3 months with 3 monkeys (or How to travel Europe with children.) : Ottensoos - Nuremberg

Snow problem

Woke up this morning to a blanket of snow covering everything which was nice except the Grand Kangoo doesn't have snow tires.

Hit up our host for some snow driving tips and he said not to worry about it as down the end of the road where there'd been more traffic it'd be OK.

With that bit of advice in hand we decided to go to the actual courthouse where the Nazi war crime trials were held from late 1945 to 1946. The trials resulted in the prosecution of 24 Nazi ringleaders and the eventual execution of 12 of them.

Courthouse complex

Handily for the allies conducting the trials war crimes committed by them were not part of the scope.
This meant that Russia got off scott-free from the mass murder in the Katyn Forest of 22000 Polish officers and the US and Britain got off on sinking civilian shipping and weren't held to account for the mass murder of civilians in the Dresden air raids just to cite 2 examples amongst many.

Still, as they say, it's the victorious that get to write history and to be fair the Nazis were responsible for probably the worst atrocities ever committed and rightly held to account.

Courtroom 600

The actual courtroom is still in use today and has been reconfigured slightly with photos showing how it actually was back in the day. It was surprisingly small inside but it did have a real sense of history about it.

We went upstairs with our audio guides and took a tour of the excellent audio visual display which explained every aspect of the trials including procedures, prisons, judges, media, evidence, witnesses and the logistics of it all.

Nazi war criminals in the dock

Having been filled to the gills with history we paid one final visit to the Christkindlmarkts for Nicki to buy something she had spotted the day before but wasn't sure about getting. Found that stall, handed over the Euros, and escaped the throng.

Stray observations: Having been to Germany previously it is impressive how they do recognise their past in the many museums around and don't try to shy away from it at all.

Something our now Japanese friends should consider.