Füssen
Standing
alongside Drake Winston in front of the Generaloberst-Dietl-Kaserne now renamed the Allgäu Kaserne and currently used
by the Gebirgsartilleriebataillon 225. Named after Eduard Wohlrath
Christian Dietl who served as a Generaloberst during the war, commanding
the 20th Mountain Army and ending up a recipient of the Knight's Cross
of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. The barracks were named in
his honour in May 1964 and the following year his military rank
"Generaloberst" was added to the name. In January 1982, on the occasion
of the renaming of a street in Dietl's birthplace of Bad Aibling,
the public battle began over the use of his name. In July 1987, a
citizens' initiative in Kempten called for the renaming of "General
Dietl-Straße" followed in February 1988 with Pax Christi calling for the renaming
of the "Generaloberst-Dietl-Kaserne" in Füssen. Furious reactions
followed wherein anyone who took a public position for its renaming came
upon resistance in the form of anonymous calls, letters and even
murders. The Petitionsausschuss of the Bundestage, on the other hand,
recommended raising awareness of the renaming of the barracks by
informing the troops that it would serve as a contribution to the
"reworking of the recent German past". On the other hand, the local CSU
deputy, Kurt Rossmanith, declared how "Generaloberst Dietl was and still
is a model for me in humanity and soldiery." On November 9, 1995 the
then-Federal Minister of Defence, Volker Rühe, finally decided to
recruit the Generaloberst-Dietl-Kaserne in Füssen and the General-Kübler
-Barracks in Mittenwald which met with bitter criticism from the
comrades' circle of the mountain group.
The building still displays the Second World War soldier on its façade
belonging to the German mountain corps, part of the German armed forces
specially trained and equipped for the battle in difficult terrain and
under extreme climatic conditions. The German alpenkorps
was the first large association of the German mountain group set up
according to the Austro-Hungarian model in 1915, used primarily in the
Alpine area and the Balkans in the First World War. The Reichswehr,
Wehrmacht, and the Waffen-ϟϟ set up their own mountain groups and their successes were used by the Nazi regime as propaganda and sometimes overestimated or exaggerated so
that Generaloberst Dietdu (a Nazi member since 1921) was hailed by
Propagandaminister Goebbels as "the hero of Narvik."
In the war they would be involved in a series of war
crimes such as the massacre on Kefalonia and, in this context, the
tradition of the mountain group is accused of ignoring its own role in
the Third Reich explaining the disquiet over such remaining artwork.
During the war, a subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp was located in the town.
The building still displays the Second World War soldier on its façade
belonging to the German mountain corps, part of the German armed forces
specially trained and equipped for the battle in difficult terrain and
under extreme climatic conditions. The German alpenkorps
was the first large association of the German mountain group set up
according to the Austro-Hungarian model in 1915, used primarily in the
Alpine area and the Balkans in the First World War. The Reichswehr,
Wehrmacht, and the Waffen-ϟϟ set up their own mountain groups and their successes were used by the Nazi regime as propaganda and sometimes overestimated or exaggerated so
that Generaloberst Dietdu (a Nazi member since 1921) was hailed by
Propagandaminister Goebbels as "the hero of Narvik."
In the war they would be involved in a series of war
crimes such as the massacre on Kefalonia and, in this context, the
tradition of the mountain group is accused of ignoring its own role in
the Third Reich explaining the disquiet over such remaining artwork.During the war, a subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp was located in the town.
Füssen of course provided the main location for the film The Great Escape. What follows are sites from the town and as they appeared in the film, from the most part as identified in the site Reelstreets through the sleuthing of Patrick Friedrich. Here the town is first shown in the background behind the Lechhalde bridge asFlight
Lieutenants William Dickes (John Leyton) and Danny Velinski (Charles
Bronson), having escaped from Stalag Luft III, attempt to row down the
Rhine. For
the filmmakers, Füssen and the surrounding area offered ideal filming
locations: a small airfield that was important as a prerequisite for
escaping by plane, an almost medieval-looking old town without war
damage with narrow streets and roof landscapes, a varied nature in the
Allgäu with the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, which was also known in
America to be in Germany. The diverse landscape types near Füssen
enabled the director to do numerous tricks: the village of Pfronten
becomes the border town in front of Switzerland, in the swampy Schwansee
Park two refugees cross the border to Spain, at the Theresienbrücke
members of the Resistance work in a replica French café, et cet.
Two of the fleeing allies escape on the Lech reach a ship in the port of
Hamburg with their rowing boat. Hendley and the forger Blythe fly over
Lake Constance to Switzerland with a stolen plane, in fact actually
flying over Weißensee, past Neuschwanstein Castle and along the Hohen
Straussberg. Because they don't understand the German air control system,
they crash in the Miesbach district near Frauenried am Irschenberg near
the Mariä-Geburt-Kirche.
