Courtroom 600 - Project "Memorial Nuremberg Trials"

The Palace of Justice

The choice of Nuremberg as venue for the trials was not so much due to the special role the city played during the "Third Reich". The large Palace of Justice and the adjacent prison buildings had remained largely undamaged during the war, thus offering an ideal location for the tribunal.

In addition, Nuremberg was located in the American occupied zone where the Military Government had arrested many of the main defendants with the intention of putting them to trial.

The Court Room

To prepare for the trial, the Allied powers undertook numerous refurbishments and conversions of the court building, which had been inaugurated in 1916. According to contemporary reports, materials used included 335,000 metres of electric cable, 10,000 light bulbs, 3000 pounds of nails, 100,000 bricks, 20,000 roof tiles and 4,500 square metres of glass. Court Room 600 was massively altered by enlarging the auditorium and installing a visitors' gallery. This conversion was reversed in the 1960s, when the room was put back to its 1916 state again.