Courtroom 600 and the Nuremberg Trials: how to visit
The correction worth making
Search for how to visit Courtroom 600 and you will be told, over and over, that it is an active courtroom in a working court building and closes to visitors at short notice when a trial is sitting. Guidebooks say it. Blogs say it. It was true for decades.
It stopped being true on 1 March 2020, when the room ceased to be used for trials. The Memorium states this plainly. Courtroom 600 now functions as part of the museum, and the reason it occasionally shuts is that the room gets used for conferences and events — which, unlike a court calendar, is something the museum knows about months in advance and publishes.
Courtroom 600 itself is closed to visitors on a handful of published dates in 2026, when the room is in use for events: 19–20 September (part of the day), 7–9 October (all three days, for the Nuremberg Forum) and 19 October (part of the day).
On those dates the rest of the Memorium is open as normal — it is only the courtroom and its media installation that you lose. The museum publishes the current list on its own site and updates it during the year, so check it if your visit is close to one of these dates.
Applies until 31 December 2026 · check with the operator before you travel.When the courtroom is shut, the permanent exhibition upstairs is open as normal. You lose the room and the media installation in it, not the visit.
Opening hours and admission
| Season | Days | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| 1 April – 31 October | Mon, Wed–Fri | 9am – 6pm |
| 1 April – 31 October | Sat–Sun | 10am – 6pm |
| 1 November – 31 March | Wed–Mon | 10am – 6pm |
| All year | Tuesday | Closed |
Adult admission is EUR 7.50 and reduced EUR 2.50, which makes it one of the cheapest significant museums in Germany. It is included in the Nuremberg Card. Book online if you like — there is a service fee and online tickets cannot be exchanged — or simply turn up, which is fine outside peak summer weekends. Individual visitors should arrive by about a quarter to six at the latest.
It is closed on Tuesdays, every week, all year. That single fact ruins more visits to this museum than everything else combined, including anything to do with the courtroom.
Getting there
The Palace of Justice is at Fürther Strasse 110, about 2.2 km west of the old town — not in it. Take the U1 to Bärenschanze and walk five minutes. It is a working courthouse for other proceedings and looks like one: a long Wilhelmine building on a main road, with the Memorium entrance signed round the side.
Note the geography, because it defeats a lot of itineraries. The rally grounds are 3.4 km south-east of the old town. These two sites are six kilometres apart, in opposite directions, on different lines. Doing both independently in a morning means crossing the whole city between them, and most people who try it drop one.
What you actually see
The room first: smaller than the footage suggests, panelled, with the dock along one side. Between November 1945 and October 1946 the surviving leadership of the Third Reich sat in it and were tried, in four languages, in the first international criminal trial of its kind. The simultaneous interpretation system invented for it is the ancestor of the one used at the UN. Twelve were sentenced to death.
The room was substantially rearranged afterwards and restored later, so it is not frozen as it was in 1946 — there is a media installation that reconstructs the layout, which is the part you lose on a closure date.
Upstairs is the permanent exhibition, which does the harder job: who was tried, on what charges, what the legal argument actually was, and what came out of it. The through-line is that the concepts of crimes against humanity and of individual criminal responsibility for acts of state largely begin in this building. The exhibition follows that forward to the international courts of today, which is why it does not end in 1946.
Do you need a tour?
Not for access — that is the whole point of the correction above. The museum is open, cheap and well captioned in English, and going alone is a perfectly good visit.
The case for a guide here is different from the rally grounds. There, the ground is unreadable without one. Here, the exhibition does the explaining and does it well. What a guide adds is the argument rather than the facts: what the tribunal got right, what it was fairly criticised for, why the charge of waging aggressive war was the contentious one, and how the city relates to a set of trials it did not ask for and is now named after. That is a conversation, and it is better with someone who can be argued with.
The practical case is stronger: tours that combine this with the rally grounds bring transport, which turns two half-days into one.
Courtroom 600Nuremberg: WWII Tour, Courtroom 600 and 3rd Reich Sites
Rally grounds + trialsNuremberg: Tour of the Nazi Rally Grounds and the Nuremberg Trials
Full day, lunchNuremberg: WWII Guided Combi Tour with Transport and Lunch
If you came to this because of the film, the honest answer about what is and is not in Nuremberg is on the film page.
Frequently asked questions
Can you visit Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg?
Yes. Courtroom 600 is part of the Memorium Nuremberg Trials and is open on normal museum hours, Wednesday to Monday, closed Tuesdays. Adult admission is EUR 7.50. It closes only on a handful of published dates when the room is used for events.
Is Courtroom 600 still used as a courtroom?
No. It stopped being used for trials on 1 March 2020, although a great deal of published advice still says otherwise. It now functions as part of the museum, and the closures that do happen are for conferences and events on dates the Memorium publishes in advance.
How much does the Memorium Nuremberg Trials cost?
Adult admission is EUR 7.50 and reduced EUR 2.50. Online booking is available with a service fee, and online tickets cannot be exchanged or refunded. Admission is included in the Nuremberg Card.
Is the Memorium Nuremberg Trials closed on Tuesdays?
Yes, every Tuesday all year round. This is the most common reason a visit fails, more so than anything to do with the courtroom itself.
How do you get to Courtroom 600 from Nuremberg old town?
Take the U1 to Baerenschanze and walk about five minutes to the Palace of Justice at Fuerther Strasse 110. It is 2.2 km west of the old town, in the opposite direction from the rally grounds.
Can you see both the rally grounds and Courtroom 600 in one day?
Yes, but they are six kilometres apart in opposite directions and each needs a couple of hours, so it is a full day rather than a morning. Guided tours that cover both include transport between them, which is the main practical reason to take one.