Meanwhile Flying Officer Louis Sedgwick (James Coburn), having escaped after making off with a bicycle in a scene shot at Markt Schwaben, has arrived in what is supposed to be a French town but which St. Mang unmistakably identifies as Füssen. Based loosely on a
true story based on Paul Brickhill's 1950 book about the real-life mass
escape by British Commonwealth PoWs from Stalag Luft III in Sagan (now
Żagań, Poland). John
Sturges wrote the
screenplay and worked with Bavaria Film in Geiselgasteig, where 15,000
square metres of forest had to be cleared next to the studio premises in
Perlacher Forst, so that a prison camp true to the original like in
Sagan, Poland could be set up as a backdrop. In the fall of 1962,
outdoor recordings took place in Füssen and the surrounding area The
first part of the film focuses on the escape efforts within the camp
and the process of secretly digging an escape tunnel. The second half of
the film deals with the massive effort by the German Gestapo to track
down the over seventy escaped prisoners individually attempting to make
their way to England. 
St. Mang serving as the backdrop when Coburn is seen at Café Suzette (built for the film) before the assassination of these German officers.
The cafe as seen here was in the area now holding flagpoles, and Coburn was sitting
against the stone wall, now a metal railing. The bridge too has been
replaced but otherwise the 1963 film location is easily recognisable on
the south bank of the Lech. The black car above is actually a 1947 Citroën 11 Légère 'Traction' in a movie set in 1944. Steve
McQueen's motorcycle stunts and many other scenes in The Great Escape were filmed in and around the town. During
six weeks of filming, Hollywood stars Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson
and James Coburn stayed in hotels in Füssen, Hohenschwangau, Hopfen and
Speiden as Füssen was transformed back to the time of the war with the
train station, the narrow streets in the old town and the roof
landscapes providing ideal backdrops for car chases. Many citizens acted
as extras or watched the filming from the roofs of Spitalgasse. This
ended up causing a sensation due to the props involving Nazi flags,
weapons and uniforms. 
The German officers arriving with Coburn sitting behind.
The officers order from the waiter a Pernod, an anise-flavoured pastis
apéritif. In fact the production of pastis was prohibited by the Vichy
regime under the August 23, 1940 Loi Contre L'Alcoolisme which prohibited the manufacture and sale of aperitifs based upon alcohol distilled from anything other than grapes. This was followed by a subsequent enactment in September 1941 that completely banned such alcohol being advertised. Even after the war the French banned the advertising of aniseed drinks in 1951.
What follows is a scene in which the officrs are then massacred
that defies belief, immediately before the attack on the officers the
waiter who is part of the plot lures Coburn away by claiming he has a
phone call. Coburn is confused and knows nothing about what's going on-
for all the waiter knows he could be a German agent or informant who is
now going to be able to implicate the assassins. In fact, immediately
after the three officers are machine-gunned to death in broad daylight
in the centre of town, the cafe owners openly celebrate with cognac
amidst the carnage.
The
poster used in the foreground is rather anachronistic as it dated from
the very start of the German occupation with the legend "Abandoned
populations, trust the German soldier !”
The
plot of "The Great Escape" is rooted in a factual occurrence - the mass
escape of Allied prisoners from Stalag Luft III in 1944. However, its
depiction of characters and individual narratives showcases a level of
creative licence. A notable disparity is evident in the nationalities
represented among the characters. Sturges' film primarily portrays
American and British officers, with characters such as Hilts (Steve
McQueen) and Bartlett (Richard Attenborough) leading the narrative. Yet,
the historical record shows that a substantial proportion of the
escapees were non-English speakers, with a large contingent from
captured by the Axis powers. For example, Eric Williams, a British
pilot, has asserted that the film "glosses over the very international
nature of the camp," thereby misrepresenting the diverse coalition
against the Axis powers. This simplification of the nationalities
involved, however, can be seen from two perspectives. From one
viewpoint, it could be seen as an oversight, detracting from the film's
historical accuracy. Yet, as Enoch Brater suggests, this decision may
have been a product of its time, aligning with the audience's cultural
expectations and increasing relatability for predominantly American and
British viewers. While such a deviation might be criticised from a
historical standpoint, one must consider the socio-cultural factors
influencing the film's production.
The
portrayal of events within the movie also reflects a combination of
historical fact and cinematic dramatisation. The movie truthfully
encapsulates the audacious spirit of the prisoners, their ingenious
planning, and the construction of tunnels, which are in agreement with
Paul Brickhill's "The Great Escape", the book upon which the movie is
based. Nevertheless, some episodes were added for dramatic effect and
are historically unsupported. The most evident discrepancy is the
infamous motorcycle chase featuring Steve McQueen's character, Hilts. It
makes for a thrilling cinematic climax, but it's entirely fictional.
Historically, there is no record of such an event taking place. Instead,
the majority of the escapees endeavoured to blend into civilian
populations or relied on European underground resistance networks. There
are also deviations in the film's depiction of the aftermath of the
escape. While the film ends on an uplifting note, the historical reality
was far more tragic. Following Hitler's orders, fifty of the
seventy-three recaptured escapees were executed, an event not fully
depicted in the film. The film's finale can be seen as an attempt to
maintain a semblance of Hollywood optimism, steering away from the
grimness of the actual consequences.
The
broader context of the war depicted in the film offers a relatively
accurate backdrop. The film successfully embodies the tensions, fear,
and constant anticipation of danger that characterised the wartime
period. Yet, it simplifies complex geopolitical situations to fit its
narrative. Historically, the escape took place in a rapidly changing war
setting, with Allied forces gaining momentum against the Axis powers.
