Thingspiele
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A Thingspiel was a kind of multi-disciplinary outdoor theatre performance which enjoyed brief popularity in pre-war Nazi Germany during the 1930s. A Thingplatz or Thingstätte was a specially-constructed outdoor amphitheatre built for such performances. About 400 were planned, but only about 40 were built between 1933 and 1939.
Thingplatz at Ordensburg Vogelsang
Feierstätte der Schlesier at the Annaberg in Silesia in a Nazi-era photograph
Heidelberg Thingstätte
Thing (assembly)
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A thing, also known as a folkmoot, assembly, tribal council, and by other names, was a governing assembly in early Germanic society, made up of the free people of the community presided over by a lawspeaker. Things took place at regular intervals, usually at prominent places that were accessible by travel. They provided legislative functions, as well as being social events and opportunities for trade. In modern usage, the meaning of this word in English and other languages has shifted to mean not just an assemblage of some sort but simply an object of any sort.
A Germanic assembly, by Charles Rochussen
Germanic thing, drawn after the depiction in a relief of the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome (193 CE)
The Icelandic Althing in session, as imagined in the 1890s by British artist W. G. Collingwood.
Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker showing the power of his office to the King of Sweden at Gamla Uppsala, 1018. The lawspeaker forced King Olof Skötkonung not only to accept peace with his enemy, King Olaf the Stout of Norway, but also to give his daughter to him in marriage. Illustration by C. Krogh.