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Bob Williams.
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January 28, 2017 at 3:40 pm #2871
Wow these threads meander –
Your wartime school come prison come hospital reminded me of holiday in 2011 in northern France.
We was staying on a fabulous family holiday camp an hour from Paris, close to Soissons, first cjoisom I’m 2006 for its proximity to disny on the way further south. But it was that good we returned year on year, beautiful region lots of history from nepolionic era, ww1 and 2.
One day on a notice board as a small hand written note on fence, that said call for a tour of Hitler’s bunker, so as you do , I called some shady number and carted my lad and father-in-law to some co ordinates about 20 mins away. Lovely Hamlet, with a shot up church tower with 360° arch’s of fire, and a small entrance to a bunkwr so was underwhelmed thinking that was it.
O was I wrong, the guy turned up, and we followed him a good 15mins through a village and out the other side into a wooded valley , and down a deserted track, to a no entry gate with radiation signs on and landmark warning. (Look to kid and say make sure your seatbelt is off) , anyway what appears was like a small town build of concrete. It was Hitler’s number 2 bunker, the wiring there was so extensive French telecom room it over after the war , it could reach Evey front line from Russia to africa, and it was a maze of overgrown half cleared buildings, a aren’t only 10% was overground and reachable. It’s nw was wolfs lair 2, and was ment to oversee operation sealion,
Hitler never visited it, Rommal did once . It also had a huge private railway leading to it and a tunnel with bomb doors and accessories the complex, now a main line minus bomb doors.
There’s are two villages either side of it just a few miles away, but the pace was a secret untill the mid 2000s
After the war, because it’s infosructure nato took it over as HQ ,untill about 1960s iirc, when a prober nuclear retrofit would be to expensive and the French commandos took resedents, the urban warfare complex was till there and cease intresring to compare to our own.
Also at the back of the complex was a house for Hitler that Eva Braun (spelt wrong) stayed in, and a pool for her . Which I had to get into (no water)
I’ll searxh through my photos and see if I can pinpoint it’s location, but it’s doubtful as I used my Sony bridge, with no GPS. I’m sure I can Google foo it up. I’ll post some pics later.
Super cool place if you like to need outcome old war stuff. Also got some good pics of one of the nepolionic fob’s that house huge canons that protected the whole region .
*Apparently Holder used it once
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfsschlucht_II
Sorry my pics suck
https://goo.gl/photos/DGwwuu938sWkSifg8
Pit “wolfsschlucth II” into Google maps you’ll find it’s location, a great region to visit.
January 28, 2017 at 3:51 pm #2872I did a bit more digging, the annex had been a war time army camp with concrete blockwork buildings but appears to have been abandoned shortly after the war when a technical school took root there, only for a third change later on when it became the annex to the school into which I transferred. Since then the main school building was rebuilt the annex was closed and the whole lot changed out of all recognition. The only really abiding memory I had was that one teacher was busted in Russia for handing out political tracts and the chemistry master had only one eye and a state of fear about chemicals, opening bottles at arm’s length. He did not do much of that but for some reason we had cyanide in the lab so a degree of caution might well have been wise – not that it rubbed off on me when I later used a pipette to suck up cyanide solutions.
I believe that the machine tool maker might have been Cincinnati as they were once big on milling machines.
The site is now a housing estate, the rebuilt school was combined with the girls school some while back though I moved from the area a long time ago. My parents still lived in the town until they passed so I hear tiny snippets about the place, like your recollections Bob the stories I heard were not of comprehensive progress. Your old school site sounds to have been rather more interesting.
January 28, 2017 at 8:37 pm #2885That was interesting, no – fascinating, Steve. I had never heard of that, heard of the Felsennest, Tannenberg, Adlerhorst and Waldwiese. And the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin of course. I visited none of those, I suspect that the Germans have long ago turned them into something else, but I may be wrong. I have visited Dachaü and Bergen-Belsen though. Anyone who visits North Germany should see Belsen, it’s a most eerie place. Anyone going to the München area should also consider seeing Dachaü, which is almost as it was in terms of buildings, ovens/crematoria. Somehow, even with all that and graphic, large scale photographs, Dachaü did not affect me as much as Belsen. Belsen made all of our party feel creepy. Yellow grass, still air, no birds around. The hair stood up on the back of my neck in one area, and I was not alone with that feeling. 🙁
Richard it seems we may have parallels in the type of scool we attended. Our Chemistry and biology master was a mad 6’5″ Welshman named Davies. He carried a length of Bunsen tubing in his old tweed jacket pocket, tied into a knot at one end. He wore crepe soled shoes and would creep up behind a chattering pupil, then whack him upside the ear with the knotted end. I know: I was one of his regular targets. Eventually he took only Chemistry and a new guy took Biology. He was a Russian named (of all things) Asimov, and he was horrible. I asked him if he was related to Isaac Asimov and he was blank-faced, no idea what I was talking about. At the next lesson he ordered me out and screamed in my face “Do you think I write Science Fiction boy?” To which I replied “No sir, I just wish you did anything else but teach!”
