Nuremberg warcrimes trial courtroom to open as museum next month

Oct 18, 2010, 15:35 GMT

Berlin - The courthouse in Nuremberg where senior Nazis faced trial for war crimes will open as a museum and visitor attraction next month, officials said Monday.

The municipal courthouse - including courtroom 600 - was chosen as the venue for the post-war trials due to Nuremberg's hosting of the huge Nazi rallies in the 1930s.

The city is building an interpretation centre in the attic space of the courthouse to show visitors how international criminal justice began in the city. The tour ends in courtroom number 600 where the trials took place.

Senior Nazis such as Hermann Goering, Rudolph Hess and Albert Speer all faced trial there in 1945-46.

The venue will open on November 21, with an address from Benjamin Ferencz, one of the surviving original prosecutors.

Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, will also give a speech. Lavrov and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle will speak at the opening of the courtroom memorial.

After the war-crimes trials, conducted by an international panel of judges, US military courts tried further Nazis till 1949 in the courtroom. It then returned to use for ordinary German cases.

In recent years the courtroom has permitted tourist visits, with up to 20,000 visitors a year doing the tour. The interpretation centre will now make the site into a full-scale museum.

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