Not really a road trip, apart from it's a trip on the road...

[Loiq]

not written one up in a while, been abit busy with stuff so here's some ground rules

I recommend the following "don't travel overnight," if that's your plan accept the risks and get some rest... before you plan a complex journey... get your head around it could save your life (get travel insurance)

the factual elements of the trip my guess about 2,000 miles, plus places of interest... that might change once I get a better ... the made up stuff (as yet unproved)

0.5 siegen looking at a mine
1. Nuremberg well someone needs to have a look at the place especially the railway museum https://dbmuseum.de/nuernberg/ausstellungen
1.5 bit more looky looky time... afterall the whole place blown to bits and was rebuilt
2. Luenburg and the story of the pig (afterall every pig has a story)
2.5 the internat (personal matter)
3. Hamburg and more secrets (there will be pictures)
3.5 Schleswig another look just to be on the safe side (history on display) and danewerk...
4. Flensburg mostly the castle... and the navel school afterall that's where it happened... (more secrets)
4.5 the escape... (once it's happened they still need to make a get away, so it's looking for the signs)
5.0 first look... might take the metal dector and some other kit... cos I do have some information on this, but we've not gotten there yet but proving this part would be handy... it adds weight to my theory...

so not really a ride or drive report more a front seat in a treasure hunt, which has taken 50 years to come home to roost and the trip isn't going live till I get a few more questions answered

I must write the preface, but this should be enough to get the party started

welcome back to one of my more random write ups....

just registering another domain for this.

 

[Oldrat]

Interesting.
I’m in.

 

[Si Yates]

Me too

 

[Gavla04GS]

Me three.

 

[Monsieur]

Sounds good!

 

[Loiq]

I'm stuck in Wales today, got to get this nonsense sorted here, then get this trip lined up so it's work in progress...

 

[NeuroticAnt]

I’m ready

 

[Paul G (BHT)]

I'm stuck in Wales today

NESW.... or the bit in the middle?

 

[Loiq]

NESW.... or the bit in the middle?

the crap english version no passport required, where it appears to rain alot... just up the road from BMW ORS as it happens... sadly I'm still here with the now very angry client...As the emergency fix that should have worked was very much over sold by the manufacturer... cos it clearly does not fix the orginal problem and has instead caused a new more complex fault.... but that's another story for another time.

Anyway everyone loves a treasure hunt, and as a kid we use to be told about the english that buried something in the woods behind the farm... As with all stories it took something else to trigger this memory and I watched below clip which just appeared on my timeline... and it started me thinking hang on what was that story about my dad and the invasion.

the short version was my dad caused a full mobilisation of the local "volks sturm" german home guard by calling the local burgermeister and "Gaulieter" chief nazi telling him the English are on the way, which actually turned out to my uncle (my fathers older brother) mucking about shouting random "Engrischen" words to/ and at my dad who was aged at the time 12/13 was acting as babysitter to their collective younger siblings... While my grand parents where out at a farmers meeting to discuss how the surrender of the village etc should be handled... Cos everyone was shtting themselves, the headmaster the tiny village school had been handing out guns to the kids and saying well your all gonna get killed when the english arrive so you might as well have a shooter........ The war was ending / about to end... so dark times...!

There is a really interesting video of this as effectively the british had advanced past the Elbe and Hamburg and it's all countryside and loads of nothing up there... The Dornitz interim german government was basd up there and you had armed Germans still wandering about, with English troops mooching about sort of trying not to disarm or engage with the germans as everyone was marking time in a strange standoff...

 

[Phil Magill]

Are you going looking for the missing jewellery ???

 

[Loiq]

So I've started to knit together the loose research and it's reached a couple of places of interest

Hainer Stollen it's on route the Nuremberg which I have to visit on business. So might as well have a look after all it's a known place that contained a treasure worth in the region of 3 billion of reichs mark and other artworks

Hainer Stollen in Siegen

The treasure trove included the relics of King Charlemagne and the original manuscript of Beethoven's Sixth.

www.atlasobscura.com

location
it's taken abit of stripping back the cloak of dis-information that's out there but this look to be the right place. situated below the Siegen Castle

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainer_Hütte
might need to use translate if you don't read the orginal german

took me a while to read it all and order the place into locations.



Having found my dad's old school reports in the late 80's early 90's it showed he was a boarder for a couple of years at a "Internat" between ages 11-13
This was something my German Grandad had arranged, very much against my dad's wishes, my dad wasn't keen on school, he was made to sit the week long entrance exams. Then got accepted so they packed a trunk for him and delivered him by horse and cart. The place being 60 miles, about 120km as the crow flies from our farm. More about that later.

