Nuremberg

Nuremberg first appears in records in 1050, as the site of an imperial castle on the border between Franconia and Bavaria's Nordgau. It grew quickly on the trade routes between Italy and northern Europe: in 1219 Frederick II granted it the Great Charter of Freedom, and it became a Free Imperial City answerable only to the emperor. Imperial diets met here so often that it became an unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire; the Golden Bull of 1356 required each new king to hold his first diet here, and from 1424 to 1796 the Imperial Regalia were kept in the city. The prosperity had a dark side — Jews were massacred in 1298, and after the pogrom of 1349 a market square was laid out over the Jewish quarter.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Nuremberg was the centre of the German Renaissance. Albrecht Dürer worked here, Anton Koberger printed the Nuremberg Chronicle in 1493, and Martin Behaim made the oldest surviving globe. The city accepted the Reformation in 1525. The Thirty Years' War nearly halved its population, and in 1806 it passed to Bavaria. Industry revived it: Germany's first railway ran from here to Fürth in 1835, and Siemens and MAN made it Bavaria's industrial heart.

The Nazis staged their party rallies here and passed the Nuremberg Laws at the 1935 rally. Bombing on 2 January 1945 destroyed about 80 per cent of the medieval centre in an hour, and the city was taken by US troops in April after street fighting. In 1945–46 the leading Nazis were tried in the Palace of Justice. The old town was rebuilt, and since 1995 the city has awarded an international human rights prize.

Nuremberg's golden age still defines its image. Dürer, born here, is everywhere, from his house below the castle to his grave in the Johannisfriedhof. The city's prosperous craftsmen formed guilds of Meistersinger, and Wagner made the most famous of them, Hans Sachs, the hero of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Johann Pachelbel was born here and played the organ at St. Sebaldus, and the city's academy of fine arts is the oldest in central Europe. Today the State Theatre, founded in 1906, stages opera, ballet and drama, and the Bardentreffen fills the old town with free world music every summer.

Remembrance is part of civic life. The city that hosted the rallies now runs a documentation centre in the unfinished Congress Hall, set up the Memorium in the Palace of Justice, and laid out the Way of Human Rights by Dani Karavan beside the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Stolpersteine in the pavements recall the Jewish residents persecuted by the Nazi regime.

Sport is followed closely. 1. FC Nürnberg, known simply as Der Club, won nine German championships and held the record for most titles until 1986; the Ice Tigers play in the top ice hockey league, and touring cars race at the Norisring each summer. Franconian identity is strong, and since 1945 the city has mainly elected Social Democrat mayors in a conservative state, though the mayor elected in 2020 is from the CSU.

About 546,000 people lived in Nuremberg in 2024, making it the second-largest city in Bavaria. It forms a continuous built-up area of about 1.4 million people with Fürth, Erlangen and Schwabach, and the wider metropolitan region has about 3.6 million. About a fifth of residents have an immigrant background, and districts such as Gostenhof have large Turkish-origin communities.

Siemens remains the largest industrial employer, and the city builds electrical and mechanical equipment, vehicles and writing and drawing materials and stationery, and about a third of Germany's market-research agencies are based here. The Messe is one of the country's largest trade-fair organisers, and its International Toy Fair is the biggest of its kind in the world. The University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, the Technische Hochschule and the new University of Technology Nuremberg bring a large student population.

Life runs on an efficient network of U-Bahn, trams and S-Bahn, with driverless trains on two lines. Weekdays start early; Sundays are quiet, with most shops closed. In summer the beer gardens, the Pegnitz meadows and the festivals at the Dutzendteich draw crowds, and in Advent the whole old town turns towards the Christkindlesmarkt.

The Nürnberger Rostbratwurst is the city's emblem: a small, thin pork sausage, seven to nine centimetres long and flavoured with marjoram, which under EU protection may only be made in Nuremberg. Grilled and served three in a bread roll with mustard — "Drei im Weggla" — it is sold from kiosks across town; as a main meal it comes with sauerkraut, potato salad or horseradish. Saure Zipfel, or Blaue Zipfel, are bratwurst simmered in a broth of vinegar, onions and spices.

Franconian cooking also gives the Schäufele, roast pork shoulder with a crackling crust, and Presssack, a firm sausage sliced and eaten with mustard. Bratwurst-Röslein, founded in 1431, is among the old sausage kitchens, and the Bratwurstglöcklein in the Handwerkerhof carries the name of another, destroyed in the war.

Lebkuchen, honey-sweetened spiced cakes similar to gingerbread, are part of Germany's Christmas traditions; Elisenlebkuchen are considered the finest. Local beer is drunk in beer gardens and old-town taverns, and Franconian white wine, mostly Silvaner and Müller-Thurgau, comes in the round, flat Bocksbeutel bottle.