Yet another visit to see the Head… :negative: B-)
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I'm out.January 28, 2017 at 11:32 pm #2896What I forgot to mention bob is the site has been gifted to the two local towns and they, through donations and free man hours are stripping all the 20 years of Forrest back and trying to save it. The great thing about frwance is because of its size and low population they don’t need to desert stuff and build over it so they abandon it, and eventually save and restore.
The north is full of military history dating back 150 years and castles like I’ve never seen, and I live in Wales, in great order.
One more infesting fact about the wolfs lair II, is it commandant (in going to butcher his name) shpidle [Sh-pie-dal] iirc , after the war, he was given command back of the sight and ran if for nato.
The tour guide was saying he had a great book, and that is where the majority of the facts about the palace came from. 6 years has passed so I may be butchering the name. But I’m going to look it up now. I know the place had a website. I just need to fined it. Or it do have a basic community built pre 2011 sits back then. I’ll update the link if I find it.
I think between me an the fil we but €im the kitty and bought some community made programs . God know where they are
January 28, 2017 at 11:59 pm #2897Double post, but thought best incase anyone interested (bob) doesn’t miss the update
Wolfsschlucht II – Hitler’s Forgotten Headquarters in France
General Model , is quated as in charge in this article above, but it was Hans Speidel that was incharge of the place. If you read his bio below , you will see he was , involved with the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. Which apparently the meetings took place at this bunker,. And he went on to head NATO from 57. General Model went on to a 1945 death.
Sadly in the article above it links to the community page, but it’s now dead ?. The pictures in the above article are taken in 2016 and alot of work has been done since 2011.
January 29, 2017 at 7:12 pm #2945More great history! Enjoyed reading all that Steve. I knew General Speidel was top Nato dog when I first joined BAOR in ’68, but he retired shortly afterwards. Pronouncing ‘ei’ in German is usually done opposite to English – say it like ‘eye’. Actually ‘ei’ is a word: means ‘egg’. The other way round, ‘ie’ is pronounced as ‘ee’ but a little bit shorter. That’s one of the first things I learned from my German ex- missus. Second was to duck…
I bookmarked that page, thanks for that. I have always been interested in WWII, then when I spent a total of 8 years in Germany, I got out amongst them and into the country, instead of getting legless in the NAAFI bar every night. Going there in ’68, 23 years after the War, there were some of the older Germans who obviously hated us being there, but mostly I had a good time and made many friends. More than one of them told me that they respected the way I tried to learn the language, even though the majority spoke English. My two German kids started school English at 5, although they knew enough from me before they went, and one teacher asked me to try speaking with a “better accent” to my kids! I asked if she understood WYSIWYG, had to tell her what it meant, lol.
Rommel was a hero to the German people even after the War. I think I have spoken about the pub my German ex-dragon had, which was a Local for all these ex-Afrika Corps guys. They absolutely worshipped the General’s memory and said that they would have followed him anywhere. He eventually took poison as an alternative to being hung with piano wire, which is what happened to many of the assassination plotters. Hitler had the story changed for publication to make the German public believe that Rommel died of wounds he sustained when an RAF Spitfire shot – up his staff car in Normandy. WIKI says “…a Canadian attack…”, it was actually a South African pilot in an RAF Spitfire of 602 Squadron: https://tinyurl.com/gv247j8
The Afrika Corps guys I spoke to believed that their General either committed suicide or was killed on Hitler’s orders, even though most of the ones I met were POW’s in Britain, at the time, and were given the official Hitler story whilst in POW camps. I learned some new German words when they spoke about Hitler!