However, the film, as Leger Grindon points out, represents a more static
version of the war, focusing solely on the microcosm of the PoW camp.
Furthermore,
the film tends to romanticise the 'war prisoner' experience. The
prisoners are depicted as undeterred and high-spirited, engaged in
constant banter and camaraderie, while the real-life accounts of wartime
prison camps often portray them as places of severe physical and
psychological hardship. Eric Lomax, a former British prisoner of war,
remarked that his experience was not about "sticking it to the enemy at
every opportunity, but about survival." Thus, Sturges' interpretation,
while entertaining, tends to downplay the harsher aspects of life in
Stalag Luft III. Yet, the romanticisation of the PoW experience is not
an unforgivable historical sin. Guy Walters posits that "The Great
Escape," whilst taking liberties with individual narratives, manages to
capture the resilience, resourcefulness, and indomitable spirit of the
Allied PoWs. Despite the film's embellishments, its essence resonates
with the war's overarching theme: the undying spirit of resistance
against oppressive forces.
The assassins' car drives down Lechhade bridge, turning on Tirolerstraße.
MacDonald and Bartlett fleeing the Gestapo down Hintere Gasse upon being identified.
The same scene, looking from the very end of Hintere Gasse 
MacDonald
getting hit by a cyclist as he's chased down Drehergasse which follows
the old city wall, with my own bike as reference
As MacDonald is pursued on the left Bartlett seen below on the right- somehow seeing all this from Franziskanergasse- makes his own attempt at escape. The character of Bartlett had been based on Squadron Leader Roger Joyce Bushell, a South African-born British military aviator who had been the one responsible for masterminding the actual "Great Escape" from Stalag Luft III in 1944, but was one of the fifty escapees to be recaptured and subsequently murdered by the Gestapo. In the spring of 1943 whilst being held in the north compound where British airmen were housed, Bushell masterminded a plot for a major escape from the camp. The most radical aspect of his plan wasn't merely the scale of the construction, but the sheer number of men whom Bushell intended to pass through these tunnels. Whilst all other attempts had involved the escape of anything up to a dozen or twenty men, Bushell proposed to get over 200 out, each of whom would be wearing civilian clothes and possessing a complete range of forged papers and escape equipment. It was an unprecedented undertaking which would require unparalleled organisation. As the mastermind, Bushell inherited the codename of "Big X". 
More than 600 prisoners were involved in their construction. On the evening of March 24, after months of preparation, 200 officers prepared to escape. Given a hitch in the actual plan, in the end only 76 officers managing to get clear of the camp. Bushell and his partner Bernard Scheidhauer, among the first few to leave the tunnel, successfully boarded a train at Sagan railway station, only to be caught the next day at Saarbrücken railway station, waiting for a train to Alsace. On March 29, under the pretext of being driven back to a prison camp, the car carrying Bushell and Scheidhauer stopped for a rest break at the side of the autobahn just outside today's Ramstein Air Base. It was during this stop that they were murdered by members of the Gestapo, including Emil Schulz, helped by others. This was a breach of the Geneva Convention and thus constituted a war crime. The perpetrators were later tried and executed by the Allies. Fifty of the 76 escapees were killed in the Stalag Luft III murders on the personal orders of Hitler.
Bartlett meanwhile trying to escape via Füssen's rooftops as he arrives at an der Stadtmauer...
... only to somehow manage to return to Drehergasse [!] before ending up at Brunnengasse...
...where he's finally caught on the corner of Hutergasse and Brunnengasse by Untersturmführer Steinach, played by Karl Otto Alberty. There is a continuity error in this scene as Attenborough's character Bartlett
tries to walk nonchalantly along the pavement. When the German yells at
Bartlett from his car to stop Bartlett does so, still on the pavement.
However when cut to a different angle it appears that Bartlett has in
fact stopped in the middle of the street. Such individual incidents in
the film were mostly based on fact, but rearranged both chronologically
and regarding the people involved as noted at the start of the film. In
reality, of the 76 who escaped, three had managed to succeed whilst
fifty were murdered in reprisal, but in small groups and not all at
once. As one sadly expects from American films, the nationality of most
of the prisoners
were changed to emphasise the role of Americans at the expense of
British Imperial heroes. Indeed, the real escape was by British and
other allied personnel, none by Americans. Whilst Americans in the PoW
camp did initially help to build the tunnels and work on the early
escape plans, they were moved to their own compound seven months before
the tunnels were completed. A
large part had been played by Canadians, especially in the construction
of the tunnels and in the escape itself. Of the 1,800 or so PoWs in the
compound of whom 600 were involved in preparations for the escape, 150
of these were from the Dominion of Canada; Wally Floody, an RCAF pilot
and mining engineer who was the real-life “tunnel king”, was engaged as a
technical advisor for the film. Fourteen Germans were executed after
the war for their roles, which ended up being among the charges at the
Nuremberg War Crimes trial. Another actor, Donald Pleasence, had
actually been an RAF pilot who had been shot down, held prisoner and
tortured by the Germans. After offering advice to the film's director
John Sturges, he was politely told to mind his own business. Later,
when another star informed Sturges that Pleasence had actually been a
RAF Officer in a Stalag camp, Sturges requested his technical advice and
input on historical accuracy from that point forward. Other actors had
been PoWs- Hannes Messemer in a Russian camp and Til Kiwe (playing the
German guard "Frick" who discovers the escape) and Hans Reiser were
prisoners of the Americans during the war. Kiwe had been a German paratrooper officer who was captured and held
prisoner at a PoW camp in Colorado and himself had made several escape attempts, being captured in the
St. Louis railway station during one such attempt. He won the Knight's
Cross before his capture and was the cast member who had actually done
many of the exploits shown in the film. Former
PoWs in fact requested that the filmmakers exclude certain details
about help they received to prevent the film jeopardising future
escapes, a request which was honoured.
