Mission - WW2 Germany

shuck raider

Gone Fishin'
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Not sure whether to post this in Military or Trip Reports, but anyway, here it is...........

Just back from a WW2 focused trip through Germany. My 700GS was transported to Memmingen by Overlanders.ie (one way) and I rode it back home. Would recommend Overlanders, they did a great job – unlike Ryanair from Dublin to Memmingen. Does anyone else feel a sense of unease when the driver announces, ‘We have a slight technical problem’ and some spotty youth in a high-vis jacket appears with a small Halfords toolkit?

Anyway, arrived Memmingen airport just under an hour late. Turns out Memmingen was a Luftwaffe base so that’s the first WW2 site ticked off.

A short walk led to a warehouse where Overlanders had stored my bike and kit and I soon headed off to Ottobeuren for a pre-booked Hotel St. Ulrich Garni which I’d thoroughly recommend. Grabbed a bite to eat and headed off to a very comfy bed.

 
So, next morning the adventure begins. First stop was Berchestegaden to have a look at Adolf’s stomping ground. Sat-nav set to ‘avoid motorways’ and off we go, through pretty little Bavarian villages and rural scenery. At last, some mountains!

 
Booking.com came up with two nights in a great little Gasthaus called Gasthof Pension Salzburg, just outside the town and again to be recommended. Rain forecast tonight so mien host moved his car out of the carport so I could park the bike under cover. Thoughtful or what?

 
Dinner in the Gasthaus was my first schnitzel of the trip and it was excellent. Won’t be the last one of the trip either. I love schnitzels!
German rotwein was surprisingly good. I think we’ll have lots more of that as well.

Sure enough, next morning it was raining as forecast but due to be nice in the afternoon. My very helpful host suggested a trip to the Salzbergwerk salt mines, which apparently were just a few hundred yards up the road. Seemed like a good way to get out of the rain. (Entrance fee was 15 euros but saved 2 euros by booking online) and toddled up to have a butchers. Got issued with a boiler suit and an audio guide for free and joined a group on a little electric train took us half a mile down into the mines. Salt was extracted by flooding caves, which forms a brine solution, pumped up to a giant evaporation pan which leaves behind the crystals. Once the caverns are empty, to get to the next vein of salt the miners have to enter the caves by means of a steep giant wooden slide about 150 yards long. Like going down the banisters when you were a kid! We went down this in groups of four and there was an automatic camera, which took your pic on the way down. Had to buy a copy!

 
The exit from the mine was via a boat across a saline lake, then back onto the train. Boat has electric outboards. A great morning.

 
Exiting the mines into bright sunshine, I picked up the bike and went up to the Dokumentationszentrum Museum to have a look at where Hitler’s gaff at the Berghof used to be. Great twisty road up to it as well :thumb You can see why he liked the view up there.

 
A well laid out museum, which pulls no punches on the Nazi regime. I wanted to go up to the Kelsteinhaus or Eagle’s Nest on top of the mountain but the guides told me that there was still 6 feet on snow up there and that it was closed. The previous week, two hikers decided to ignore this advice and head up anyway. One of them walked off the edge of the snowy road and fell 150 metres, hit his head on a rock and died. This is as close as I could get :D

 
Before leaving, I got talking to a Belgian biker in the car park and he recommended a run up the Rosfeldstrasse, a toll road up and over the mountains. Well worth a punt at 4 euros, the views are spectacular and a great biking road. It was difficult to know whether to enjoy the corners or look at the scenery. I did both! Hammered up the road to the top, where it was a bit snowy, then came back down to the toll both and turned around to go back up again and take some pix.

 
Off to Nuremberg next to have a look at the Nazi Party Rally Grounds. Left it a bit late to get a cheapish B&B in the city so ended up in a fairly soul-less Mercure hotel but still cheapish thanks to lastminute.com.

Third floor room, so had to use Schindler’s Lift :aidan

 
Had a look around the old town of Nuremberg next day – as you might expect, not much remains thanks to the RAF and USAAF but the castle escaped unscathed. After lunch, I visited the Documentation Centre Museum and the Nazi Party Rallying Grounds, which is a vast site. Once again, I was impressed that modern-day Germany tells it like it was, no apologies, just factual information. The museum itself is in what was to be the massive Congress Hall, which is the largest preserved national socialist building. Construction started in 1935 but was never finished. It was planned as a congress centre for the NSDAP with a self-supporting roof and should have provided 50,000 seats.

 
A ten minute walk took me to the Zeppelin Fieid where the mass rallies took place

 
Nice one. We stopped in Nuremberg last week for a night and made it to the documentation centre, but did not have time to visit the zeppelin airfield/rally grounds as we needed to crack on to Austria :)
 
Off to Nordhausen next. The plan on this trip, as you might have guessed, was a day’s riding and a day off the bike nosing around. Nice (off-M-way) ride through Upper Bavaria to Nordhausen.

On the way, I saw a signpost for Buchenwald Concentration Camp and on an impulse, headed off to have a look. Pretty harrowing. The insufficient food and poor conditions, as well as deliberate executions, led to 56,000 deaths at Buchenwald of the 250,000 prisoners who passed through the camp. This is the crematorium with the SS barracks in the background.

 


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