Nuremberg: Medieval city looking to overcome a dark past

May 17, 2006, 15:52 GMT

Nuremberg - Between 1926 and 1928, a sporting complex, including swimming pools, an athletics track and a football stadium which could hold 50,000 spectators was built in the city of Nuremberg.

Since 1963, the stadium has been home to Bundesliga club Nuremberg and will host four group matches and a round of 16 game.

A complete renovation of the Franken stadium began in November 2003 and the 45,000-seater arena was completed in April of this year.

To walk around Nuremberg, a city of some half a million inhabitants in the south of Germany, is like travelling in a time tunnel to the time of the Holy Roman Germanic Empire.

In 1356, Charles IV decreed that all the German kings should celebrate their first assembly in Nuremberg. A witness to this historic period is the imperial castle, the symbol of the city.

The cobblestone side streets, the houses with wooden beams, the Gothic churches and the old city wall give an idea of what life must have been like in the most flourishing period of Nuremberg, the centre of German humanism. At that time Albrecht Duerer (1471-1528), one of Germany`s greatest artists, lived in the city.

However, Nuremberg has to fight against the heavy burden of history. Praised as the 'most German of German cities' by Adolf Hitler, it was chosen by the Nazi dictator to host the congresses of the National Socialist party. After the war the tribunals against Nazi leaders who were captured by the Allies and put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity took place in Nuremberg and form a landmark in international legal history.

The city has actively confronted the darkest chapter of its history and erected in 2001 a documentation centre on Nazism in the Zeppelin Fields complex, one of the many vestiges of the messianic Nazi architecture which can still be seen in the city.

Group games:

June 11: Mexico v Iran 
June 15: England v Trinida & Tobago 
June 18: Japan v Croatia 
June 22: Ghana v United States

Round of 16:

June 25: WD v RC