Thingspiele
As a Thing or places thingsteads open-air theater are referred to, built 1933-1936 for the Thing games under the " Thing " movement in Nazi Germany and later used for political rallies.
Intention and design
Thing games should be mainly experience an emotional and ethical merging of the individual in homeland and national community. Therefore especially impressive scenic places were chosen as thingsteads: evening pregnant lots surrounded by woods, in waters, surrounded by hills or natural rocks, ruins or other traces of the local history. Admittedly, it followed that all events were there exposed to the vagaries of the weather.
When the local population and also within the NSDAP, the intention Thing cult could not prevail. The Thing game movement had only a few years inventory. The plan was between 200 and 400 thingsteads, were completed only about 60
Few Thing sites are still used today. Sponsored by the parish or the local tourist office, they serve as an open-air stages or music venue. The best-known former Thing places are the Berlin forest stage and the limestone stadium in Bad Segeberg.
The Heidelberg planned as Thingstätte plant was called after completion only as a celebration site. In his speech at the opening on June 22 1935 said Joseph Goebbels, formerly a student in Heidelberg, then Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda:
" In this monumental building, we have given a vivid sculptural and monumental expression of our style and our outlook on life. These sites are in reality the diets of our time. There will come a day when the German people will walk on these stone sites in order to confess to them in ritual games to his imperishable newness of life "
Heidelberger Thingstätte testifies particularly well from the adaptation and alienation of the historical Thing idea by the Nazis. Rather than face the meeting and discuss the issues at the center, made it possible to set up under the Nazis thingsteads by their centric system now staging the leader cult.