User:Bob McQuitty

Nürnberg American High School
On Monday, October 21, 1946, a new American high school opened. (October 1946 army newspaper article) It opened not in the United States, but in Erlangen, Germany, a small town approximately 15.5 miles north of Nürnberg, one of the most historic German cities.

Situated in Erlangen, the new school was named Erlangen (American) High School. Five other American high schools opened in Germany as well: in Berlin, Bremen, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, and Munich. It was the beginning of the U.S. Army Dependents School System in Europe. It was the beginning of a new chapter in American education. (Stars and Stripes, Sept. 20, 1946)

This high school called Erlangen High School was to be in Erlangen only one year. In the fall of 1947, it opened its doors in nearby Fürth, Germany, and was called henceforth Nürnberg (American) High School, not because it was in Nürnberg proper, but because it served the U.S. Army dependents in the Nürnberg area.

These doors were to remain open for 49 years through both the crises and relative calm of the post-War years and the Cold War time. The U.S. Army closed the school in 1995. In that year thousands of Nürnberg High School alumni had to face the fact that their school was gone. But it has lived on in their memory and through the Nürnberg Alumni Association, which was founded in 1988 to preserve alumni memories and high school friendships.