Speyer
The
rathaus in 1933 and today. During the war, Speyer was the site of one
of the first encounters between pilots and UFOs, or Foo Fighters as they
were called at the time:
In an encounter on November 27, 1944 over Speyer, pilots Henry Giblin and Walter Cleary reported a large orange light flying at 250 mph about 1,500 feet above their fighter. The radar station in the sector replied that there was nothing else there. Nevertheless, a subsequent malfunction in the plane's radar system forced it to return to base. An official report was made - the first of its kind - which resulted in many jokes at the pilots' expense. After the 27 November encounter, pilots who saw the Foo Fighters decided not to include them in their flight reports.Alan Baker Invisible Eagle -The History of Nazi Occultism
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| Einst und jetzt... |
Trier (Rhineland-Palatinate)
Hitler being driven down Kölner Straße in May, 1939. The Kemmelkarne on the Petrisberg, set up by the Nazis in 1938, became a notorious prison camp during the war- STALAG XII- in which mainly French prisoners of war were accommodated. The synagogue was desecrated by the Nazis in the Reichspogromnacht in 1938 and completely destroyed by a bomb attack in 1944. On June 16, 1936 the city of Trier signed a contract with the German Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Bildung und Volksbildung to build a teacher training centre. Trier thus became again a university town after 138 years. The Teacher Training Centre was opened in the summer of 1936 with the presence of Reich Minister of Education, Bernhard Rust, with a large, two-day celebration and a strong Nazi celebration. The buildings erected for the Teacher Training Centre on the Schneidershof are largely preserved and today the buildings J, K, L, O, T (Gymnasium) and today's nursery of the Trier University of Applied Sciences remain. From September 1944 onwards, the city was not far from the front line, and was shot almost daily by American artillery. In December 1944, there were three heavy air raids on the Trier allies. On December 19, thirty British Lancaster bombers dropped 136 tons of explosive bombs across the city. Two days later on December 21, 1944, around 14:35, 94 of Lancaster bombers and 47 American bombers were dropped 427 tons of bombs (explosive, fire and napalm bombs). Two days later, on December 23, 700 tons of bombshell were dropped to the city. According to research by the local researcher Adolf Welter, at least 420 people died during these December attacks in Trier. Numerous buildings were damaged. On December 24, 1944 American B-26 attacked the Pfalzel Bridge. During the war, 1600 houses were completely destroyed. On the evening of March 1, 1945, the task force Richardson started towards Trier. A clear full moon night offered favourable visibility. Before midnight they reached the city. A surprised company with four armoured gunmen capitulated without a shot. Richardson divided his troops into two halves and sent them both to a Mosel bridge. The northern team found 'its' bridge blown up; The Kaiserbrücke team reported that the bridge (Roman bridge) - it had stood for almost 2000 years - was intact. Colonel Richardson drove himself in a tank to the bridge; Where his men were fired with light weapons from the other bank. He directed machine-gun fire from his tank to the other end of the bridge and ordered an infantry and an armoured group to advance across the bridge. When the infantrymen did so, a German major and five soldiers with burning detonators and an igniter ran toward the bridge but they were not able to explode. On March 2, 1945, the city fell into the hands of the Allies without heavy fighting.
The
Hauptmarkt, scene of street battles between Nazis and Communists, in
1935 and today with St. Gangolf church in the background.
In 1935 the Gestapo moved its offices here at the former Reichsbahngebäude at Christophstraße 1.
Simeonstraße in 1939 and today
Hitler's portrait on the Porta Nigra. Porta-Nigra-Platz became Adolf-Hitler-Platz in 1933
Nazi propaganda at the cathedral on the Domfreihof reading "Deutsche Jungens und Mädels meidet die konfessionellen Jugendverbände"("German boys and girls- avoid confessional youth organisations." By 1937 all Catholic youth organisations would be banned.
The usurpation by force of the leadership of the Reich Committee of the German Youth Associations (Reichsausschluß deutscher Jugendverbände) on April 5, 1933, the umbrella organization for all youth organisations in Germany, with a total membership of between 5 and 6 million young people, marked the beginning of Gleichschaltung of the political, religious, and youth movement–oriented youth organizations, their disbanding or forced transfer into the Hitler Youth. This led to a signicant increase in the Hitler Youth membership ranks and at the same time augmented the ranks of the league. The Hitler Youth continued to expand its sphere of power. For example, an agreement signed with the Reich sports leader (Reichssportführer) made it possible by 1936 to construct an organizational nexus, making any individual activity in sports dependent for all practical purposes on concomitant membership in the Hitler Youth. Similar agreements existed with the Reich Ministry for Nutrition (Reichsnährstand), the organization of National Socialist female students (Arbeitsgemeinschaft nationalsozialistischer Studentinnen, or ANSt), the National Socialist Welfare Organization (NSV), and the National Socialist Labour Organization (DAF). By binding more and more activities and interests to compulsory membership in the Hitler Youth, the net of inclusion became ever tighter and more closely meshed.
Dagmar Reese (32-33) Growing Up Female in Nazi Germany
In Sichelstraße the former Bishop-Korum-house served as a gaol for collecting Jewish women and children beginning April 1942.
A mounted plaque on the site commemorates this doleful event. At this point was 1929-1931 at the initiative of the "Marian Jünglingscongregation" (MJC), a Catholic youth organisation, established the so-called Bishop-Korum-house, which was demolished in the 1960s and replaced with the current building. From 1942 it served as a rallying point of the female Jewish prisoners prior to their deportation to concentration camps Lublin, Theresienstadt or Auschwitz. Of the more than 400 Trier Jews who were deported to concentration camps between 1933 and 1945, only a few survived- some sources suggest 14, others 20 - and would return to their home town.
