¹⁄35

Nurnberg Parade

Having picked up scale-modelling again some 5-6 years ago, I’m always looking for “different” subjects for dioramas, not the usual “tanks and soldiers “stuff. Some years ago I already made a small diorama depicting the 1923 Hitler Putsch and I remembered enjoying the search for 1/35th scake figures to be used in the diorama. In 2015 I also completed my somewhat controversial KZ-Train diorama because since I retired in 2014, I have had the time on my hands for the “bigger” stuff. Having been a collector of German WW2 political uniforms for many years a “political” diorama seemed to be the thing to do. Best known are the Parteitage that where held in the city of Nurnberg so there I had my subject.

I decided to start the build and search for the many, mostly political, figures that were to be in the diorama. That proved to be not an easy thing to do since there aren’t many political figures made in 1/35th scale. Andrea miniatures provided me with Adolf, one German SS officer, the Kettle Drummer and the SS-standard-bearer set in 1/32 scale. The Goering figure comes from Pegaso Models, while Himmler and Goebbels come from Valliant Enterprises. D-Day Miniatures provided me with the BDM Girls and two Bavarians with political armbands. The Wehrmacht platoon came from Preiser (a very bad set!!), with an additional civilian set from Preiser and one from MiniArt. The RAD man is from New World Miniatures while ICM provided the German Road Police set which was altered by me (one was made into an SA-man)and the Type 770K Leaders Car. The cameraman is an altered US-cameramen and the rest are mostly altered figures from other boxes, coming to a grand total of 51 figures on the diorama.

I cut the cobblestones out of cork which was quit a job to do, but with a lot of patience I was able to complete the whole area by gluing them with wood glue on to a foam base. On one of the period reference pictures there is also a small wall which I added to the diorama. The lantern poles are there for perspective. The streetcar-rails are made of two strips of Evergreen. The building facade was made from foam. I’m not totally satisfied with it and I may go back and add some detail to it one day. I never do serial-painting so each figure (except for the Wehrmacht Preisler set) was finished before starting on the next figure. As mentioned, a lot of the figures had to be altered in position and head dress to make them into political figures. I had two SS Guards (don’t know what maker) so it was easy to transfer one of them into the Blutfahne-trager (flag is a self made decal on lead foil). All painting was done using acrylic followed by an oil-based wash for shadows. When painting figures the expensive ones always come out better than the cheap ones! But, when you are searching for so many different figures you do not always have a choice. Well, to end this story a few things are of importance.

1. I know there are much better dio-builders and figure-painters out there but remember, It’s the joy that counts. Model-building is about entertaining yourself, regardless of the opinion of others.

2. If you look at my dio and compare it to the period photographs, you will notice one big mistake I made: The parade is going the wrong way. I’m still figuring out if it bothers me enough to change it !

Have fun building!!

Hans