The Cathedral of Light or Lichtdom was a main aesthetic feature of the Nazi Party rallies in Nuremberg from 1934 to 1938. Designed by architect Albert Speer, it consisted of 152 anti-aircraft searchlights, at intervals of 12 metres, aimed skyward to create a series of vertical bars surrounding the audience. The Cathedral of Light was documented in the Nazi propaganda film Festliches Nürnberg , released in 1937.
Speer had been commissioned by Adolf Hitler to build a stadium for the annual party rallies, but the stadium could not be completed in time for the 1933 rally. As a stopgap, he used 152 antiaircraft searchlights pointed upwards around the assembly area. [1] [2]
The searchlights were borrowed from the Luftwaffe , which caused problems with its commander Hermann Göring, because they represented most of Germany's strategic reserve. Hitler overruled him, suggesting that it was a useful piece of disinformation. "If we use them in such large numbers for a thing like this, other countries will think we're swimming in searchlights." [3]
Though they had originally been planned as a temporary measure until the stadium was completed, they continued to be used afterwards for the party rallies. [2] A similar effect was created for the closing ceremony of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin by Eberhard von der Trappen with Speer's collaboration. [4] [5] Variants of the effect had the searchlights converge to a point above the spectators.
The Flak Searchlights used were developed in the late 1930s and used 150-centimeter-diameter parabolic glass reflectors with an output of 990 million candelas. The system was powered by a 24-kilowatt generator, based around a 51-horsepower (38 kW) 8-cylinder engine, giving a current of 200 amperes at 110 volts. The searchlight was attached to the generator by a cable 200 meters long. The system had a detection range of about 8 kilometers for targets at an altitude of between 4000 and 5000 meters. [6]
Speer described the effect: "The feeling was of a vast room, with the beams serving as mighty pillars of infinitely high outer walls". [7] [3] The British Ambassador to Germany, Sir Neville Henderson, described it as "both solemn and beautiful... like being in a cathedral of ice". [1] [3]
It is still considered amongst Speer's most important works:
...the single most dramatic moment of the Nazi Party rallies... was not a military parade or a political speech but the Lichtdom, or Cathedral of Light...
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