The Karl Marx House museum is where Karl Marx was born in 1818; it is
now a museum. The significance of the house went unnoticed until 1904,
at which point the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) worked hard
to buy it, succeeding in 1928. After the Nazis came to power the
building was confiscated and turned into a printing house. Here the
corpse of the first victim of the Nazis, Social Democrat Hermann
Möschel, was laid out in 1932. On March 8 1933 over an hundred SA and SS
men stormed the building, tore down the imperial flag replacing it with
the swastika flag drove out the Socialists. The Karl Marx House was
first occupied by the police then confiscated by the Nazi Party, and
finally, on May 4 1933 became the headquarters of their party newspaper
"Der Stürmer."
...some buildings still physically in existence after 1933 also disappeared from tourist literature. The Reich Committee for Tourism chastised the Trier Tourism Office for distributing a brochure that alluded to the house in which the ‘famous German Socialist Karl Marx was born’. The Committee therefore ordered the immediate destruction of material making such references to the ‘Marxist-liberalist past’On May 5, 1947 the building was opened as a museum of the life and works of Karl Marx. On March 14, 1983, on the 100th anniversary of Marx's death, the museum was re-opened after a year-long renovation that expanded it to three floors where it now includes the history of communism in the Soviet Union, China, Central and Eastern Europe.
Semmens (60) Seeing Hitler's Germany
The Nazis' local group in Trier was founded in November 1925. In May 1930 there were only 150 members which rose to 800 in 1932. There had been increased interest from small and medium-sized businessmen. In 1931 about 35% of Nazi members belonged to the middle class. The Trier retailers had already founded a "trade and trade union" around 1900, in which the small and medium-sized shopkeepers opposed the supposed "growing pressure of the department stores" - which were mostly Jewish - under the motto "Our greatest enemy is the Department store ". The "National Socialist Handicrafts, Trade and Trade Organisation" (NS-Hago) ordered on the 8th and 10th of March, 1933 that individual Jewish shops be boycotted. On April 1, 1933, within the framework of the Reichsbundes Generalboykotts, two large Jewish department stores were occupied by Nazi brownshirts including the Kaufhaus Haas. Already one evening before, on March 31, leading Jewish personalities had been taken into so-called "protection" including lawyer Dr. Voremberg as well as Max and Albert Haas. The importance of Haas, founded in 1869, is reflected in the fact that the Reichsregierung allowed her in emergency years after the First World War to make emergency money. In 1929, more than 400 employees worked in the largest department store in the government district of Trier. After the Nazis had made a further step of escalation in April 1935, many "new" firms claimed that they were now "German shops": Schuhhaus Hans Klodt, formerly a Jewish business haul in Brotstrasse 44; The "Geschwister Schiefelbusch" took over the handicraft business A. Schapira in Grabenstraße 16; Simon Reilinger's Jewish women's confectionery shop in Brotstraße 8/9 took over the "Geschwisterskanz"; the Wollgeschäft Ernst Ermann in Fleischstraße 2 to 4 became "Geschwister Nees".
The
Gasthaus "Zur Glocke" on Glockenstraße. It had been owned by a Nazi
activist and was a meeting place for them where they instigated attacks
on political opponents.
The Speyerer Tor from the south side at the turn of the century and today with lions added. The gate had been erected in in 1772/73 according to the plans of the Mannheim architect Nicolas de Pigage. Today it remains the last of its kind which is preserved in Rhineland-Palatinate. The damage shown in both images dates from 1794 when, on January 3, during the first coalition war, a battle between the French revolutionary troops attacking from the south and the Prussian army defending the city took place in front of the Speyer gate. The French were firing at Frankenthal with cannons of eight and a half pounds, and they also met the Speyer Gate, which still bears the necessary damage. Likewise, a shot from muskets has left damage still existing on the gate facade and in the inner passage. The city grew rapidly in the following century, so that the walls were largely removed until 1870 making the gates superfluous. In the Second World War both gates were damaged, but they were preserved and restored later. A graphic representation of the Speyer Gate is the logo of the city of Frankenthal. 
American troops crossing the Amis Bridge in 1945
Then and now; only the buildings at the far right provide historical continuity
The Römerbrücke, Germany's oldest standing bridge, on August 27, 1941 and today
Hitlerstraße is now Bahnhofstraße
Grabenstraße after the war and today and a memorial
for the ubiquitous "victims of National Socialism", so vague that it
could refer to practically to anyone and everyone.
Braubach
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| Before the war and the wife at the same spot 80 years later |
A rumour had spread that Standartenführer Julius Uhl had planned to shoot Hitler on July 1, 1934 here at a concert of the singer Heinrich Schlusnus. Hitler himself referred to this in his July 13, 1934 speech to the Reichstag justifying his slaughter of his own men during the so-called Night of the Long Knives when he spoke of how
the man had already been hired in the meantime who was to carry out my elimination at a later date: Standartenführer Uhl, who confessed only a few hours before his death that he had been willing to carry out such an order.
Uhl in fact had been in Bad Wiessee when he was arrested on June 30 and taken to Stadelheim Prison. Apparently, "Uhl was chosen to play the leading role in Hitler’s concocted assassination plot due to his well-known prowess as a brilliant marksman" (Domarus, 496).
