KdF Town, Nuremberg

KdF Town, located in the northern part of the Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg, played a notable role during the Nazi era. It featured wooden exhibition halls where regional products were displayed and various recreational events were organized during the Nazi Party congresses. This area served to entertain guests attending these rallies and was part of the broader efforts of the Kraft durch Freude (KdF, or Strength through Joy) organization.

KdF was a major state-operated leisure organization, under the umbrella of the German Labour Front, the national German labor organization at that time. It was established as part of a strategy to promote National Socialism by making middle-class leisure activities accessible to the broader masses, thereby attempting to bridge the class divide.

KdF was not just ideological but also aimed at economic stimulation, especially in lifting the tourist industry out of its slump from the 1920s. It became the world's largest tourism operator in the 1930s. By 1934, over two million Germans had participated in a KdF trip, and by 1939, this number had reportedly reached around 25 million. However, the organization essentially collapsed with the outbreak of World War II, and many of its ambitious projects were left incomplete.

The KdF Town itself was destroyed during an air raid in World War II, and today the land on which it stood is owned by the Nuremberg Football Club. This physical transformation from a site of leisure and propaganda to a modern sports facility reflects a broader shift in the usage and memory of spaces associated with the Nazi period in Germany.