The
train station that appears in the film when David McCallum is killed on
the tracks, enabling Attenborough to escape, was demolished recently in
2015 after having been purchased by the company "Hubert Schmid
Bauunternehmen GmbH" for roughly 300,000 euros with the intention of
replacing it with a modern convenience centre. It was in the station restaurant where the local group of the Nazi Party met on February 4, 1933 to celebrate Hitler's appointment as chancellor.
Captain Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) stringing a wire across what is actually the road between Füssen and Hopfen am See,
the town clearly seen in the background; in fact, McQueen himself
played the German motorcyclist who crashed into the wire. If one looks
closely at the scene one can clearly see two shadows on the ground
caused by the camera lights. In addition, the motorcycle he makes off
with is obviously a postwar British-made Triumph rather than the BMW or Zundapp which the Wehremacht would have used. Serving in large part as a Steve McQueen vanity
project, his character Hilts was based on an amalgamation of several
real-life individuals including Major Dave Jones, a flight commander
during Doolittle's Raid shot down and captured and Colonel Jerry Sage,
who was an OSS agent in the North African desert when he was captured.
Sage managed to don a flight jacket and pass as a flier otherwise he
would have been executed as a spy. Another inspiration was probably
Squadron Leader Eric Foster who escaped no less than seven times from
German prisoner-of-war camps. In fact, during the filming the town's
police had set up a speed trap near the set in which several members of
the cast and crew were caught, including McQueen. Apparently the Chief
of Police told McQueen "Herr McQueen, we have caught several of your
comrades today, but you have won the prize [for the highest speeding]."
McQueen was arrested and briefly gaoled.
Neuschwanstein
As seen in The Great Escape
when Hendley (James Garner) and Blythe (Donald Pleasance) try to reach
Switzerland escape by stealing a light aircraft, with Hohenschwangau
castle on the lower right. In fact, the photo of Neuschwanstein
indicates that they're actually flying straight in the wrong direction
as I took it facing south with the plane travelling from right to left;
this would mean that they are actually heading east away from the Swiss border which is about forty miles west of the castle.
Due
to its secluded and strategically unimportant location, the palace
survived both world wars. Until 1944, it served as a depot for Nazi
plunder that was taken from France by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter
Rosenberg für die besetzten Gebiete, a suborganisation of the Nazi
Party. The castle was used to catalogue the works of arts, and after the
war 39 photo albums were found in the palace documenting the scale of
the art seizures. By April 1945, the ϟϟ
considered blowing up the palace to prevent the building itself and the
artwork it contained from falling to the enemy but was rejected by the ϟϟ-Gruppenführer
who had been assigned the task. Instead the castle was surrendered
undamaged to representatives of the Anglo-American forces which
eventually returned the palace to the reconstituted Bavarian state
government under whose auspices some of the rooms were employed as a
provisional store for salvaged archival material, as the premises in
Munich had been bombed.
Two paintings of Neuschwanstein castle by Hitler himself. That on the left dating from 1907 is the largest extant watercolor painting by Hitler, measuring 20.8 inches by 15.7 inches. In a 2015 auction organised by Weidler Auctioneers of Nuremberg, that on the right was sold to a Chinese buyer for £71,000.
Hitler
himself with Hitlerjugend during a visit on August 12, 1933 when he
spoke at a Richard Wagner memorial service at Neuschwanstein Castle at
which he was given the freedom of Hohenschwangau. Expressing his
gratitude in an address, Hitler described himself, as he did in regard
to all great Germans, as having consummated the plans of Ludwig II. He
expressed his conviction that despite all criticism of these structures
built by Ludwig II, the fertilisation of the arts and the stimulation of
tourism had nonetheless given rise to much good, which meant that the
work of the King deserved recognition: “It was the protest of a genius
against wretched parliamentarian mediocrity. Today we have translated
this protest into action and finally eliminated this
regime.” Petropoulos writes of how the Nazis leveraged Ludwig's iconic
castles, particularly Neuschwanstein, as tools of propaganda. These
castles, with their dramatic design and richly decorated interiors,
became symbols of a bygone era of Germanic grandeur. Neuschwanstein was
even featured in Nazi propaganda films and postcards. The castle's
fairy-tale aesthetics, combined with its connection to Ludwig, presented
an image of time-honoured Teutonic glory that the Nazis sought to
revive.