I visited my My aunt, my dad's oldest sister, a few years ago, who gave me some of these detais and was very kind to write up some the stories from that time. She was passed over for this in 1935 as during her interviews, she'd been diagnosed back then with some heart/ lung issues while doing really well in the academic stuff. The family got told she would never live beyond the age of 20 so sending her to such a place would be a waste of time and effort.... Well that just shows how wrong the "they" got that, she died recently aged 106. My uncle my dad's older brother had been sent to the same place and after getting his "abitur" graduation. He'd been moved into the military and was engaged as a communications/ despatch courier, the family never really mentioned much about him in his role, people just didn't talk about it, they formed part of the lost generation. Built up to be the leaders and then told they didn't exist. My uncle just had access to cars and motorbikes back in the day. Which was deemed unusual, as this was a very rural setting, folks used a horse and cart more than having access to cars. It was my uncle who showed all his sublings how to ride a motorcycle and drive cars etc.

All I do know he later became something in the British Occupation Forces, as he spoke good English and was afforded a degree of freedom. He still had access to bikes and cars which made him a rather "flash harry" back in the day.

My Aunt also ended up working for the British as she spoke English, Danish, Polish and Dutch as well as the platdeutsch (regional language) and she worked for the refugee office as around 300-400,000 displaced people ended up in Schleswig Holstein in the first postwar years. I can recall seeing odd people, not family members that lived in an out building in the early 70's on the family farm, which was just what it was... it's a sort of cloudy but early memory...

Which leads us to the next set of pictures.

 

[Loiq]

the "Internat" not sure why it's called that but that was what I'd always been told it was called

wiki calls them NPEA which exlpains why I struggled to find the place... I knew where just couldn't find the data

National Political Institutes of Education - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

it's a sort of feeder school for the military, my dad hated it. He didn't want to go, wasn't given a choice. He just had his stuff packed and off he went. In our conversations that expirience formed his views on bullies which for the greater part I share. According to him, the whole place was a brutish hell. the whole year needed to pass as a group, if one of the kids held them back, if the group was good and the kid was lucky they'd bring in extra lessons amongst themselves and students would bring up the skills of those who didn't get all the science, maths etc.

If however you found yourself in a brutish team, they'd just duff you up and even if they all lacked ability they would almost be rewarded for their bullying and still passed...

My dad was very lucky and he both physical being from farm stock and smart enough to cope with the educational stuff.

he was effectviely boarded in to Plöner Burg "Castle" which later in the war was the HQ for General Dornitz and after the The British Occupation Force was there used it as a regional HQ under General Evelyn Barker (who coincidentally was my english uncles OC in Palestine from 46-49)

Evelyn Barker - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Plön Castle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

so in the autumn/ winter of 1944 my dad was told after food was starting to runout at school. Everyone was being sent home, all the posh kids got rail permits, as the railway didn't run towards the west my dad was basically told to make his own way... So he walked the 60 miles, once home him and my oldest aunt got on bicycles and rode back to collect his clothes and things.... a few days after. The '44 winter was early and fierce, I always recall him saying "You're never done, till your done. If your hungry or tired, keep going don't sit in the snow, you won't get up again!"

So back at the farm he, his twin and the younger brother went back to the village school, and life sort of became normal in an abnormal way. The war was coming to an end and while people didn't openly discuss it, I'm pretty sure, they all knew and in the 1970's you'd still see farmers wearing grey coats, and jackets that had their insignia removed. However it was obvious looking back what they where and a sign how little money there was. I recall the refugees and disaplaced people thinning out, a few remained and their kids integrated into my school year.

It was only in '47 that Schleswig Holstein became a free federated state, it's own country because the British would not give it back to the Prussians that had been the overlords so to speak of that principality since around 1870...

the whole history of that region is fascinating it dates back to the roman empire... but again this is a different story.

So back to the treasure....

It's probably hard grasp but the whole place had guns, and the active elements of war just scattered all over the place... with all this stuff kicking about and kids being kids they all played in and around the woods and my dad shot my uncle in the leg when they where mucking about ... that could have ended way worse.... and is I guess why they didn't get on entirely.... for the rest of their lives

That's where the story came from, they saw something in the woods which forms the basis of this trip.... it's been a thing I've wanted to do but you stuff just gets in the way...

The woods belong to a school mates dad, who as a kid also hung about with'em and I've been given access for a looky looky....

 

[Loiq]

this is part two, I did contact the dude from that channel and he's not gotten back to me, then again, would you if some random person says "hang on. I know where that place is!"

 

[Loiq]

All treasure hunts and I really, I don't know why. Are centred around Bavaria, and contrary to popular belief Germany isn't just Bavaria and The Alps... there's heaps of Germany up North.... you know the boring bit where nothing ever happens..... untill it does. !

In the latter stages of the war, using what can only be estimated as what would likely happen the only escape route that was still open and safer was.... the Northern Route aka "the viking rat run"

up North Luebeck, North, towards Poln, Kiel, and Flensburg with a view to get to Copenhagen and into Neutral Sweden Gothenburg and away on new papers to some sunny place... where nobody knows your name... "Ah Herr Schmidt, how lovely to see you and all your lovely money!"

