After 1945, ownership of the Nazi Party Rally Grounds is transferred to the City of Nuremberg, which had once provided a large part of the area for the National Socialists' construction projects.
As in many other German cities, here too there is no sense for many decades of the special historical significance of the Nazi structures. The unfinished Congress Hall is used mainly as a depot and warehouse. The intended Märzfeld becomes the site of the Langwasser subdivision, home today to 35,000 people. The eleven "Märzfeld towers" are demolished because they stand in the way of urban development. The city also attempts to convert part of the site back into a recreational area, as it had been before 1933.
The structural remains of the former Party Rally Grounds are protected from 1973 onward as a historical monument. In 1985, in response to rising public interest in the National Socialist past, the City of Nuremberg organizes an exhibition in the former Zeppelinfeld grandstand, the Zeppelintribüne, treating the Nazi Party Rally Grounds as a "learning site of German history."
In November 2001, the Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds opens in the north wing of the Congress Hall.