In fact, Ludwig II had apparently admired Jews and forced Wagner to allow Hermann Levi to conduct the premiere of ''Parsifal.'' Wagner had fought until the last moment but was forced to relent as he had been patronised by the King who in addition was paying for the premiere. Wagner ended up treating Levi sadistically, ordering him to convert which Levi refused. In the end, Ludwig never lived to see the castle's completion; although the gate building and the Palas were largely completed on the outside, the square tower was still scaffolded at the time of his death in 1886. The bower, which hadn't even been started by then was built by 1892, but only executed in a simplified way. In 2008, reports that the Bavarian Palace Administration was aiming to complete the palace according to the original plans by 2011 turned out to be an April Fool's joke.
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On the left is the throne room from a Nazi-era postcard and today. Occupying the third and fourth floors, it was modeled on the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in the Munich Residenz. It's surrounded on three sides by colourful arcades and ends in an apse that was intended to house Ludwig's throne, which was never completed although today a cardboard cutout is used to show a possible appearance of the throne. A mosaic completed after the king's death adorns the floor of the hall, and the chandelier is modeled on a Byzantine crown. Following the king's wish, the sacral-looking throne room combined the location of the Grail Hall from Parzival with a symbol of divine right, an embodiment of unrestricted sovereign power, which Ludwig, as head of state in a constitutional monarchy, no longer had. The floor is adorned with what is probably the most elaborate mosaic work in Germany, consisting of more than 1.5 million pieces of natural stone although given the heavy wear and tear of the surface, the floor is protected by a photo-realistic copy consisting of over 100 billion pixels.Neuswchwanstein castle was used by the Nazi party as a depository of pillaged artwork from all over Europe, primarily France. The artwork stored at Neuschwanstein was catalogued and evacuated by one of the great museum curators of the 20th century, James Rorimer, functioning as a "monuments man," one of the many British and American art experts appointed to a special wartime military section charged with protecting and then repatriating art stolen by the Nazis. Near the end of the war gold was stored there also. In 1945, the ϟϟ had plans to blow up the castle to prevent the Allies from retrieving the contents. This did not come to pass; eventually Nazi forces surrendered an undamaged castle and contents to the Allies.
Kempten
Also in the Allgäu is this town where Hitler visited a number of times, speaking here at the Kornhaus on March 24, 1928. His July 30, 1932 speech at the Allgäuhalle produced the following line used as a Wochenspruch later in the opening weeks of the war: “I do not believe in any right that is not protected by force." According to police, about 15,000 to 18,000 people attended Hitler's thirty minute speech although the Völkische Beobachter
made the ridiculous claim that the number was actually double that.
According to detainees, 200 people would later be imprisoned here,
including Yugoslavs, Poles, Russians, Czechoslovaks and Italians,
working for the armaments production of "Helmut Sachse KG" fighter
planes, in which BMW was involved..jpg)
The Prinz-Franz-Kaserne, built in 1936 during the rearmament of the Wehrmacht. Named after Prince Franz of Bavaria, it's located in the city centre on a 5.4 hectare site close to the Basilica of St. Lorenz shown below. In 1937, the newly formed 1st Battalion of the 91st Infantry Regiment was the first unit to move into the barracks. Within the battalion, a cavalry platoon, the 13th mine thrower company and the 14th anti-tank company were set up. The battalion participated in the Anschluss of Austria on March 12, 1938 and the de facto annexation that followedby the National Socialist German Reich. The Infantry Replacement Battalion 91 was set up for the battalion at the end of 1938 and then moved into the barracks. From August 1, 1956 to 1992 it was used by the Bundeswehr (having been involved in the so-called Iller Disaster of June 3, 1957 in which fifteen soldiers from the battalion died whilst crossing the Iller near Hirschdorf) and today is used by, among other agencies, the State Building Authority, Kempten Water Management Office, Kempten office of the Southern Bavaria Motorway Directorate, and Traffic Police Inspectorate.
Between
1943 and 1945 the concentration camp Kottern-Weidach, subcamp of the
Dachau concentration camp, was installed in the nearby Weidach for 1000
to 2000 prisoners. Concentration camp prisoners were accommodated, among
other things, in the livestock nursery used for livestock. They had to
carry out forced labour
for the Messerschmitt factory in the production of aircraft. A further
outside camp had already existed at Keselstrasse 14, where between 500
and 600 prisoners had to work for U. Sachse KG. The production of
warring parts was shifted to Kempten, because the large cities like
Munich were more threatened by air raids than the rural Allgäu. Even
the few Jews in Kempten were not spared as Jewish shops were boycotted and
closed, almost all Jews were deported to concentration camps and
murdered there. In Kempten, only two Jewish women and eight so-called
half-Jews experienced the end of the war.