I have done some digging and found a report at the time of his death in the NY Times: https://tinyurl.com/h5mo8ya
I also found this, is it the book you mention? https://tinyurl.com/zjzkf2r
Done digging for now, SWMBO has tea ready. :bye:
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.January 30, 2017 at 4:49 am #2965I forgot about the Paris connection, him saving it.
I found his book lastnight but in its German text. So that’s cool. I also found some rather seeds forums discussing how he sabotage or delayed so many panza divisions (3 I think) for about 8 hours the morning of Normandy.
We all know the story of no one wanting to wake Hitler, but aaperntly Romel and Speidel also had the authority to release over half the divisions north of France, but didn’t. They said they never knew of the landing in till about 08:30am and finally released the divisions about 10:15h.
However offical logs of the night say Speidel was notified about 01:00h of paratrooper droppings, he swnt on to say he just that it was a dieppe style commando raid and went to bed (as you do), but then there is logs of calls between Romal and spiedel from 06:00h, so they obviously knew by then somthing was happening, and it shouldn’t of taken them almost 5h to release the tanks. By that time two of the divisions was cut off, and one too far way
This is where some people think, he and Romel knew it was coming, and purposely did nothing, or as little as they could get away with, in an attempt to win the war, Romel and Speidels payment would of been Nato commands.
Intresting non the less. Amazing what you find when you go routing.
I just went and bought a copy of the book. I probably won’t read it for a decade, but it will go on the shelf. Got the paper back used form Iowa, swastikas and all, not the boring blue copy. Well it was the £5 v £67 that swung it. for a £52 saving I can live with swastikas.
January 30, 2017 at 6:29 pm #3021The only two countries where the Swastika cannot legally be shown, are Germany and Austria. This is their conscience and their guilt, which they have passed on through the generations. I thought that pretty stupid once, even very young kids are shown around the old camps. Then I thought about slavery and the old British Empire, which our government, the establishment and some of the liberal media, are always apologising for. (Except for Prince Philip, who thinks it all still exists.) That is forgetting the fact that it was Britain that ended slavery and gave away the Empire of course.
Hitler himself did not believe that the Normandy landings were anything but a diversion, until the Allies had almost taken Calais. His biggest mistake was thinking that he was a military genius, and right up to the end he was moving forces around which did not exist. He forgot that he had been just a corporal in WWI. He was not a German either, but an Austrian: his grandad’s birth name was Shicklegrüber, changed the family name – https://tinyurl.com/jgc97db
It may also be that Hitler had Jewish blood! read that article, it’s interesting.
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.January 31, 2017 at 1:55 pm #3068Bot if you haven’t you may want to read the Hitler bio written by Ian Kersaw, who it’s long but brilliant.
I’m a tall about ⅔ through Mein Kampf (by Hitler for anyone out the loop), and alot of people say it’s terribly written, and erratic. It’s slightly erratic, but I think fascinating. If you take the Jewish hate out, he actually makes alot of sense and alot of great social observations. And th parralles to the social climate today is frightening.
Ive just finished ‘Hunting Hitlers Nukes’ by Damien Lewis, all about Norway, all popular stories we all know, but faboulus hearing the true accounts. All his books are great, next in line of his is “the Nazi hunters”,
But first I’ve got ‘Girkha’ by kailash Limbu and ‘Game of spies’ by Paddy Ashdon.
I have a theme for my reading pastime if you haven’t noticed lol. Usually I’ll read 6 months around the war, then once burnt out / bored of ww2, ill move on to Sci fi for 6 months, then return to to war.
January 31, 2017 at 6:50 pm #3086Steve this is one of the first ‘real’ books I read about the War, as a kid: https://tinyurl.com/jkexb4j
My SIL, who had taken German at a Secretarial College that later became my Technical school, lent it to me. I must have been about 13 I think, it was well used by then. Published 1950, it tells stuff about WWII from a German POV, in fact both sides of the German POV. From the ones who decided to become Communist, to the other side that became West Germany. I had only remembered it when I started reading your last post. SIL says it fell apart years ago and although she is 86 now, still has a sharp mind and read out remembered passages from the book over the phone. My surviving middle bro, her husband is 87 now, in a much worse state than his wife, had two strokes and struggling, but TBH I got on better with my lovely SIL. And he was the direct opposite to her, a hard worker all his life but quite thick. Never knew what she saw in him, but they had 7 kids so it must have been something. :scratch: ? SIL’s dad was in the Anti-Aircaft on Malta in WWII, had a hard war by all accounts. Met and married SIL’s mum there, he was Irish, she was Maltese.