Bacharach
The wife again at Stahleck Castle overlooking the Rhine and as it appeared at the start of Nazi rule when this 12th-century fortified castle was completely rebuilt, providing 260 beds to the hostel using the site. The ceremonial laying of its foundation stone took place on 18 November 1934. The work, which took only 11 months, cost 25,000 reichsmarks and included addition of a kitchen, another Fachwerk building, on the south side. On 25 October 1935, the rebuilt building was officially dedicated. In the presence of members of the Hitler Jugend, the Deutsches Jungvolk, the Bund Deutscher Mädel, and both the SA and the SS, Gauleiter Gustav Simon gave the dedicatory address. Stahleck became one of 27 Jugendburgen (youth castles), to be used for indoctrination of teenagers and young adults. Between 1937 and early 1938, the turrets on the shield wall were built and its chemin de ronde roofed over. A visit by Rudolf Hess in June 1938 prompted the start of work to complete the rebuilding of the keep, which was still a ruined stump. The plan was to reconstruct it to a height of 36 metres and, 7 storeys, and name it the Rudolf Hess Tower. However, the existing foundations would not have been able to bear the weight, so the ruin was pulled down, and in November 1938, work began on a completely new tower on a smaller footprint. Work on this was interrupted by the outbreak of the war. From 1940 to 1942, the castle served as a military hospital. In addition, in November 1940, students from now occupied Luxembourg who had been studying at German and Austrian universities when the war began were forced to attend re-education classes there, and eventually a youth re-education camp was set up. Male schoolchildren and students from Esch-sur-Alzette and Echternach were interned at the castle for four months as punishment for protesting against the announcement in 1942 of the introduction of required military service in Luxembourg and the forced conscription associated with it, as well as for participating in the general strike which followed. (Girls were sent to a youth hostel at Adenau.) Those of military age were then sent to the front. There is a memorial plaque at the castle, and the State of Rhineland-Palatinate and the City of Bacharach have organised memorial events at which contemporary witnesses spoke. Beginning in January 1943, the castle was used as an internment camp for German youth who had shown insufficient loyalty to the Party, such as the founders of the Catholic youth resistance group the Michael Troop; some were taken from Stahleck to concentration camps. From June 1943 to summer 1944, it was a work and military training camp for Germans between 14 and 18 years of age.
Landau in der Pfalz
The big American accounting firm reported that the 'defective nature of the accounts' kept by the French 'made it impossible to produce an accountant's report on the foreign trade of the zone'. The Germans complained bitterly about these false accounts. No German accounting of the foreign exports was permitted by the French, who took the goods, at prices they set themselves, and paid not in the precious dollars received, but in marks, thus depriving the Germans of the one way they had to buy foreign food.46 For all these reasons, 'population losses were significant', according to the American writer F. Roy Willis. The death rate for the town of Landau in the Rheinland-Pfalz was 39.5%% in 1946, which was more than triple the pre-war rate. In 1947, it was 27%%, more than double the pre-war rate.
Bacque (36) Crimes and Mercies
Rheinbrohl
The Weintor, built in the autumn of 1936, marks the start of the Weinstrasse in the south of the Palatinate, less than a mile from the French border. It had been created as part of an economic initiative by the National Socialist government in the 1930s. at a time when the wine industry in the Palatinate wine region was in crisis. A wine harvest more than twice as large as usual had caused prices to crash by 1934. Government policy had compounded the industry's difficulties by forbidding the business activities of Jewish wine traders, who had hitherto provided a vital commercial link for the wineries. Party leaders came up with the idea of the German Wine Route, with the imposing "Weintor" at its southern end, as a way to increase general awareness of the region's wineries and to boost employment in the tourism sector locally. The regional Gauleiter, Josef Bürckel, produced an appropriately bombastic speech on 19 October 1935 as part of the official opening of the German Wine Route. His speech was entitled "Kampf und Volk – Wein und Wahrheit“.
The "Weintor" was clearly visible from across the frontier, and the Gauleiter's speech contrasted the activist policy of the national government with the economic turmoil in nearby France, then experiencing, nationally, a particularly savage and destructive bout of industrial unrest and economic gloom. Press reports of the opening ceremony wrote of it as a form of "Weihe" (consecration). At this time the Weintor in Schweigen was a provisional timber structure. At Grünstadt, near the northern end of the "Wine Route" a second "Weintor", this one of Papier-mâché, had been erected. As part of the ceremony a column of 300 vehicles drove the length of the German Wine Route in convoy, from south to north, but not before a single engined airplane had flown its entire length. The stone-clad "Weintor" was finally built in 1936 after an architectural competition for its design was won by August Josef Peter and Karl Mittel from Landau. The foundation stone was laid on August 27, 1936, and less than two months later, on October 18, it was formally inaugurated. Citizens of Wissembourg, which since 1919 had been part of France, enjoyed the fine view on the north side of their town, of a large two-headed imperial eagle carved on one side of the "Weintor", clutching a huge swastika in its talons. In France this was seen as provocative. After the war ended, in 1945, the huge stone swastika was cut away. Maikammer
Swastikas flying at the Kalmithaus (left) and Aussichtsturm (background) on the Southern Weinstraße
Frankenthal
In 1938 the Jewish synagogue, built in 1884, was burnt to the ground during the Reichskristallnacht.
During the Second World War the prisoner of war prisoners XII B (short Stalag XII B) of the German military power consisted in Frankenthal. In 1940, a forced labour camp was operated for several months as an outside camp of the SS special camp Hinzert (concentration camp) in Mörsch, the prisoners of which were employed in the highway construction (today's A 6). On September 23 1943, Frankenthal was heavily destroyed by bombs and lost a large part of its older buildings. In
1945, at the end of the war, its industries in ruins, it was
occupied first by the Americans and then by the French by way of
ultimate humiliation. The city was rebuilt in the post-war period, like many others, in functional, but unadorned architecture.