A
few miles north of Füssen, this was where Nazi diplomat,
psychotherapist and Zen master Karlfried Graf Dürckheim grew up,
eventually rejecting his inheritance of the family estate at Steingaden
to which he had a right as eldest son after his service in the Great
War. Dürckheim had received his doctorate in Psychology from the
University of Kiel in 1923 and was had signed the November 11, 1933
commitment of the professors at German universities and colleges to
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi state. The year of the Nazi seizure of power
saw him join the SA and in 1934 he spent half a year in South Africa on
behalf of the Reich Minister of Education to contact Germans living
there to urge them not to abandon Nazism. There he met secretly with the
Afrikaner Broederbond to urge them to follow Nazi ideals, including
anti-Semitism. By 1935 he had become chief assistant to Joachim von
Ribbentrop and helped broker a meeting between Lord Beaverbrook and
Hitler. In October 1936 Dürckheim accompanied newly appointed Ambassador
Ribbentrop to England, where he was assigned "to find out what the
English think of the new Germany."
Ordensburg Sonthofen
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The facility is located in the south of Sonthofen above the Iller valley. In the spirit of Nazi gigantomania, the complex was planned with huge buildings and expansion. From
the tower, the Palas, on the west side to the east corner of the main
building, the entire building is about 160 metres long whilst the length
of the side wings is about 85 metres. The dining room in the south of
the Ordensburg is 116 metres long. Sixteen bells from the bell foundry
Franz Schilling in Apolda were hung in its bell tower for a carillon,
allowing the Nazis to assert their claim as a new religion at the time
of modern man. The training castle was initially planned for around 400
people. The first topping-out ceremony took place on October 19, 1935.
On November 23, 1937, Hitler visited the Ordensburg and gave a speech
there, in which he described of the desired character of a National
Socialist- persistent, tough, but also, if necessary, ruthless. There, before all the regional and district
Nazi Party leaders assembled, Hitler delivered a two-hour “secret
speech” on “the structure and organisation of the leadership of the
Volk” (Volksführung) in which
Hitler presented an overview of his version of German history over the
last three hundred to four hundred years. He continuously attempted to
substantiate his claims with numbers, carelessly juggling enormous
figures (the majority of which were incorrect). Needless to say, he
could not resist citing his favourite historical claim that of the 18.5
million Germans at the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, only 3.6
million survived. Further “historical observations” on his part
culminated in a comparison of the relations between the people of
Austria and Prussia and the similar bonds that existed between the
English and the German people, claiming that
Also in the Allgäu is this town where Hitler visited a number of times, speaking here at the Kornhaus on March 24, 1928. His July 30, 1932 speech at the Allgäuhalle produced the following line used as a Wochenspruch later in the opening weeks of the war: “I do not believe in any right that is not protected by force." According to police, about 15,000 to 18,000 people attended Hitler's thirty minute speech although the Völkische Beobachter
made the ridiculous claim that the number was actually double that.
According to detainees, 200 people would later be imprisoned here,
including Yugoslavs, Poles, Russians, Czechoslovaks and Italians,
working for the armaments production of "Helmut Sachse KG" fighter
planes, in which BMW was involved..jpg)
 |
| St.-Lorenz-Kirche then and now |
Kempten had been bombed from
1942 to 1945. On October 23, 1942 British and American planes dropped
200 firebombs onto the station Kempten-Hegge. Southwest of Kempten,
Allied and German airplanes fought on July 18, 1944, and the Allies
attacked Kempten the following day. Bombardments were made, where
Messerschmitt's production was housed. 29 people were killed and some
houses destroyed. On August 3, 1944 bombers attacked the southern
Illerbrücken as well as the nearby spinning and weaving mill. On
February 22 and April 12 and 16, 1945, the Allies attacked the railway station, as well as defence and
armament systems, among them also the barrack barracks were destroyed.
The largest number of bombs were reported in July and August 1944, with
146 dead and 79 seriously injured in these bomb hits. Even today, in the
little cultivated south of Kempten, many bomb centres in the district
of Adelharz remind of these bombshells. The building fabric of Kempten
was destroyed by 1.8 per cent during bomb attacks. By comparison, during
the air raids on Munich about 50 percent of the city was destroyed. On
April 27, 1945 American troops from the north occupied the city,
liberating more than 4,000 foreign workers and political prisoners in
Kempten and its surrounding area.
Steingaden
A
few miles north of Füssen, this was where Nazi diplomat,
psychotherapist and Zen master Karlfried Graf Dürckheim grew up,
eventually rejecting his inheritance of the family estate at Steingaden
to which he had a right as eldest son after his service in the Great
War. Dürckheim had received his doctorate in Psychology from the
University of Kiel in 1923 and was had signed the November 11, 1933
commitment of the professors at German universities and colleges to
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi state. The year of the Nazi seizure of power
saw him join the SA and in 1934 he spent half a year in South Africa on
behalf of the Reich Minister of Education to contact Germans living
there to urge them not to abandon Nazism. There he met secretly with the
Afrikaner Broederbond to urge them to follow Nazi ideals, including
anti-Semitism. By 1935 he had become chief assistant to Joachim von
Ribbentrop and helped broker a meeting between Lord Beaverbrook and
Hitler. In October 1936 Dürckheim accompanied newly appointed Ambassador
Ribbentrop to England, where he was assigned "to find out what the
English think of the new Germany."  |
| The war memorial |
He
was introduced to King Edward VIII and Churchill. Dürckheim was at this
time a fervent supporter of Nazism, writing in the journal of the Nazi
Teachers Association:"The basic gift of the Nazi revolution is for all
occupations and levels across the experience of our common nature, a
common destiny, the common hope of the common leader....which is the
living foundation of all movements and aspirations." It was then that it
was discovered that he was of Jewish descent: Dürckheim's maternal
great-grandmother Eveline Oppenheim was the daughter of the Jewish
banker Salomon Oppenheim. In fact Dürckheim was also related to Mayer
Amschel Rothschild. Meanwhile his maternal grandmother was Antonie
Springer, who was also Jewish. Under Germany's 1935 Nuremberg Laws he
was therefore considered a Mischling of the second degree and had
therefore become "politically embarrassing". Ribbentrop decided to
create a special mission for him to become an envoy for the foreign
ministry and write a research paper titled "exploring the intellectual
foundations of Japanese education" leading him in June 1938 to be sent
to Japan where he met the Buddhist scholar Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki who
influenced his thinking profoundly. 
