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The theater in Pergamum could seat 10,000 people at a time. Built into the side of a mountain, it was the steepest theater in the ancient world.
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The Pergamenes invented parchment (paper made out of calfskin) as a substitute for papyrus after the Egyptians stopped exporting papyrus to Pergamum. The Egyptians stopped the exports out of fear that Pergamum’s library would become larger than the great library of Alexandria in Egypt, the world’s largest at the time.
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The Asklepion at Pergamum has been called “the world’s first psychiatric hospital.”
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In the first century BC, the Roman general Marc Antony gave the library of Pergamum to his new wife, Cleopatra of Egypt, as a wedding gift. The gift was significant because Antony’s mentor, Julius Caesar, had burned the great library in Alexandria when Rome had invaded Egypt several years earlier.
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Human sacrifices, usually people who refused to worship the Roman emperor, were offered inside a bronze bull. When the person had been burned to death, his bones were carved into beads for bracelets worn by pagan priests. These bone bracelets were considered to be holy objects to pagans.
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When the Altar of Zeus arrived in Berlin in the late 19th century, there was no museum large enough to house it, so a new museum had to be built to display it.
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During World War II, the Pergamon Altar was dismantled and hidden near the Berlin Zoo to protect it from Allied air raids. It later fell into the hands of the Red Army, who took it to the Soviet Union, where it was stored in the Hermitage Museum. In 1958, the Altar was returned to Berlin’s Pergamon Museum in East Berlin, which at the time was also under Communist rule.
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The marble friezes on the Pergamon Altar tell the story of the “Gigantomachy.” Of the battle between the Greek gods, led by Zeus, and the snake-footed giants, the children of the goddess Gaia. To see the friezes in their entirety, visit this link: http://www.secondpage.de/pergamonaltar/gigantomachie.html
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Nazi Germany
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Adolf Hitler chose Nuremberg for the Nazi Party Rallies because of the city’s historical significance: it had once been the unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire.
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Nuremberg was severely damaged in Allied strategic bombing from 1943–45. On January 2, 1945, the medieval city center was systematically bombed by the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces and about 90% percent of it was destroyed in only one hour. Despite this, the city was rebuilt after the war and was to some extent, restored to its pre-war appearance including the reconstruction of some of its medieval buildings.
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After the Nuremberg Trials, Nazi architect Albert Speer served 20 years in prison for war crimes. During that time, he wrote three bestselling books and anonymously donated 80% of the proceeds to Jewish charities.
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Albert Speer suffered a stroke and died on September 1, 1981, while in London to film a BBC news program.
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The text of the prologue at the beginning of Triumph of the Will reads, “On 5 September, 1934, 20 years after the outbreak of the World War, 16 years after the beginning of German suffering, 19 months after the beginning of the German rebirth, Adolf Hitler flew again to Nuremberg to review the columns of his faithful followers.”
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From 1945-1948, Leni Riefenstahl was held in various Allied detention camps. She was tried four times by war tribunals, but was never convicted.
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Leni Riefenstahl later said that her biggest regret was meeting Hitler: "It was the biggest catastrophe of my life. Until the day I die people will keep saying, 'Leni is a Nazi', and I'll keep saying, 'But what did she do?'" She won more than 50 libel cases against people accusing her of knowledge having to do with Nazi crimes.
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Leni Riefenstahl died in her sleep on September 8, 2003 at her home in Germany, a few weeks after her 101st birthday. She had been suffering from cancer.
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