Le Mans to Berlin and a bit beyond

[Wapping]

Party party party! Lets go! Glasto kraut style!

There’s a lot of sixty plus year old blokes, mostly wearing T-shirts from obscure German heavy metal festivals around.

 

[G&T]

Interesting insight thanks Wapping. A few days ago I stumbled into Bastogne, greeted by a WW2 American tank with a shell hole up its rear. I had no idea. Embarrassingly! The Bulge, 101st airborne, the Screaming Eagles surrounded by German troops. Then, you’re in....the stories, history, human endurance as you are discovering. It’s unbelievable!

Oh yes, best cappuccino I’ve had in my life there too.

 

[wessie]

There’s a lot of sixty plus year old blokes, mostly wearing T-shirts from obscure German heavy metal festivals around.

Naproxenfest

 

[gerarddwatts]

There’s a lot of sixty plus year old blokes, mostly wearing T-shirts from obscure German heavy metal festivals around.

You supply drink food and crumpet...we'll supply class and style! Good to go!

Fascinating report...thanks

 

[snelly]

Thank you.

I have found that the German central government has a kind of ‘War Graves Commission’ operating under law, whose duty it is to maintain war graves.

Their website has some brief details of the Seelow cemetery:



Come the end of the war (and maybe not surprisingly) the Russians cared little for German war dead, millions of whom lay in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, let alone the dead within Germany itself. Their only effort was to order the local German population to scour the surroundings to find bodies, not through any moral duty but rather because they feared disease. What the locals then did by way of burying or disposing the corpses was up to them. From the German side, the locals were struggling anyway, surviving or not in a totally shattered world.

There’s an interesting story about the ‘clean up’ in relation to the Halbe Pocket cemetery, the largest cemetery on German soil, which I’ve read about. I hope to see Halbe and the cemetery on my return journey.

It's a very different cemetry to the one on the futa pass; it was 4 to a plot on one headstone; but like you say it's what you imagine on a personal level that makes the impact; horror and peace in harmony. Great write up wapping;

 

[Udders]

So, after a longer more involved trip, what’s the verdict on the new van?

Anything to change / add? Anything taken and not used? Got used to the adaptive cruise control now?
Sleeping in the one bed or swapping sides?

Great reports by the way!

I’m now thinking about getting an electric Brompton! I could use it in my small van without taking up too much room I reckon.