Dürckheim published an article in the third issue of the journal Berlin - Rome - Tokio in
July, 1939 which he refered to the Japanese state cult, the glorified
“Samurai spirit” and its relationship with Nazi ideology and
anti-Semitism in Japan, claiming that whoever “travels today through
Japan experiences at every step the friendship with Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy to the Japanese people, especially those forces that
affect the future more than political power. It is the spirit which
connects Japan with us, that spirit which…is related to Japan’s iron
will to win the war… In farm houses and businesses hang signs with the
words: Everyone must behave as if they were on the field of battle.” By
1944 Dürckheim had become a well-known author and lecturer in Japan on
Zen meditation, archery and metaphysics, and was awarded the War Merit
Cross, Second Class on Hitler's birthday in 1944. The impending
surrender of Germany did not prevent him from reasserting his values,
writing to a friend how "[t]he immeasurable suffering of Germany will
bring the German people to a higher level and help give birth to a
better, less materialistic nation." After the war Dürckheim went into
hiding before eventually being arrested on October 30, 1945 being
imprisoned for sixteen months in Sugamo Prison.
Dürckheim published an article in the third issue of the journal Berlin - Rome - Tokio in
July, 1939 which he refered to the Japanese state cult, the glorified
“Samurai spirit” and its relationship with Nazi ideology and
anti-Semitism in Japan, claiming that whoever “travels today through
Japan experiences at every step the friendship with Nazi Germany and
Fascist Italy to the Japanese people, especially those forces that
affect the future more than political power. It is the spirit which
connects Japan with us, that spirit which…is related to Japan’s iron
will to win the war… In farm houses and businesses hang signs with the
words: Everyone must behave as if they were on the field of battle.” By
1944 Dürckheim had become a well-known author and lecturer in Japan on
Zen meditation, archery and metaphysics, and was awarded the War Merit
Cross, Second Class on Hitler's birthday in 1944. The impending
surrender of Germany did not prevent him from reasserting his values,
writing to a friend how "[t]he immeasurable suffering of Germany will
bring the German people to a higher level and help give birth to a
better, less materialistic nation." After the war Dürckheim went into
hiding before eventually being arrested on October 30, 1945 being
imprisoned for sixteen months in Sugamo Prison. Ordensburg Sonthofen
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Ordensburg
Sonthofen was started in 1934; on August 24 of that year Robert Ley ,
the head of the German Labour Front, visited the construction site. The
entire complex was built from autumn 1934 as the NSDAP- Ordensburg
Sonthofen according to plans by the architect Hermann Giesler by the
German Labour Front for the Nazis until 1942 and served to train the
cadets, who would serve as future management personnel. The school was to receive and teach students in their third
school year and then afterwards send them to Marienburg in East Prussia
for their final year. As
early as autumn 1937, the Sonthofen facility also served as the
provisional main location of the Adolf Hitler schools, which were moved
here from the Ordensburg Krössinsee, where it was founded. Due to the
war-related drafting of the Ordensjunker for military or administrative
service and the resulting course operation, further Adolf Hitler
students were transferred to the Ordensburg Sonthofen, where the
teaching operation was maintained on site until the end of the war. A
prominent student was the actor Hardy Krüger. The commander of the
Ordensburg from 1936 to 1941 was
Robert Bauer, a member of the Reichstag, followed by Theo Hupfauer.
As reported by Theo Sommer, who attended the school as a student from
August 1942 to May 1945, the school was visited by a delegation from
Eton. In 1938 there were 600 students; by 1941 this had grown to 1500.
In the last year of the war, the Ordensburg also served as an hospital
(Lazarett).
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The facility is located in the south of Sonthofen above the Iller valley. In the spirit of Nazi gigantomania, the complex was planned with huge buildings and expansion. From
the tower, the Palas, on the west side to the east corner of the main
building, the entire building is about 160 metres long whilst the length
of the side wings is about 85 metres. The dining room in the south of
the Ordensburg is 116 metres long. Sixteen bells from the bell foundry
Franz Schilling in Apolda were hung in its bell tower for a carillon,
allowing the Nazis to assert their claim as a new religion at the time
of modern man. The training castle was initially planned for around 400
people. The first topping-out ceremony took place on October 19, 1935.
