75 years Press Camp: When history was written in the Faber-Castell Castle

Stein - The proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) are exemplary for the prosecution of war crimes and to this day represent a unique media event that has attracted international attention.

In order to document the "Stunde Null" (“zero hour”) and the atmosphere associated with it, hundreds of reporters from all over the world travelled to the Franconian metropolis of today. The intellectual elite of journalism, literature and photography followed the Nuremberg Trials from the press gallery in Court Room 600 of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. Among the most prominent observers were Rebecca West, Nora Waln, John dos Passos, exiled Germans such as Erika Mann, Willy Brandt and Erich Kästner, and Soviet press representatives Boris Polewoi and Yevgeny Khaldej.

During this time, most of the media representatives found accommodation in the Faber-Castell Castle, which was converted into a press camp by the US Army and used as such from 1945 to 1949.

One of the greatest challenges in organising the Press Camp was to accommodate such a large number of people under one roof. The US-American publicist and journalist William L. Shirer even compares the conditions there with those of the high-security prison "Sing-Sing" in New York: “Packed eight or ten in a room in a ramshackle building which serves as a press camp, they are forced to live under sanitary conditions – or rather the lack of them – which the State of New York never would permit in Sing-Sing."

In the Gobelin Hall of the castle, which was transformed into an open-plan office with numerous desks, reporters wrote some of their reports on the Nuremberg Trials, the crimes of the Nazi state, the political and social situation in post-war Germany and life in the Press Camp. From Stein, the news went out into the whole world.

Despite the non-fraternisation policy, reporters from all countries met for communal meals and in the evenings in the bars specially set up for socialising. And while the trials in Nuremberg progressed, international relations were simultaneously established inside the castle.

On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, Faber-Castell is offering a special multimedia guided tour of the Faber-Castell Castle on the subject of "Press Camp". Due to the current situation, however, the tour will not be bookable from November as planned, but probably from spring 2021.

The approximately one and a half hour tour through the historical rooms illustrates the sometimes arduous living and working conditions at the Press Camp with picture and text panels, and a staged background noise makes the work and the meeting of the international journalists acoustically experienceable for visitors. The screening of a corresponding documentary film by Munich filmmaker Reiner Holzemer completes the tour.

Further information on the topic "Castle as Press Camp" can be found at https://www.faber-castell.de/c....