orecastWalk through Nuremberg's old town and you are walking over a second storey of the city that few people know. Beneath the Imperial Castle and the northern old town lie some 25,000 square metres of rock cellars. They reach up to four storeys down into the rock, and their passages add up to more than two kilometres. For our new episode we rebuilt this labyrinth as a 3D model, as far as the record allows, and tell what happened inside it. It is a story about beer and art, about a single night of bombing and about a crown that lay behind a wall in 1945.
A beer ordinance from 1380
The rock cellars are documented from the 14th century onwards. On 11 November 1380 the city council passed a rule that changed the ground beneath Nuremberg for good. Anyone serving beer needed a cellar of their own, "zehen schuch tieff und sechzehen schuch weit", ten shoes deep and sixteen shoes wide, as the ordinance puts it. A shoe was an old unit of length of roughly one foot. The reason was practical. Beer needs to be kept cool, and underground the temperature stays low and steady all year round. So the people of Nuremberg cut their cellars out of the rock by hand, with hammer and chisel, in painstaking work, as the city's museums describe it today.
In the Middle Ages Nuremberg had up to 42 breweries. Each one needed its rock cellar, and each cellar grew a little, year after year and generation after generation. That this was possible at all comes down to the stone. The castle and the northern old town stand on Burgsandstein, the local castle sandstone. It can be worked by hand, and yet a vault cut into it holds without any support. How deep you can get into this rock is shown by the Deep Well of the Imperial Castle. Its shaft drops some fifty metres straight down through several layers of sandstone and was probably dug as early as the 11th or 12th century. In the cellars, air shafts keep the air moving on its own, and deep inside the castle hill tunnels were already collecting water for the city in the 15th century.
A bunker for the irreplaceable
Five hundred and sixty years after the beer ordinance, the cellars were given a new job. In the summer of 1940 the director of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum had a rock cellar in Obere Schmiedgasse converted, with heating, ventilation and drainage, up to 24 metres below the castle. Whatever Nuremberg considered irreplaceable was brought here, among it the Annunciation (Engelsgruß) by Veit Stoss, Martin Behaim's globe and works by Albrecht Dürer. They were joined by the Imperial Regalia, the crown, sceptre, orb and swords of the Holy Roman Empire.
There was a long history behind the regalia being in Nuremberg at all. From 1424 to 1796 the city had kept them once before, in the Holy Spirit Hospital and on behalf of the emperor. A privilege granted by Emperor Sigismund in 1423 had entrusted it with that task. In 1796 the regalia were taken to safety from the French army and ended up in Vienna. In 1938 Hitler had them brought back to the city of the Nazi party rallies and put on display in St. Catherine's Church.
The same cellars also held a work that did not belong there. It was the high altar by Veit Stoss from St. Mary's Basilica in Kraków, looted in occupied Poland and intended for a museum Hitler was planning in Linz.
The night of 2 January 1945
On the evening of 2 January 1945 the sirens wailed at 6.33 pm, and the first bombs fell at 7.20 pm. The Royal Air Force had assigned 521 aircraft to Nuremberg. The all-clear came at 8.24 pm, and in less than an hour the old town had been destroyed. Around 2,000 medieval houses were lost. The city of Nuremberg lists 1,835 dead known by name, and around 100,000 people lost their homes.
Beneath the burning city, people sat in the old beer cellars. During the war these had been converted into air-raid shelters, designed for around 20,000 people. That night there were an estimated twice as many. One survivor later recalled the moment he climbed out of the cellar into the fire. "It was hell," he said. That the death toll was not even higher is also thanks to the cellars that earlier generations had cut into the rock for their beer. The artworks in the bunker came through the night undamaged.
The crown behind the wall
By the end of March 1945 the war was lost and the front was drawing closer. Over Easter, Lord Mayor Willy Liebel and three men from the city leadership made a decision. The crown, orb, sceptre and swords were sealed into copper containers and walled up in a hidden niche. They did not stay where the regalia had been stored for years. They went a few hundred metres further east, into the Paniersbunker, where a second art shelter had existed since 1943. The sources give the date as either 30 or 31 March, which is why we simply say Easter.
