Heidelberg Thingstätte

[5] The opening festivities concluded with a summer solstice celebration during which Franz Philipp's cantata Heiliges Vaterland was performed.

Two towers at the rear of the theatre, at the top of the stands, housed the controls for the sound and for lighting, including a mixing board; the installation made it possible to play sound recordings and pipe in radio broadcasts to the stage as well as to amplify lead actors, who were more important to the Thingspiel dramas than had originally been envisaged by architects.

[10] The Thingstätte was located in Heidelberg partly as a counterpart to a cemetery of honour for the fallen of the First World War that was created on another peak above the city.

[11] Together with the Reichsfestspiele, one of its purposes was to present a picture of Nazi culture to foreign visitors; however, by the time it opened the Thing movement had already begun to fall out of favour, and in summer 1936, the Mayor of Heidelberg announced its renaming from Thingstätte to Feierstätte (celebration site).

[1] After the war the American occupying forces held jazz concerts at the arena,[3] and in 1947 used it for an Easter service which they invited Germans to attend.

[13] The site is now municipal property, has been declared a state protected monument, and like the rest of the mountain, is tended by the Schutzgemeinschaft Heiligenberg.