Before the current airport

Prior to World War II, the Nuremberg area was served by a number of airfields in quick succession, all of which became inadequate in the face of the rapid development of aviation or fell victim to the same wars that had played a part in their construction. The first airfield in the area was built in 1915 by the Bavarian Army in the neighboring town of Fürth as a military air base. This Old Atzenhof Airport (Fürth Airfield) (49.4978°N 10.9553°E / 49.4978; 10.9553) remained in civilian use (the Versailles Treaty forbade Germany from maintaining an airforce but was silent on civil aviation) throughout the Weimar Republic until the new Nazi government opened the new Marienberg Airport (49.475833°N 11.094167°E / 49.475833; 11.094167) in Nuremberg. While the plans to build Marienberg Airport had existed before the 1933 power grab of the Nazis and it served supposedly civilian purposes, it was intended from its opening as a military airfield, which became openly admitted policy in 1935 with the establishment of the Luftwaffe, which maintained a base at Nuremberg-Marienberg airport. Largely destroyed in the war, the site of the former Marienberg airport, located a few km due south of the current airport, is today a public park. The former Atzenhof airfield was taken over by the US Army after the war and is today used as a golf course with some of the erstwhile airport buildings still extant.

Post-WWII

After World War II the US Armed Forces (Nuremberg being in the American Zone of Occupation) would use the main boulevard of the Nazi Party Rallying Grounds as a makeshift runway for their purposes, including the flights to and from the Nuremberg trials. However, even after Germans were allowed to partake in civil aviation again, that makeshift infrastructure was limited to use by the American military. Being thus left without a "proper" usable civilian airport — from 1950 to the completion of the new permanent airport passenger flights serving the area had to land at a private airfield (49.481667°N 10.953333°E / 49.481667; 10.953333) of a Fürth based company near the current endpoint of the U1 subway line, Fürth Hardhöhe station (A small plaque in the access tunnel to the subway station records that history.) The need to build an airport equipped for the demands of the rapidly growing aviation sector, in a country experiencing strong post-war economic growth, became pressing, and the young Federal Republic of Germany engaged in its first airport building project.

Early years at the current site

Nuremberg Airport was the first airport constructed in West Germany after World War II. It was inaugurated on 6 April 1955. Nuremberg Airport was in the American Zone of Occupation during German partition and to this day some US Army Bases in the vicinity (most notably U.S. Army Garrison Grafenwoehr) make use of the airport to fly in cargo and soldiers – the latter also on commercial flights.

In 1960, the number of passengers at Nuremberg Airport reached 100,000 for the first time. In 1961 the runway was extended from 1,900 to 2,300 metres (6,200 to 7,500 ft), and in 1968 the runway was extended to its present length of 2,700 metres (8,900 ft), allowing the then largest airliner in existence – the Boeing 747 – to use it. On 12 July 1970, a Boeing 747 landed at the airport for the first time and attracted 20,000 visitors. While a Boeing 747 used in passenger service at NUE is a rare sight, to this day freight flights using the largest serially produced civilian cargo plane take off and land at NUE with some regularity. In 1969 the then Munich Riem Airport shut down its main runway for maintenance for three weeks, which meant that most flights were redirected to Nuremberg Airport. This necessitated some upgrades to the existing infrastructure which cost some two million DM (equivalent to €3,918,006 in 2021).

The apron was enlarged in 1977 and in 1981 a new passenger terminal with an observation deck and a restaurant replaced the previous building. In December 1986, the one million passenger mark was passed for the first time.

The local entrepreneur and partial heir to the de:Rudolf Wöhrl SE, Hans Rudolf Wöhrl is associated with the airport in multiple roles, not least his involvement in the 1974 founding of the first private competition to Lufthansa on the German domestic market de:Nürnberger Flugdienst (NFD) which had a base of operations at Nuremberg Airport and ultimately wound up as part of Eurowings in 1992. Even after the end of his involvement with NFD, Wöhrl remained active in aviation and founded or took over multiple airlines as well as launching unsuccessful bids to take over struggling or bankrupt airlines like Air Berlin when it went bankrupt in 2017/2018.

The 1990s

In 1997/98, Air Berlin established a winter hub at the airport, making it the airline's second most important tourist interchange airport, after Palma de Mallorca.

The new control tower commenced operations in 1999 and the U-Bahn station was opened.