Nurmengrad

• Type: Wizarding Prison
• Location: Unspecified in the novels, believed to be in continental Europe. (Located in the Austrian Alps in the Fantastic Beasts film series).
• Owner/Residents: Built by Gellert Grindelwald. Formerly held his opponents; later, its sole prisoner was Gellert Grindelwald himself.
• Key Features: A tall, jet-black fortress; the slogan “For the Greater Good” is carved over the entrance.

Nurmengrad is a formidable, jet-black fortress built by the Dark Wizard Gellert Grindelwald to imprison his enemies. The structure is described as tall and forbidding. Carved over its entrance is the slogan “For the Greater Good”, a phrase he and a young Albus Dumbledore once shared as a justification for their plans to establish a new wizarding world order. Following his legendary duel with Dumbledore in 1945, Grindelwald was defeated and subsequently incarcerated within his own creation. He was held in the highest cell of Nurmengrad, where he remained the sole prisoner for over fifty years until his death.

Nurmengrad appears in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when Lord Voldemort is hunting for the Elder Wand. Having learned that Grindelwald once possessed it, Voldemort travels to the prison to interrogate him. Through his mental connection with the Dark Lord, Harry Potter witnesses Voldemort's arrival at the prison and the subsequent confrontation. Inside the cell, Voldemort finds an aged, emaciated Grindelwald. However, Grindelwald shows no fear, taunting Voldemort and refusing to disclose any information about the Elder Wand's location or its last master. Enraged by Grindelwald's defiance, Voldemort murders him. This event is crucial as it ultimately helps Harry deduce that Albus Dumbledore was the true master of the wand after defeating Grindelwald.

• The Highest Cell: The only specific location described within Nurmengrad. It served as Gellert Grindelwald's prison for the remainder of his life. It is here that Lord Voldemort confronts and kills him.

• The name “Nurmengrad” strongly echoes “Nuremberg” (Nürnberg in German), the city where the post-World War II trials of Nazi war criminals were held. This parallel reinforces the thematic connection between Gellert Grindelwald's reign of terror and the fascist dictatorships of the Muggle world in the 1930s and 1940s.
• In the film Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Nurmengrad is depicted as Grindelwald's base of operations in the Austrian Alps before it becomes his prison (film).