Germany December Itinerary Review

Sounds busy. You can go to Rothenburg from Nuernberg using a VGN ticket. It takes about 1 hour 20 minutes on the train. I might suggest doing this in the afternoon and returning late. You can leave Nuernberg at 2:36 pm and be there by 3:50. That will give you time to hit Kaetti Wohlfaurt's, have dinner and take Georg Baumgartner's famous Nightwatchman's Tour at 8 pm. Then get the 10:06 pm train back to Nuernberg by 11:35 pm.

You have 15 places to visit in 15 days. This is a whirlwind trip that doesn't sound very enjoyable. Have you factored in the time it takes to get to each of these places? You have barely left any time to do any sightseeing at all. You might want to consider that it is fully dark in Germany by 16:30 in Dec. and there may be many gray, cloudy, rainy or snowy days. If you are taking the slow train up the left side of the Rhine, you have an almost 3 hour train trip to Cologne after a trans-Atlantic flight. Not my idea of fun and I would fall asleep on the train. What did you want to see there that is so important to head there directly after a flight?

Rothenburg is a good 3 hour train trip one way out of Frankfurt so for a day trip this is not a good idea. There are similar towns a lot closer. Büdingen is a walled, medieval town only an hour outside of Frankfurt. Other charming quaint towns would be Gelnhausen, Limburg, Marburg, Idstein, etc.

Frankfurt has considerable sight seeing possibilities, but not sure what you are interested in seeing.

You do not need to go to all those places, and you will probably regret it if you try.

"Are there any places I should not miss?"

There are MANY other very worthwhile destinations in Germany - Trier, Bremen, or Bamberg, all with UNESCO World Heritage status, just for starters. But there's nothing on your list or elsewhere in Germany that you cannot miss. Everything is on the table. That said, you really can't go to ALL those places in 2 weeks without it being a blur. There may be some places on your list that you COULD miss, but that depends on your priorities. But one night everywhere or almost everhwhere becomes debilitating.

I don't really know what to suggest cutting since there's nothing in there about what you want out of your trip. There might be a lot of duplication in your list. There are NS documentation centers in several locations in Germany, and it's the same with concentration camps and other WW II sites too. There are palaces everywhere (H'schwangau and N'stein are palaces, not real castles, even though N'stein is routinely called a "castle.") There are Christmas markets everywhere.

"Am I spending way too much time in cities?"

In winter you really should be in cities a good amount of the time since you need some "warm" things to do - museums, etc.

If one uses geography as a yardstick for picking destinations, with Frankfurt as your "anchor", it could make sense to do a "circle" similar to yours but much tighter. Berlin is quite far but let's say it's on your list as it is on the list of so many others...

Berlin, maybe with a day trip to Potsdam or elsewhere. Dresden. Nuremberg, maybe w/ a day trip to Rothenburg and/or Munich. Stuttgart w/ day trip to a Black Forest town. Mainz or Frankfurt with a day trip to tour a Rhine castle or another medieval town like Büdingen as previously suggested. That way you average 3 nights per stop - 2 sometimes, 3 sometimes, 4 for Berlin. THAT would be more doable.

But which reduced loop you make really is your choice. I sort of like the one I provided as the winter weather in the Alps can disappoint folks enormously.

Will it be too foggy/dull? Is the railway through the Back Forest worth doing in December and should I stop anywhere along the way?

Russ mentioned concentrating on cities in the winter. In addition to the need for warmth that he cited, another reason is that rural scenery simply isn't at it's best in December. Daylight hours are at their minimum, what sun you do get is low on the horizon and most importantly, the atmosphere is very damp. So, all that technicolor scenery you take in during the summer looks like a dull gray haze in winter. Particularly from the window of a train. I wouldn't expect a train ride through the Black Forest to be particularly rewarding during this month.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm not very interested in History but I would like to see a concentration camp so that's why I want to visit Dachau. Is that a good choice? I'm visiting before Christmas so I'm visiting a Christmas Market. Would Nuremberg suffice or should I visit another? I know the weather will be gloomy and dull but I think some scenery might be interesting to look at. It'll be nice to visit some museums but I don't think I want to spend most of my time in museum's. I think I would also like to see areas of cultural/historical significance. Please also suggest any fun things to do. I particularly like the suggestion to do trips from different bases. Would this be ok?

