communist uprising took control over Bavaria in the years
following World War I, the state government fled to Bamberg and stayed there
for almost two years before the Bavarian capital of Munich was retaken by Freikorps
units. The first republican constitution of Bavaria was passed in Bamberg,
becoming known as the Bamberger Verfassung (Bamberg Constitution).
In February 1926 Bamberg served as the venue for
the famous Bamberg Conference, convened by Adolf Hitler in his attempt to
foster unity and to stifle dissent within the young NSDAP. Bamberg was chosen
for its location in Upper Franconia, reasonably close to the residences of the
members of the dissident northern Nazi faction but still within Bavaria.
Today our driver took us into Bamberg without taking a wrong
turn and dropped us off outside the Messerschmitt hotel home of Willy Messerschmitt
the designer of the German WW II fighter plane.
It was here in his parent’s home that he founded his aeroplane company.
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| Stumble Blocks |
Walking along Lange Strasse one of the early streets in
Bamberg but now only a short street in comparison to many others in the town,
we arrived at the market square with many stalls selling fresh fruit,
vegetables and flowers. Walking on we noticed
some small brass plaques amongst the cobblestones on the footpath, these are
called “stumble blocks”, the idea that people stumbling over them would stop to
read them, they are memorials to Jews who lived in the building before being
sent to concentration camps.
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| Town Hall |
Shortly afterwards we arrived at the River Regnitz and built
on its edge and protruding over the water was the town’s original abattoir,
this allowed easy disposal of waste and a little way upstream was the town hall
built in the middle of the river. It was
built this way because the Bishop Prince who controlled the town and
surrounding lands wouldn’t give the townspeople any land to build a town
hall.
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| Old Bishop's Palace |
From the town hall we walked uphill to the Cathedral and
around to the side to the old Bishop’s Palace, a multi storey timber building
with stables and animal stalls on the ground floor. On the other side of the square was the new
Bishop’s palace built of stone but only two of the three wings were completed
before the Bishop ran out of money.
Leaving the Cathedral Square we walked downhill to an area
containing several restaurants and pubs, we had the opportunity to redeem the
voucher given to us prior to leaving the ship.
The voucher was for a 500 ml glass of the town’s famous smoky, bacon
flavoured beer or a shopping bag with a 500 ml bottle of the beer. As it was still before 11:00 am we selected
the second choice and we are still to sample the contents of the bottle.
For the next hour we walked around many small lanes and
streets admiring the old houses which survived the war as Bamberg was not
damaged during the war, apart from many of the bridges destroyed by the retreating
Germans. Returning to the ship we sailed
at 12:15 and shortly afterwards left the canal and entered the Main River and we
have around 24 hours of cruising before arriving at Wurzburg.
We have just passed under some bridges, only just! On the sundeck, the sun shades, lounges and
even the railings along the edge of the deck have been laid flat and the bridge
lowered to almost deck level, the captain navigates by standing on a box with
his head out a manhole and there is not a lot of clearance between his head and
the bridge.
We've just entered another lock and we think Number Two
Captain must be steering as the ship hit the side, very hard three times. Number One Captain said he gets a beer for
every hit; this effort must be worth a slab!
Number Two has just been walking along the edge of each side
of the lock inspecting for damage.
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