Or run the Leipzig gap which was decreasing and my guess pretty sticky by then and into the lions den... hoping to get to swiss border, or into the vatican and escape via "die spinne" the southern rat run..... All this while moving with transportable valuables, possibly family and guns... or just carrying papers to get access to dosh you'd already trousered earlier and stashed in Switzerland....

Berlin to Rome.... 1600 miles (2,000km) Berlin to Sweden 500 miles probably less....

 

[Loiq]

I've just started to read about the spanish "Edict of Granada" from around 1500AD, As I fancy some treasure hunting in the sun next.... and I should clear up the rat run I'm currently looking at includes everyone, it's not focussed on a specfic niche of society that had liking for Hugo Boss

It also means in these complex times, there's lessons for others to consider and put in their planning draw

 

[Pukmeister]

The “rat run” reminds me of a family gathering at my Uncles posh Manor House as a kid.

Uncle was my Dads sisters husband, the suave owner of our local BMW dealership with his designer Italian suits, all smiles and handshakes. The gathering was a mixture of us former displaced Polish peasant farmers plus a few of his Polish side of the family that had flown in from Argentina where they settled after the war….hmmmm, makes you wonder.

 

[Loiq]

hmmmm, makes you wonder.

So I've got German (Holstein, Schleswig and Prussians), Dutch, Czech, Swedish, Danish, Hungarian and English relatives, when all my family use to meet up, it was worse than the United Nations... they all got on, till someone mentioned the war.... which wasn't "the war" it was all the fucking wars....

dating back to 1740....

 

[Pukmeister]

it was worse than the United Nations... they all got on, till someone mentioned the war.... which wasn't "the war" it was all the fucking wars....

dating back to 1740....

It seems we have much in common my friend.

I have English, Polish, Irish, Thai plus maybe a little Jewish somewhere on my Grandmothers side. We are all very much a “blend” if you go back a few generations. My family suspect we are also quite a bit Ukrainian on the Polish side.

Im a little hesitant to do a DNA genealogy test in case anything worse turns up ! I have many “ uncles” who were top shaggers back in their day, like Ghengis fucking Khan !

Families…… so much joy but so much trouble.

Like Basil Fawlty….dont mention the war! (Ironic for me as Im currently sat in a Thai beachfront hotel surrounded by well tanned Germans !).

 

[NeilDD]

Adam,
If I go back in my families genealogy I've got Greek, Jamaican, Norman French, Welsh and some Scottish that I know of

 

[Loiq]

All Europeans, if you look close enough, will be a mixed bag of foreigners, who must have met each other along the way. Banged each other atleast once to bring a degree of accuracy to my writings on the subject or race, origins and that feeling of belonging to a society, ethnic group etc..... all of which can be covered under the headings of ideology versus empirical evidence, we are afterall dealing with the general topic of the 2nd world war which is a perfect example of ideology versus practical facts. (which could be claimed by some is being echoed in the US right now, but lets not stray into that quagmire...

To be fair and cover the other end of that sprectrum, not excluding these assorted let's call'em "fantasists....!" that's my polite guess. They might prefer to be called nationalists, patriots or whatever is the latest hashtag-able socially accepted buzzword for twat is these days. Who go about claiming they are the only racially pure folks, they and only they have the answers and hark back to better times. Which we all know is at best delusional or more accurately. A dichotomous statement that offers no middle ground or other reasonable escape route to eitherside

man I had a really strong coffee this morning. That's another side step away from adventure and treasure hunting....

if anyone needs further background on being opinionated,middle aged and over thinking stuff. I recommend the stewart lee sketch on migrants that should clear all that up in about 30 minutes. his Mr. Lee bascially saying actually.... alot....

back to this I've got a couple of minutes between video calls today

My sister a few years ago was very keen to know more about our origin story, so she traced the family tree back using all manner of source materials. Also she went round asking the various known branches of these people my relatives. All of whom I like to keep at arms length and successfully managed to avoid for nearly 45 years... for the simple reason I dislike most of'em. Worse unlike friends and associates I wasn't able to choose or interview these fuckers, I was unceremoniously dumped amongst them. Which over the passing years has caused me some annoyance, to the point when I'm brought news about them, it makes my skin crawl.... again personal stuff that might add factual depth to what may well happen and I'll have to document when I finally hit the road.... later this month

With that I find myself in the paradox trap of not wanting to see them, but more than likely I'll end up seeing them...! Then we'll start the whole cycle of the same old story over and over again till I make my excuses and leave. Again usually having first shared my somewhat caustic views about them, their actions, erroneous beliefs... worsts of all the simple fact that they're still breathing.

So once I'm in charge, there will be changes....! mark my words....