Three weeks later, on 20 April 1945, American troops took Nuremberg. On the same day Willy Liebel died in a bunker from a gunshot to the head. Whether he took his own life or was killed remains unclear to this day. The other three kept silent and told the Americans a different story. Later the men said they had wanted to protect the regalia from destruction in the last days of the war. The American files give another reason. According to them, the regalia were meant to remain a rallying symbol for a future Nazi resistance movement.
A refugee in American uniform
On 20 July 1945 an American lieutenant was ordered to find the crown. His name was Walter Horn, and he was German by birth, born in 1908 in Waldangelloch in Baden. Horn was an art historian who studied the buildings of the Middle Ages. In 1938 he had fled to the United States as an opponent of the Nazi regime, and now he came back in American uniform. He questioned more than twenty people, and the interrogations dragged on for weeks. Then one of the city councillors was arrested. After a night in solitary confinement he admitted that he had lied.
On the morning of 7 August 1945 two of the men led the Americans into the Paniersbunker. Behind a wall, in a small room deep underground, lay the copper containers. In early 1946 the Imperial Regalia were flown to Vienna, and since 1954 they have been back in the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg. The altar returned to Kraków as well and has stood in St. Mary's Basilica again since 1957. Horn went back to California and taught at the university in Berkeley.
What is documented and what remains open
A complete plan of these cellars no longer exists. Much was kept secret, and records were lost in the war. Beneath the southern old town lie further cellars of former breweries that are not open to the public. How far it all extends, nobody knows for certain today. Our 3D model therefore sticks to the recorded overall figures of around 25,000 square metres, up to four storeys and more than two kilometres of passages. Which cellar lies beneath which house and how the passages run is shown only as a schematic. We give no depth in metres for the cellars, because none has been recorded. The houses above come from OpenStreetMap, the terrain from the Copernicus elevation model. The historical scenes in the video are AI illustrations and are labelled as such from the very first frame.
Sometimes things still turn up. When research divers from Kiel University climbed down into the castle's Deep Well in 2012 on behalf of the Bavarian Palace Administration, they found timber and tiles from the old roof at the bottom, along with remains of ammunition and rubble from the bombing of January 1945. Among them lay a small iron figure that may depict Saint Kunigunde.
Nuremberg is not alone with its hollow spaces. Within 50 kilometres of the city our data maps 509 caves and 50 mines, because the Franconian Jura begins to the north and east, and it is karst country. Across Germany the count is 5,720 caves and 7,265 mines. That reflects the state of mapping rather than a complete count, but it is a start. On the orecast map you can see what is recorded around Nuremberg's old town.
Going down yourself
Part of Nuremberg's underground is open to visitors. It is best to check dates and prices on the providers' websites before you go.
- Tours of the Historische Felsengänge, the historic rock cellars, are run by the NKG Nürnberger Kellerverwaltungsgesellschaft. They start at Bergstraße 19, at the Altstadthof brewery below the castle (historische-felsengaenge.de).
- The Historischer Kunstbunker, the historic art bunker at Obere Schmiedgasse 52, has been a museum since 1996. Tours are offered by Nürnberger Unterwelten (unterwelten-nuernberg.de).
- The Deep Well is part of the tours of the Imperial Castle, where a camera ride makes the depth of the shaft visible (kaiserburg-nuernberg.de).
Frequently asked questions
How large are the rock cellars beneath Nuremberg?
The city's museums put them at around 25,000 square metres, up to four storeys deep. Their passages add up to more than two kilometres. The cellars lie beneath the Imperial Castle and the northern old town and are documented from the 14th century onwards. No complete plan survives, because much was kept secret and records were lost in the war.
Where was the imperial crown hidden in 1945?
Over Easter 1945 the Imperial Regalia, including the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, were sealed into copper containers and walled up in a hidden niche in the Paniersbunker beneath the old town. On the morning of 7 August 1945 two of the men involved led the Americans there, after the art historian Walter Horn had questioned more than twenty people. Since 1954 the regalia have been back in the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg in Vienna.
Can you visit Nuremberg's rock cellars?
Yes, on guided tours. Tours of the Historische Felsengänge start at Bergstraße 19 below the castle, the Historischer Kunstbunker at Obere Schmiedgasse 52 has been a museum since 1996, and the Deep Well is part of the tours of the Imperial Castle. Dates and prices are on the providers' websites.