The Frankenthaler Brauhauskeller, where Hitler stayed in April, 1931. On February 21, 1933 the Nazis organised a public meeting here, attended by 200 people, half of whom were women. Women participated in such a large number, because Tuesday evenings at the Brauhauskeller was always when the "knitting and Flickstunde" of the Nazi female members took place. That same evening supporters of the Christian Social Service (CSVD), a strongly Christian-Protestant-conservative party, gathered in the restaurant "Ax" on Speyerer Straße. According to the speaker, Professor Risch from Speyer, the cause of the economic crisis is the "removal of God from the acquisition and public life and the worship of mammon". The leader of the CSVD in Frankenthal was the well-known saddler and presbyter Jakob Schatz.
Unemployed in front of the municipal welfare office in the Horn's house on the market square, today's Erkenbert Museum. On July 1, 1929, the number of unemployed and their dependents in Frankenthal amounted to 1,726. 743 people were supported by the municipal welfare system. After the outbreak of the global economic crisis in October 1929, the situation intensified dramatically. On October 1, 1930, the number of unemployed and their dependents was already 4,688; In total, Frankenthal had 26,439 inhabitants in 1930. More than 26 percent of them were dependent on unemployment or welfare support.
Idar-Oberstein
At the Oldenburg Landtag elections in 1931, the NSDAP received more than 37% of the votes cast, but could not form the government. After the Nazis had first given up a declaration of tolerance for the existing government, they were then soon demanding that the Landtag be dissolved. Since this was not forthcoming, the Nazis filed suit for a referendum, and they got their way. This resulted in dissolution on 17 April 1932. In the ensuing new elections on 20 May, the Nazis won 48.38% of the popular vote, and thereby took 24 of the 46 seats in the Landtag, which gave them an absolute majority. In Idar, which was then still a self-governing town, the National Socialists received more than 70% of the votes cast. They could thereby already govern, at least in Oldenburg, with endorsement by the German National People's Party, which had two seats at its disposal, even before Adolf Hitler’s official seizure of power in 1933. One of the new government’s first initiatives was administrative reform for Oldenburg, which was followed on 27 April 1933 by the similar Gesetz zur Vereinfachung und Verbilligung der Verwaltung (“Law for simplifying administration and reducing its cost”) for the Landesteil of Birkenfeld. Through this new law, 18 formerly self-administering municipalities were amalgamated; this included the self-administering towns (having been granted town rights in 1865) of Idar and Oberstein, which were amalgamated with each other and also with the municipalities of Algenrodt and Tiefenstein to form the new town of Idar-Oberstein. The law foreshadowed what was to come: It would be applied within a few weeks, without further discussion or participation, to the exclusion of the public and against the will of municipalities, who had not even been asked whether they wanted it, to places such as Herrstein and Oberwörresbach, Rötsweiler and Nockenthal, or Hoppstädten and Weiersbach. The restructuring also afforded the Nazis an opportunity to get rid of some “undesirables”; under Kreisleiter (district leader) Wild from Idar, all significant public positions were held until Hitler’s downfall by Nazis. In 1937, on the basis of the Greater Hamburg Act, the Landesteil of Birkenfeld was dissolved and transferred together with the “Restkreis St. Wendel-Baumholder” to the Prussian district of Birkenfeld, a deed which put all of what are today Idar-Oberstein’s constituent communities in the same district. After the Second World War, along with the whole district, the town’s whole municipal area passed to the then newly founded state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
Alzey
Mainz
In 1929 and today. After the Great War the French occupied Mainz between 1919 and 1930 according to the Treaty of Versailles which went into effect 28 June 1919. The Rhineland (in which Mainz is located) was to be a demilitarized zone until 1935 and the French garrison, representing the Triple Entente, was to stay until reparations were paid. In 1923 Mainz participated in the Rhineland separatist movement that proclaimed a republic in the Rhineland. It collapsed in 1924. The French withdrew on 30 June 1930. Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in January, 1933 and his political opponents, especially those of the Social Democratic Party, were either incarcerated or murdered. Some were able to move away from Mainz in time. One was the political organizer for the SPD, Friedrich Kellner, who went to Laubach, where as the chief justice inspector of the district court he continued his opposition against the Nazis by recording their misdeeds in a 900-page diary.
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| Schusterstrasse then and now |
During the war, more than thirty air raids destroyed about 80 percent of the city's centre, including most of the historic buildings. Mainz was captured on 22 March 1945 against uneven German resistance (staunch in some sectors and weak in other parts of the city) by the 90th Infantry Division under William A. McNulty, a formation of the XII Corps under Third Army commanded by General George S. Patton, Jr.Patton used the ancient strategic gateway through Germania Superior to cross the Rhine south of Mainz, drive down the Danube towards Czechoslovakia and end the possibility of a Bavarian redoubt crossing the Alps in Austria when the war ended. With regard to the Roman road over which Patton attacked Trier, he said:
one could almost smell the coppery sweat and see the low dust clouds where those stark fighters moved forward into battle.
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| The main railway station |
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| The Eisenbahnbrücke 1942 and today |
MacDonogh (276-277) After the Reich- The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation
President Hindenberg in July 1930 at a swastika-bedecked Schillerplatz, the Befreiungsdenkmal now replaced with the Fastnachtsbrunnen. The statue itself, Benno Elkan's "Rhenania" (representing a Rhineland freed from French brutality) was destroyed by the Nazis because of the Jewish background of the artist in late March 1933. Elkan then fled Germany and emigrated to England, where he lived until his death in 1960. In gratitude to the British, Elkan created a large Menorah featuring scenes from the Passion of the Jewish people . As a gift of the British Parliament, it is now before the Knesset in Jerusalem.
When they took power, the Nazis destroyed the huge memorial to Gustav Stresemann at Fischtrplatz.
