NUREMBERG

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 137, 7 December 1938, Page 11

NUREMBERG

fHE OLD AND THE NEW

SOME RECENT IMPRESSIONS

(By J. V. McManus.)

Much publicity has been given to Nuremberg, that ancient city of Bavaria. It is represented as the scene of much that is belligerent and aggressive. Yet the inhabitants themselves are the most peace-loving of folk; in marked antithesis to; their brethren of sabre-rattling Prussia. And old Nuremberg—once termed the toyshop of the world—is yet enclosed by its thirteenth-century city walls and high-gabled houses, overlooking a broad moat still filled with water arid spanned at intervals by covered bridges stretching betweeu frowning towers of sullen stone. . . '■

Penetrate to the hefcrt of the town, and one comes upon the very essence of medievalism enshrined in squares and. buildings. One may visit the Church of St. Lawrence, built by the, Emperor Adolphus in 1274, and gaze in awe at the depth and brightness of.the colours still glowing from the windows and the mural paintings. .

r Diverge a little to a nearby lane and behold the medieval dwelling where Hans Sachs cobbled and wrote ;ms rhymes, standing now as bluff as ever: and the neighbouring inn, garnished and swept : with true Teutonic thoj> oughness, bright with flowers in window boxes.

What wanderer, however unimpressionable, could stand in . the Market Square arid fail to be imbued with the spirit of the past? For here one may see the gilded wonder of the Beautiful Fountain (der schone Brunnen) with its Gothic spire of openwork beauty, reminiscent of the memorials raised to Queen Eleanor of England, and flanked by groups of Electors and almost mythical Heroes, while above them rise.Moses and seven of the Prophets.

Distant "- by but a few paces is the ancient Goose Market, vbere stands the humble Goose Man in doublet, coat, and hose, with hanging boots and saucy cap awry, holding under each arm a bird from whose beak escapes a gush of water; the whole figure perched on a pedestal whose spouting gargoyles add to the stream. One leaves, the old-world scene and proceeds through tortuous streets to broader thoroughfares where, with quite a sense of shock, one is confronted with the miltiarism of modera Germany.

Traffic is frequently held up while detachments of mustard-coloured 'storm troops, wearing swastika badges, race through in lorries arid on motorcycles.- ' The sidewalks are . thronged with the blue and green uniforms <. of the air force, relieved here and there by a gay Tyrolean costume worn by some young' apostle of the outdoor 'ways.'.. ••■.■■■. .'■ y' .■• ~ ■'.' y^'

Mars is throned on high and proclaims his warlike message from -innumerable and vivid recruiting posters, eagerly, presenting to the young idea the glamour and allurement of a life of arms;: arid every.toy shop shows, a window full of tiny guns and tanks and aircraft, surrounded by companies of leaden; soldiers.

Everywhere is order and precision, from the small Boy Scouts and Girl Guides who perseveringly and conscientiously shake collecting tins under one's nose from early morn "to dewy eye pn, eyery Saturday of/ the year, to the official in the Bank or Postal Bureau who sends you on your way with arm upraised in the Nazi salute, emitting from his throat a stentorian "Heil, Hitler!"

: One wonders if the ; shades of the merchant princes of ; old sometimes venture through the city gates and view. the.menace of the aerodrome and the: towering stadium in its modern magnitude of pomp -and circumstance. One wonders, too, whether the worthy dignitaries foregather in those surviving hostels, once so dear to them, and over cups of Rhenish? wine shake hoary heads with! apprehension at the fevered preparations for another war.