Middle Ages The first documentary mention of the city, in 1050, mentions Nuremberg as the location of an
imperial castle between
East Francia and the
Margraviate of the Nordgau of
Bavaria. From 1050 to 1572 the city expanded and rose dramatically in importance due to its location on key trade-routes.
King Conrad III, reigning as
King of Germany from 1137 to 1152, established the
Burgraviate of Nuremberg, with the first
burgraves coming from the Austrian
House of Raabs. With the extinction of their male line around 1189, the last Raabs count's son-in-law,
Frederick I of the
House of Hohenzollern, inherited the burgraviate in 1193. From the late 12th century to the
Interregnum (1254–1273), however, the power of the burgraves diminished as the
Hohenstaufen emperors transferred most non-military powers to a castellan, with the city administration and the municipal courts handed over to an Imperial mayor () from 1173/74. The strained relations between the burgraves and the castellans, with gradual transferral of powers to the latter in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, finally broke out into open enmity, which greatly influenced the history of the city. which were divided by the
Pegnitz. The Jews of the German lands suffered
many massacres during the
plague pandemic of the mid-14th century. In 1349, Nuremberg's Jews suffered a
pogrom. They were burned at the stake or expelled, and a marketplace was built over the former Jewish quarter. The plague returned to the city in 1405, 1435, 1437, 1482, 1494, 1520, and 1534. '') The largest growth of Nuremberg occurred in the 14th century.
Charles IV's
Golden Bull of 1356, naming Nuremberg as the city where newly elected
kings of Germany must hold their first Imperial Diet, made Nuremberg one of the three most important cities of the Empire.
Early modern age The cultural flowering of Nuremberg in the 15th and 16th centuries made it the centre of the
German Renaissance. In 1525 Nuremberg accepted the
Protestant Reformation, and in 1532 the
Nuremberg Religious Peace was signed there, preventing war between Lutherans and Catholics for 15 years. During the Princes'
1552 revolution against
Charles V, Nuremberg tried to purchase its neutrality, but Margrave
Albert Alcibiades, one of the leaders of the revolt, attacked the city without a declaration of war and dictated a disadvantageous peace. Many examples of
Nazi architecture can still be seen in the city. The city was also the headquarters of the Nazi
propagandist Julius Streicher, the Nazi Party
Gauleiter of
Franconia, a vicious
antisemite and the publisher of
Der Stürmer. During the anti-Jewish
pogrom known as
Kristallnacht on 10 November 1938, the two remaining synagogues and numerous Jewish-owned shops were burned to the ground. Of the 91 Jews in Germany who met their deaths as a result of
Kristallnacht, 26 (including ten suicides) were in Nuremberg. Between 2,000 and 3,000 of Nuremberg's Jews fled from Germany. By 1941, only about 1,800 remained, over 1,600 of whom were rounded-up and transported to various
extermination camps where they were killed. At the end of the war in 1945, there were no Jews left in Nuremberg. There are many
Stolpersteine installed in the streets of the city; these commemorate Jews who were persecuted by the Nazi regime. During the
Second World War, Nuremberg was the headquarters of
Wehrkreis (military district) XIII, and an important site for military production, including aircraft, submarines, and tank engines. A subcamp of
Flossenbürg concentration camp was located here, and extensively used
slave labour. On 2 January 1945, the medieval city centre was systematically
bombed by the
Royal Air Force and the
U.S. Army Air Forces and about eighty percent of it was destroyed in only one hour, with 1,800 residents killed and roughly 100,000 displaced. In February 1945, additional attacks followed. In total, about 6,000 Nuremberg residents are estimated to have been killed in air raids. Nuremberg was a heavily fortified city that was captured in
a fierce battle lasting from 17 to 20 April 1945 by the U.S.
3rd Infantry Division,
42nd Infantry Division and
45th Infantry Division, which fought house-to-house and street-by-street against determined German resistance, causing further urban devastation to the already bombed and shelled buildings. Despite this intense degree of destruction, the city was rebuilt after the war and was to some extent restored to its pre-war appearance, including the reconstruction of many of its medieval buildings. Much of this reconstructive work and conservation was done by the organisation '
Old Town Friends Nuremberg'. Today 25% of Nürnberg's buildings date to before World War II and the old town is a declared protected area, so the northeastern half of the old
Imperial Free City had to be largely reconstructed.
Nuremberg trials Between 1945 and 1946, German officials involved in
war crimes and crimes against humanity 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 accountability. • The
Palace of Justice was spacious and largely undamaged (one of the few that had remained largely intact despite
extensive Allied bombing of Germany). The already large courtroom was reasonably easily expanded by the removal of the wall at the end opposite the bench, thereby incorporating the adjoining room. A large prison was also part of the complex. As a compromise, it was agreed that Berlin would become the permanent seat of the International Military Tribunal and that the first trial (several were planned) would take place in Nuremberg. Due to the
Cold War, subsequent trials never took place. Following the trials, in October 1946, many prominent German Nazi politicians and military leaders were
executed in Nuremberg. The same courtroom in Nuremberg was the venue of the
Nuremberg Military Tribunals, organized by the United States as
occupying power in the area. In order to come to terms with the role Nuremberg played during the
Third Reich, the city established the
Nuremberg International Human Rights Award in 1995, awarded every two years to individuals or groups defending human rights worldwide. ==Geography==