Hitler speaking at the fussballplatz June 13, 1932
The marktplatz before the war, September 1942, and today
Annweiler am Trifels
Down the hauptstrasse then and now.
On the Sonnenberg behind lie the ruins of the castle of Trifels, in which Richard the Lionhearted was imprisoned from 31 March to 19 April 1193.
Neuwied
The Pegelturm and boathouse during the Nazi era and today
Linz am Rhein
In kreis Neuwied, the Rheintor at Burgplatz then and now, with a different flag flying. Paul Freiherr Eltz von Rübenach, who had served as Reich Minister of Postal Services and Transportation from 1932 to 1937, died in the town in 1943. After the Second World War, Linz became a part of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1946.
The Kaiser Wilhelm memorial with and without swastika.
After the First World War , the Rhineland was occupied by Allied troops. Koblenz was initially the American, then the French military administration. The last French soldiers left the city at the end of November 1929. Immediately tens of thousands of people gathered at the Deutsches Eck to watch the hoisting of the Reichsflagge at Ehrenbreitstein Fortress. On July 22, 1930, the monument was once again the scene of celebrations after the end of the Allied occupation of the Rhineland . In preparation for this, a total of 28 mushroom lights were permanently installed on the bank and the monument. On this day, President Paul von Hindenburg visited the Deutsches Eck at the end of his journey through the free Rhineland. After a firework display on the Ehrenbreitstein at the conclusion of the celebrations, a catastrophe occurred near the memorial, when a narrow pontoon bridge overloaded with crowds broke in and tore 38 people to their deaths.
During the air raids on Koblenz the city centre was devastated. The Kastorkirche and the Deutschherrenhaus were victims of the flames, while the Deutsches Eck remained largely undamaged. Shortly before the end of the Second World War , American troops of the 3rd US Army approached the city from the Eifel and began artillery fire . On March 16, 1945, the equestrian statue was hit by an American artillery shell. Whether this was intentional remains unanswered. In connection with the blank claim that Dwight D. Eisenhower had demanded the destruction, said Mario Kramp, more likely was "the fear of the Americans that German soldiers were entrenched in the monument area." The statue now hung down to the Rhine from the pedestal. Parts of the rare copper disappeared until finally the remaining statue was dismantled and melted down. Parts of the group of figures reappeared later, including the head of the emperor, who is now in the Koblenzer Middle Rhine Museum. The French military government planned to dismantle the pedestal and replace it with a new monument for peace and international understanding. Due to lack of funds, this plan was not realised. On May 18, 1953, the remaining pedestal was converted into a "memorial to German unity". To demonstrate this unit, the coats of arms of all German lands as well as those of the former eastern territories such as Pomerania , Silesia and East Prussia were placed on the pedestal. Four years later, the Saarland was added. With the reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990, the coat of arms series was supplemented by the names of the five new federal states.
In 1953 the monument was declared the Memorial to German unity by German president Theodor Heuss. The Germans remember the date since they sung their national anthem here for the first time on that occasion after the defeat in the Second World War. But the people of Coblenz wanted their ‘old Emperor William’ back. The former publisher of the Rhein-Zeitung , Werner Theisen , together with his wife Anneliese, on November 14, 1987, undertook to finance the reconstruction of the destroyed equestrian statue and to donate it to the city of Koblenz. For this he founded the citizens' initiative Deutsches Eck e. V. The Land Rhineland-Palatinate, as the owner of the German Corner, rejected the present on January 29, 1988, pointing out that it still had to remain a "memorial to German unity." A survey commissioned by Theisen in March 1988 among the citizens of Koblenz revealed that 80% agreed to a reconstruction of the monument. The citizens' initiative and Theisen commissioned the reconstruction of the group of figures on February 28, 1989 at the Düsseldorf metal sculptor Raimund Kittl , without having previously agreed with the regional government of Rhineland-Palatinate. Due to the reunification of Germany in 1990, the memorial lost its meaningful meaning. As a result, the CDU-led state government changed its mind and accepted the gift in September 1990. The new SPD-led state government under Rudolf Scharping came under public pressure from 1991 and tried to reverse the pledge. The project was discussed controversially in Koblenz and beyond. While the advocates brought positive effects on the cityscape of Koblenz and the local tourism in the meeting and also pointed out that the empty pedestal alone no longer have any meaning, the critics criticised the outmoded imperial cult and the role of William as Anheizer (" Kartätschen prinz") during the bloody course of the Märzerhebungen in Prussia in 1848 and as commander-in-chief in the suppression of the successful revolution in Baden and in the Palatinate. The inauguration of the restored monument took place on September 25 1993. However, the donor Werner Theisen could not live to see that, as he had already died on May 5, 1993. The criticism of the restoration of the monument is in the public no longer an issue, not even with regard to the person of William I.
The hauptbahnhof August 27, 1941 and today, with the fortress behind
After the Great War, France occupied the area once again. In defiance of the French, the German populace of the city has insisted on using the more German spelling of Coblenz since 1926. During the war it was the location of the command of German Army Group B and like many other German cities, it was heavily bombed and rebuilt afterwards. Between 1947 and 1950, it served as the seat of government of Rhineland-Palatinate. After the war it was filled in with debris from the bombing of the city. During the war, the palace complex was reduced to a shell by bombs in 1944. It was rebuilt in 1950–51, the exterior being accurately reconstructed using the original plans and the interior finished in 1950s style, except for a few spaces in the centre section whose interiors were reconstructed in the classical style of the palace's original construction.