On November 23, 1937, Hitler visited the Ordensburg and gave a speech
there, in which he described of the desired character of a National
Socialist- persistent, tough, but also, if necessary, ruthless. There, before all the regional and district
Nazi Party leaders assembled, Hitler delivered a two-hour “secret
speech” on “the structure and organisation of the leadership of the
Volk” (Volksführung) in which
Hitler presented an overview of his version of German history over the
last three hundred to four hundred years. He continuously attempted to
substantiate his claims with numbers, carelessly juggling enormous
figures (the majority of which were incorrect). Needless to say, he
could not resist citing his favourite historical claim that of the 18.5
million Germans at the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, only 3.6
million survived. Further “historical observations” on his part
culminated in a comparison of the relations between the people of
Austria and Prussia and the similar bonds that existed between the
English and the German people, claiming that
[s]ince in international life there are only natural, sober interests, it should be based neither on gratitude nor on family connections. Family connections were as useless in preserving Prussia and Austria from war as they were for Germany and England. In Europe, we have more difficult obstacles to overcome than those, for instance, that exist for England—which needed only its naval supremacy to occupy large living spaces with relatively little loss of blood. Nonetheless, we had Europe once before. We lost it only because our leadership lacked the initiative that would have been necessary to not only maintain our position on a long- term basis but also to expand it.
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At
the end of this speech, Hitler expatiated upon the requirement
of political leaders in addition to blind obedience, namely bravery.
Old Germany was overthrown because it did not possess this zealous blind will, did not have this confidence and this serenity. New Germany will be victorious because it integrates these virtues and at present has already integrated them in an extremely difficult struggle. I know quite well that this is independent of the individual. I know quite well that, were anything to happen to me today, the next one would take my place and continue in the same fashion, just as zealously; because that, too, is part of this Movement. Just as it is not possible to instantly turn a political bourgeois association into a fighting group of heroes, it will be equally impossible to ever turn this Movement, that was built up from the very beginning on courage and initiative, into a bourgeois association. That is also the future task above all of these schools: to conduct this test of courage over and over again, to break with the opinion that only the soldier must be brave. Whoever is a political leader is always a soldier too! And whoever lacks bravery cannot be a soldier. He must be prepared for action at all times. In the beginning, courage had to be the basic prerequisite for someone to find his way to the party—and it really was, otherwise no one came. Today we have to install artificial obstacles, artificial trenches over which the person has to jump. That is where he now has to prove whether he is brave. Because if he is not brave, he is of no use to us. However, by the beginning of the war, training was downsized and towards the end of the war it was used as a military hospital.
On May 5 and 24 and June 21, 1944, Heinrich Himmler gave speeches to officers of the Chief of Army Armament Office and commanders of the Reserve Army and General Army Office, in which he openly discussed the overall plan for the extermination of the Jews in Europe and justified the murders. Also on June 21, 1944, the Nazi chief ideologist Alfred Rosenberg gave a political speech on the subject of Europe.
Oberstdorf
Located in the Oberallgäu, the Alpenhotel Schönblick, shown flying the Nazi flag and today, is in Germany's southernmost village. From 1943 to 1945, the Waffen-ϟϟ ran the Oberstdorf-Birgsau concentration camp external command for the operation of the Birgsau Waffen-ϟϟ training camp in mountain combat. In July-August 1943, twelve prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp were transported to Oberstdorf to set up this subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp. It was soon expanded to include thirty male prisoners from Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Spain, guarded by two dozen ϟϟ men. They first had to set up and maintain accommodation and infrastructure for a training camp for leaders and sub-leaders of the Waffen-ϟϟ, with sixteen wooden barracks between the customs houses and the chapel, as well as shooting ranges. This served to train the Waffen-ϟϟ in mountain combat. The concentration camp prisoners were housed in the cellars of the three customs houses that had been built in 1936-37 and were no longer needed after the annexation of Austria. The camp administration and the ϟϟ guards were housed directly above. In April 1945, the concentration camp prisoners were relocated to an alpine hut on the other side of the Stillach near the ϟϟ training camp.
Located in the Oberallgäu, the Alpenhotel Schönblick, shown flying the Nazi flag and today, is in Germany's southernmost village. From 1943 to 1945, the Waffen-ϟϟ ran the Oberstdorf-Birgsau concentration camp external command for the operation of the Birgsau Waffen-ϟϟ training camp in mountain combat. In July-August 1943, twelve prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp were transported to Oberstdorf to set up this subcamp of the Dachau concentration camp. It was soon expanded to include thirty male prisoners from Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Spain, guarded by two dozen ϟϟ men. They first had to set up and maintain accommodation and infrastructure for a training camp for leaders and sub-leaders of the Waffen-ϟϟ, with sixteen wooden barracks between the customs houses and the chapel, as well as shooting ranges. This served to train the Waffen-ϟϟ in mountain combat. The concentration camp prisoners were housed in the cellars of the three customs houses that had been built in 1936-37 and were no longer needed after the annexation of Austria. The camp administration and the ϟϟ guards were housed directly above. In April 1945, the concentration camp prisoners were relocated to an alpine hut on the other side of the Stillach near the ϟϟ training camp. 