Frankfurt:
Cologne (Someone has suggested I don't visit cologne)
Rhine castle/palace (Should I still visit Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau? Which is better)
Medieval Town (If I visit RodT is it still worth visiting another similar area?)

Berlin:
Potsdam
Dachau Concentration Camp
Any other places?

Dresden:
Russ suggested this as a stop itself so I assume it's worth visiting for a considerable amount of time?

Nuremberg:
RodT
Munich (Should this really be a side trip? I think it should be a stop in itself.)
Alps (Garmisch-Patenkirchen. I think it might be quite interesting to see it in winter.)

Stuttgart:
Black Forest Town (Any suggestions? What about Heidelberg?)

Thanks again.

"I'm not very interested in History but I would like to see a concentration camp."
Well then you ARE interested in history on SOME level. Dachau (day trip from Munich, not Berlin), or Sachsenhausen (day trip from Berlin.) Cologne has a former Gestapo prison turned into a documentation center (where the whys and hows behind the Nazi movement's atrocities in prisons and concentration camps are unraveled.)
"I think some scenery might be interesting to look at..."
So... mountains, forests, river valleys, etc.
I would also like to see areas of cultural/historical significance. "
Hmm. I see you DO like history now. I'm going to mess with your trip in a big way to make it easier to do and meet what seem to be your needs...
1.) Most people think Berlin is historically important and lots of fun. You should probably keep it. Take day trips to Sachsenhausen and Potsdam (which is mighty significant... not just because of Germany's predecessor (Prussia) but because Germany's future was decided there 70 years ago after WW II.) Sanssoucci Palace is there too. This really sounds like 5-6 days to me.
2.) You can drop Nuremberg. Berlin has a Nazi documentation center - right at the Wall memorial site. N'berg has a BUSY Christmas market, but there are markets everywhere. If you're worried about too many cities and want natural scenery, maybe it's not your place.
3.) You probably don't want too much more history, so skip Dresden.
4.) 2-3 hours west of Berlin are the Harz mountains. Great scenery and towns - not major cities - so maybe a couple of nights in the area. Wernigerode is on the German "Fachwerkstrasse", or "Half-timbered House Route."
Wernigerode and Christmas Market there.
Castle above Wernigerode
Goslar
Hildesheim is near Goslar too.
5.) Hamelin (Pied Piper town, on the German "Fairy Tale Route") and Hannoversch Münden (on the same route AND on the Fachwerkstrasse) lie west of the Harz mountains and between Frankfurt and Berlin. Grimm's Fairy Tales are huge in German culture. H. Münden has 700 old half-timbered buildings. This is a good area to see Germany as it might have looked centuries ago. Maybe a couple nights here.
6.) After that, head to the Rhine River for 3-4 nights. Stay in an old-world town here - it will be quiet, but Boppard or Braubach will work nicely for a few days - they're only 10-15 minutes from Koblenz with all city services. You can day trip to Bacharach, Cologne and Mainz from here.
Braubach (Marksburg Castle)
Boppard
Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Nuremberg... drop big cities bombed in WW II and see the picturesque Germany you want to see.

You had concerns about the winter scenery on the Rhine. Well, in winter there's not a lot of green in Germany. But on the Rhine the river and the cliffs and the castles and the villages do not disappear. Even a beautiful scene like THIS ONE IN ST.GOAR is compelling in winter as well. St. Goar might even get a dusting of snow.

Dresden: Russ suggested this as a stop itself so I assume it's worth
visiting for a considerable amount of time?

Well... most foreign visitors don't know this, but this is the region where most of Germanys Christmas traditions come from. The stuff you see at Käthe Wohlfahrt shops in Rothenburg or Rüdesheim is made to the south of Dresden, in the Ore mountains. The country's most popular Christmas cake, Stollen, comes from Dresden, and the local gingerbread, from a small town called Pulsnitz and mostly handmade, is easily as good as the one from Nuremberg (IMHO it tastes better). And the Christmas baubles come from nearby Thuringia btw..

You can read more about it here:
Longing for light
The true land of Christmas
The German towns that Christmas traditions sprung from
Germany's Christmas toy towns