The palace bedecked with Nazi flags and an amphitheatrical Thingplatz theatre in the palace forecourt and today. During the Nazi era, the Thingplatz was one of the first of a projected 400 to be built; in March 1934 building materials were brought up from the Rhine by citizens, over an hundred workers began work in two shifts on June 8, a mystical cornerstone-laying ceremony took place on June 16, and the theatre was dedicated by Mayor Otto Wittgen on March 24, 1935. The theatre was oval, 330 feet long by 230 feet wide and approximately sixteen feet deep; it was constructed using 16,000 basalt pillars, seated 20,000 people and could accommodate a further 80,000 standees in the surrounding areas of the forecourt. The layout incorporated a glacial boulder and, under the palace portico, a memorial grotto with an eternal flame. The motto of the theatre was Leuchte, scheine goldene Sonne über dies befreite Land (Gleam, shine golden sun, over this liberated land), and a lur was installed on the palace roof, to be sounded twice daily. It was audible up to 3.1 miles away. The Koblenz Thingplatz was one of the most important in the effort to use the locations for mystical observances, particularly at the summer solstice. However, interest in the Thingspiel movement waned rapidly, and already at the end of 1937 a contest was organised to redesign the forecourt as a simple parade ground, doing away with the amphitheatre; in later years it was mainly used for the annual May Day ceremonies.
The Weindorf (wine village) of Koblenz was established in 1925 as part of the Reichsausstellung Deutscher Wein (The Reich German Wine Exhibition), held from 8 August to 13 September 1925 as part of the celebrations for the 1000th anniversary of the Rhineland. Koblenz was chosen as the venue because the city is in the centre of the wine trade and tourist area. Above shows the largest exhibition hall, the Fachwerkhaus (also called the Rheinhalle), which was located in the middle of the exhibition area. Originally built only for the duration of the exhibition, the buildings were so popular that they have been retained since as a tourist attraction. Newly-elected President Paul von Hindenburg sent at the opening on August 8, 1925 a congratulatory telegram. The devastating air raid on Koblenz on 6 November 1944, left the site in ruins and it was eventually rebuilt in the 1950s, albeit in simplified form.
Rheinzabern
Adolf Hitler Straße then and now
Binger Straße in 1939 and today, under renovation. After the war, Ingelheim emerged as the only unscathed town between Mainz and Koblenz.
Demonstration outside the Burgkirche
Remagen
During World War II, one track was planked over to allow vehicular traffic. During Operation Lumberjack, on 7 March 1945, troops of the U.S. Army's 9th Armoured Division reached the Ludendorff Bridge during the closing weeks of World War II and were very surprised to see that the railroad bridge was still standing. It was the last of 22 road and railroad bridges over the Rhine still standing after German defenders failed to demolish it. U.S. forces were able to capture the bridge. The unexpected availability of the first major crossing of the Rhine, Germany's last major natural barrier and line of defence, caused Allied high commander Dwight Eisenhower to alter his plans to end the war and possibly shortened the war in Europe. The ability to quickly establish a bridgehead on the eastern side of the Rhine and to get forces into Germany allowed the U.S. forces to envelop the German industrial area of the Ruhr more quickly than planned. The Allies were able to get six divisions across the bridge before it collapsed on 17 March 1945, ten days after it was captured. The collapse killed 18 U.S. Army Engineers.
Hans Peter Kürten, at that time Mayor of Remagen, had long considered the idea of constructing a memorial. The negotiations with the German Federal Railway alone lasted seven years before the city could finally acquire the former railway property. Announcements sent to government officials concerning the intended preservation of the bridge towers and the construction of a Memorial to Peace stirred no interest. In the summer of 1976, it was necessary to remove the still intact bridge support pilings in the river. The mayor had the stones deposited on the Remagen river bank, with the idea in mind of selling small pieces of the bridge stones enclosed in synthetic resin and containing a certificate of authenticity. On 7 March 1978, he went public with his idea and achieved such an unexpected degree of success, that he had realised more than 100,000 DM in sales profits. There has not been another bridge built across the Rhine here, mainly due to opposition from the people of Remagen (and surrounding areas), contending that a bridge located at this point along the Rhine would spoil the view.
In his book Crimes and Mercies regarding allied brutality towards Germans after the war, James Bacque writes that
Much concerning these atrocities has been deliberately suppressed, some has been forgotten, some falsified, but perhaps the most poignant anecdote was given by an ex-prisoner, Johannes Heising, who in the 1990s published a book about his experiences in the US camp at Remagen. After the book was published, Heising was talking in 1991 with another former Remagen prisoner, Franz-Josef Plemper, who reminded him of something Heising had not described in the book: one night, the Americans had bulldozed living men under the earth in their foxholes. Plemper described the scene to him: 'One night in April 1945, I was startled out of my stupor in the rain and the mud by piercing screams and loud groans. I jumped up and saw in the distance (about 30-50 meters) the searchlight of a bulldozer. Then I saw this bulldozer moving forwards through the crowd of prisoners who lay there. In the front it had a blade making a pathway. How many of the prisoners were buried alive in their earthholes I do not know. It was no longer possible to ascertain. I heard clearly cries of "you murderer".' And then Heising remembered.Schifferstadt
Beilstein
The Zehnthaus during the Third Reich and today. The municipality had been the setting for a number of Nazi-era films such as Carl Froelich’s 1936 work Wenn wir alle Engel wären (“If We Were All Angels”) starring Heinz Rühmann (described by Hull, 104, as "the best comedy of the year which contained a number of racy situations that would have curled the hair of an American censor) and the 1938 film Das Verlegenheitskind starring Ida Wüst and Paul Klinger. Not far from the castle above the town is an old Jewish Cemetery who graves- many dating back two centuries- are engraved in Hebrew and topped with stones of remembrance. Beilstein's Jewish citizens co-existed peacefully within its business and social community for centuries. At various points in history, Beilstein was able to shield Jews from anti-Semitism and at one time Beilstine's population was nearly a quarter Jewish, but the Jewish population began leaving the area prior to Hitler's rise. Its synagogue was built in 1320 when German Emperor Henry VII allowed ten Jewish families to settle in Beilstein and build a synagogue which included a mikveh and women's gallery as well as the main worship hall.In 1925 the synagogue was sold for use as a barn and stable (which included a pigsty - with pigs slaughtered in the mikveh), and thus is one of the very few to have survived the war relatively intact. In the summer of 1942, Beilstein’s last Jewish family was deported and died in a Nazi concentration camp. In the early 1990s an artist whose father from the town survived the Holocaust bought and restored the building where it now serves as an art gallery; its third floor is maintained as a small museum preserving the memory of the city’s Jews.
