Nuremberg's Building Sins

In the early 1930s, Nuremberg Mayor Liebel declared that "the National Socialist city administration considers it as one of its most important tasks, to preserve the countless beauties of the old town and to free it from the defacements that it was exposed to in recent decades".

In order to demonstrate the party’s commitment to this cause, Liebel ordered work to begin immediately on the ‘restoration of architectural and artistic monuments threatened by decay, the purification of disturbing advertising and architectural disfigurements from the image of the old town and the renovation of the old town’.

Work began in early 1933 to improve the appearance of the Hauptplatz (newly renamed Adolf Hitler Platz) in time of the 1934 Rally.

The centrepiece of the effort was the renovation of the neo-gothic Telegraph building which received a dramatic facelift.

The building’s simplified facade and pitched roof complemented the neighbouring structures and new anti-Semitic murals were added to the facade 

Historic preservation efforts focused on giving homes and businesses an 'Old German look'.

This property of Schildstraße has the half-timbering exposed and obtrusive signs of commerce removed

The 'ugliest building' in Nuremberg on the Ebnersgasse was transformed into the 'most beautiful'

By 1941, the administration claimed that municipal funds were partially responsible for the restoration of approximately 400 buildings.

Nuremberg's synagogue was built in the late nineteenth century and its style and prominent location made it doubly objectionable to the Nazis.
In 1934, a local architectural consultant had already identified this ‘Moorish-style’ synagogue as a ‘building sin’.

The synagogue was situated on Hans-Sachs-Platz, overlooking the Pegnitz River

In Mayor Liebel’s view the synagogue was ‘the worst building sin of past decades' and this ‘foreign’ building could not be reconciled with the ‘Old German’ image that the local authorities were endeavouring to create.

The architectural style of the synagogue was at variance with the rest of the street

Armed with additional authority under the German Urban Renewal Law of 1937, Liebel completed the quasi-legal demolition of the synagogue shortly before the start of the 1938 rally.
The demolition was completed in less than a month to ensure the "oriental" architecture did not distract from the Nazi Party rally of that year.