I am going to order that book, it’s a bit dated now but as I remember reading it several times, it points to the roots of the problems that caused the Cold War and the current disagreements in unified Germany. What was the East, still has problems of unemployment and they have the largest proportion of Right Wing voters.
You read more of “Mein Kampf” than I did, I just could not keep up with all Adolf’s ramblings, although as you say, there is a lot of truth in it. He just buried that in the racial crap. Big (unfunny) joke to me, is that the Israeli’s are now doing to the Palestinians, what the Nazis did to them. Gaza is the world’s biggest concentration camp, IMHO. I have a Jewish Army ex-mate in Manchester who dropped contact with me about those views. Still, he made Colonel with no discernible talent other than a big brown nose, so that’s no loss!
No offence meant to any Jewish person, the Holocaust was a terrible genocidal crime, but I do get a bit sick of it rammed down our throats all the time.
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I'm out.January 31, 2017 at 8:22 pm #3091I’ll look that book up, or at least add it to list. I really like reading the view from the other side. The problem with history is the Victor’s get to control it. Maybe now with the Internet age that old saying is over.
Talk about unfunny jokes, for a large part of mein Kampf, he really bangs on about the Jews controlling the media, and the propaganda they used. He actually said he learnt alot from them. He really repeated the British to, (don’t forget this was 1920s Hitler) he was very prode, and he talks alot about how had the German government was at not understanding the use of propaganda, and marveled at how Britain used to and it really did undermine the German solider, and had big effects.
He goes on to say after the war the Jews press took what the British learnt them and run with it.
The funny side is, the hollywood is very Jewish leaning, and the biggest Jewish pusher of agenders is George sorros, and he fund all kinds of stuff and controls the liberal media in the US and here.
George Sorros a Jewish kid, was given to a local town mayor while his family was taken and killed, he along with the mayor spent the war years pointing out Jewish family’s and repo’ing all the Jews belongings.
In an interview from the 90s when asked did he have regrets, he said no, It didn’t bother me, I did what I had to.
Sums the guy up. He is now funding world wide marches to undermine Trump, as he is yet to find a way to by trump.
I like history, I can’t wait to see how history views Sorros.
February 1, 2017 at 5:59 pm #3176My car is fixed, I parked it on my hill, which is quite steep, gave the throttle a good ASBO inducing threshing and a tiny stone shot out and hit my eldest girl in the shin. :good:
February 1, 2017 at 6:12 pm #3177@sgb101 – how did you get on with your recycle bin problems?? Did you find out who was stitching you up??
February 1, 2017 at 6:53 pm #3178@jayceedee sadly not, but it hasn’t happened since. It just stopped! I think I know who it was though. But what can you do.
I bought a dash cam for my car, I always wanted one, so not a wasts of cash, it actually gave me a reason to get one :good: fed if off a large 15k mwh battery pack, as it needs a live ignition to run, so needed an alternative power source. I repoirposed an old 64gb sd card.
I set it up every bin night for about 6 weeks, but all I picked up was local wildlife, and the bin men the next day.
If it starts again, I’ll be ready! I did by a camera module and ir detecror for my pi, only cheap, but never got round to implement it, as it was the time my wife went in hospital, and she was in For a total of 7 weeks over a 9 week period. So between work, kids school, feeding them and two trips to the hospital to deliver secret KFC care packages, I just didnt have the time, or energy it put it together.
But it won’t go to waste either, itz nor on my electronic kit box. Waiting for the right project.
February 2, 2017 at 3:03 pm #3233My car is fixed, I parked it on my hill, which is quite steep, gave the throttle a good ASBO inducing threshing and a tiny stone shot out and hit my eldest girl in the shin.
Oh dear, more parental abuse!!! :scratch: :yahoo:
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.February 3, 2017 at 5:30 am #3260I repoirposed an old 64gb sd card.
I’m more concerned with how he’s treating our oceanic life! :unsure:
February 5, 2017 at 4:43 pm #3384Plenty of Porpoises and Dolphins just off the coast from his Welsh village. I fear for them… :scratch: 🙂
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