Worms
Two American GIs take cover on the bridge on the Nibelungenbrücke on March 28, 1945, as snipers on the other bank of the Rhine take aim. In the foreground lies one of their victims.
Die Nibelungenbrücke verbindet die rheinland-pfälzische Stadt Worms über den Rhein mit den hessischen Städten Lampertheim und Bürstadt. Die Brücke im Verlauf der B 47, hier identisch mit Nibelungen- und Siegfriedstraße, ist die einzige Straßenbrücke zwischen Mannheim im Süden und Mainz im Norden. Sie wurde nach der Nibelungensage benannt und birgt mit dem Nibelungenturm eine Wormser Sehenswürdigkeit. Nachdem bei Worms der Fährbetrieb urkundlich seit dem Jahr 858 belegt ist, entstand die erste Schiffsbrücke im Jahr 1855. Die erste feste Brücke über den Rhein war von 1900 bis 1945 die Ernst-Ludwig-Brücke. Die im Zweiten Weltkrieg zerstörte Brücke wurde als Nibelungenbrücke (heute „alte“ Nibelungenbrücke genannt) von 1951 bis 1953 wieder aufgebaut. Aufgrund von gewachsenem Verkehrsaufkommen und Sanierungsbedürftigkeit wurde von 2005 bis 2008 parallel zur „alten“ die „neue“ Nibelungenbrücke errichtet. Seit der 2013 vollendeten Sanierung der „alten“ Brücke führen die zwei Fahrstreifen der „alten“ Brücke stadteinwärts und die zwei der „neuen“ stadtauswärts.[1] Beide Brücken verfügen über kombinierte Fußgänger- und Radfahrwege. Die alte Nibelungenbrücke einschließlich des Nibelungenturms ist ein Kulturdenkmal sowohl nach dem Hessischen Denkmalschutzgesetz als auch nach dem rheinland-pfälzischen Denkmalrecht. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Geographische Lage 2 Vorgeschichte 3 Brücken 3.1 Ursprung: Ernst-Ludwig-Brücke (1900 bis 1945) 3.2 Erste bzw. „alte“ Nibelungenbrücke (seit 1953) 3.3 Parallelbau „neue“ Nibelungenbrücke (seit 2008) 4 Nibelungenturm 5 Literatur 6 Weblinks 7 Einzelnachweise Geographische Lage Die Nibelungenbrücke steht unmittelbar östlich der Stadt Worms und leitet mit den hier auf der B 47 verlaufenden Ferienstraßen Nibelungen- und Siegfriedstraße über den Rhein zum Lampertheimer Stadtteil Rosengarten und zur weiter östlich befindlichen Stadt Bürstadt über. Die zwischen den Rheinkilometern 443 und 444 errichtete Zwillingsstraßenbrücke verbindet die rheinland-pfälzische Region Rheinhessen im Westen mit dem Hessischen Ried im Osten. Auf rheinland-pfälzischer Seite und damit westlich der Nibelungenbrücke hat die B 47 direkt an der Brücke Anschluss an die B 9. Westlich des Rheins breitet sich die Wormser Kernstadt aus, nordwestlich der Brücke liegt der städtische Festplatz, unmittelbar nördlich die Rheinpromenade mit Restaurants, kleiner Parkanlage und Hagendenkmal und etwas südlich des Bauwerks befindet sich der „Floßhafen“. Unter der westlichen Vorlandbrücke hindurch führt die Hafenbahn Worms. Auf hessischer Seite und damit östlich der Brücke hat die B 47 bei Bürstadt Anschluss an die B 44. Östlich des Rheins erstreckt sich entlang des Flussufers etwas stromabwärts das Naherholungsgebiet Maulbeeraue mit einem dieses östlich abgrenzenden Altrheinarm. Die nächste rheinaufwärts stehende Straßenbrücke ist die etwa elf Rheinkilometer weiter südlich zwischen Mannheim im Osten und Frankenthal und Ludwigshafen im Westen befindliche Theodor-Heuss-Rheinbrücke im Zuge der A 6. Die nächste Straßenbrücke rheinabwärts ist die rund 51 Rheinkilometer weiter nördlich zwischen Mainz im Westen und Ginsheim-Gustavsburg im Osten errichtete Weisenauer Brücke im Zuge der A 60. Etwa 2,3 km rheinabwärts queren die Nibelungenbahn und die Riedbahn den Rhein auf der Rheinbrücke Worms, der einzigen Eisenbahnbrücke zwischen Mannheim und Mainz. Vorgeschichte Der Fährbetrieb bei Worms ist erstmals in einer Urkunde aus dem Jahr 858 belegt, in der Ludwig der Deutsche die Schifffahrtsrechte des Klosters Lorsch bestätigt. Spätestens im
Die Nibelungenbrücke verbindet die rheinland-pfälzische Stadt Worms über den Rhein mit den hessischen Städten Lampertheim und Bürstadt. Die Brücke im Verlauf der B 47, hier identisch mit Nibelungen- und Siegfriedstraße, ist die einzige Straßenbrücke zwischen Mannheim im Süden und Mainz im Norden. Sie wurde nach der Nibelungensage benannt und birgt mit dem Nibelungenturm eine Wormser Sehenswürdigkeit. Nachdem bei Worms der Fährbetrieb urkundlich seit dem Jahr 858 belegt ist, entstand die erste Schiffsbrücke im Jahr 1855. Die erste feste Brücke über den Rhein war von 1900 bis 1945 die Ernst-Ludwig-Brücke. Die im Zweiten Weltkrieg zerstörte Brücke wurde als Nibelungenbrücke (heute „alte“ Nibelungenbrücke genannt) von 1951 bis 1953 wieder aufgebaut. Aufgrund von gewachsenem Verkehrsaufkommen und Sanierungsbedürftigkeit wurde von 2005 bis 2008 parallel zur „alten“ die „neue“ Nibelungenbrücke errichtet. Seit der 2013 vollendeten Sanierung der „alten“ Brücke führen die zwei Fahrstreifen der „alten“ Brücke stadteinwärts und die zwei der „neuen“ stadtauswärts.[1] Beide Brücken verfügen über kombinierte Fußgänger- und Radfahrwege. Die alte Nibelungenbrücke einschließlich des Nibelungenturms ist ein Kulturdenkmal sowohl nach dem Hessischen Denkmalschutzgesetz als auch nach dem rheinland-pfälzischen Denkmalrecht. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Geographische Lage 2 Vorgeschichte 3 Brücken 3.1 Ursprung: Ernst-Ludwig-Brücke (1900 bis 1945) 3.2 Erste bzw. „alte“ Nibelungenbrücke (seit 1953) 3.3 Parallelbau „neue“ Nibelungenbrücke (seit 2008) 4 Nibelungenturm 5 Literatur 6 Weblinks 7 Einzelnachweise Geographische Lage Die Nibelungenbrücke steht unmittelbar östlich der Stadt Worms und leitet mit den hier auf der B 47 verlaufenden Ferienstraßen Nibelungen- und Siegfriedstraße über den Rhein zum Lampertheimer Stadtteil Rosengarten und zur weiter östlich befindlichen Stadt Bürstadt über. Die zwischen den Rheinkilometern 443 und 444 errichtete Zwillingsstraßenbrücke verbindet die rheinland-pfälzische Region Rheinhessen im Westen mit dem Hessischen Ried im Osten. Auf rheinland-pfälzischer Seite und damit westlich der Nibelungenbrücke hat die B 47 direkt an der Brücke Anschluss an die B 9. Westlich des Rheins breitet sich die Wormser Kernstadt aus, nordwestlich der Brücke liegt der städtische Festplatz, unmittelbar nördlich die Rheinpromenade mit Restaurants, kleiner Parkanlage und Hagendenkmal und etwas südlich des Bauwerks befindet sich der „Floßhafen“. Unter der westlichen Vorlandbrücke hindurch führt die Hafenbahn Worms. Auf hessischer Seite und damit östlich der Brücke hat die B 47 bei Bürstadt Anschluss an die B 44. Östlich des Rheins erstreckt sich entlang des Flussufers etwas stromabwärts das Naherholungsgebiet Maulbeeraue mit einem dieses östlich abgrenzenden Altrheinarm. Die nächste rheinaufwärts stehende Straßenbrücke ist die etwa elf Rheinkilometer weiter südlich zwischen Mannheim im Osten und Frankenthal und Ludwigshafen im Westen befindliche Theodor-Heuss-Rheinbrücke im Zuge der A 6. Die nächste Straßenbrücke rheinabwärts ist die rund 51 Rheinkilometer weiter nördlich zwischen Mainz im Westen und Ginsheim-Gustavsburg im Osten errichtete Weisenauer Brücke im Zuge der A 60. Etwa 2,3 km rheinabwärts queren die Nibelungenbahn und die Riedbahn den Rhein auf der Rheinbrücke Worms, der einzigen Eisenbahnbrücke zwischen Mannheim und Mainz. Vorgeschichte Der Fährbetrieb bei Worms ist erstmals in einer Urkunde aus dem Jahr 858 belegt, in der Ludwig der Deutsche die Schifffahrtsrechte des Klosters Lorsch bestätigt. Spätestens im
Werdohl
The town swimming pool then and now, relatively unchanged.
Laubenheim
The two memorials for fallen soldiers in the cemetery; the older, smaller monument to the Laubenheimer soldiers fallen during the Franco-Prussian War was originally on the market square but, under the Nazis, was moved here. The larger monument was erected for donations from the population and the local associations for the victims of the First World War and was consecrated on August 31, 1931, according to the log book of the warriors and soldiers comrades in Laubenheim on the Rhine "in a distinguished, worthy manner". The monument was built of limestone and bore on the front a panel with the names of the fallen. Above the table was the representation of a soldier's head with a steel helmet topped by a pyramid-shaped point with the Iron Cross. Under mayor Wilhelm Spies in 1960 it was covered with marble tiles. Instead of the nomenclature, a book with the names of the soldiers who had fallen in the two world wars and the Laubenheimer citizens who had been killed in the bomb attacks were inserted.
Landau
Wörrstadt
Landau
The post office on the former Adolf-Hitler-Straße
Wörrstadt
Adolf-Hitler-Strasse (now Pariserstrasse) with the Laurentiuskirche in the background.
The ancestral home of the Heinz and Trump families, two prominent business and political families in the United States.
Kallstadt
The ancestral home of the Heinz and Trump families, two prominent business and political families in the United States.
