Witten-Annen Germany Forced Labor History Lost

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A satellite camp of Buchenwald was established is Annen–Witten. My late night research found a memorial which had some of the foundations of barracks visible and several plaques to memorialize what had happened on the site. By using Google Street View I actually was able to see the memorial right from where I might be able to park the rental car. It was rare for me to actually see my destination so I was excited.

When I got to the location I walked to the spot I had seen the memorial on Google street view. Everything was different. A new business was being erected and I think the foundation of that building covered the foundations of the old barracks. I decided to walk around the block and approach the memorial from another side road. I had no luck, the chaotic construction site blocked any chance of seeing the plaques if they still existed. I was resigned to the fact that they probably no longer were there. I sat on a mound of excavated dirt and started to draw in the direction where the memorial used to be.

Sketching at this site was hellish since huge trucks kept backing into the construction site. I would have to stop sketching and step up over the dirt mound to safety. I helped one driver by using hand signals to show the distance he had before he scrapped the side of his truck into another vehicle. He finally decided it was too tight a turn and he honked his horn until the other drive came out and moved his vehicle.

Millions of people, from concentration camp inmates to civilian workers from abroad and prisoners of war, were forced to work for Nazi Germany during the Second World War. In 1944, a satellite of the Buchenwald concentration camp was even created to accommodate the concentration camp inmates in the Annen Cast Steelworks. Most of the workforce in the town was made up of forced laborers, who were used mainly for the production of weapons. Between 230 and 250 forced labor camps of different sizes were established in the town by 1945. With this memorial bulldozed over, there remains no known traces off the former camps.

On September 17, 1944, the first train for the Annen Cast Steelworks containing 700 prisoners arrived from Buchenwald concentration camp. There is evidence that there were 71 Poles among those camp prisoners whose names are known. The camp was similar to many other satellites of concentration camps with regard to its structure, furnishings and living conditions. It consisted among other things of several barracks to house the prisoners and a muster ground and was surrounded by a double layer of barbed wire to prevent the prisoners from escaping. The furnishings were extremely sparse and were largely limited to two-story bunk beds. In addition, the washroom barracks had not been completed when the first inmates arrived, so that they had to wash in the open air. In Witten-Annen, as elsewhere, forced laborers were subject to violence and harassment from the functionary prisoners and the SS guards and suffered from hunger and disease due to malnutrition, the cold temperatures and inadequate hygiene.

The Annen Cast Steelworks was regarded as the most important industrial operation in Witten-Annen and was one of a total of six factories. It also played a big role in the production of arms during the Second World War. As well as cast steel parts for airplane construction, armor plates for warships and semi-finished products for weapons were produced there. Above all, a large number of low-skilled workers were needed for the armament production operation.

Of the verified fatalities among the forced laborers in Witten, 51 of the victims came from Poland. By the end of the war, approximately 5% of the total number of forced laborers in Witten had died. According to one forced laborer, “it was not the armament production work itself, but the hunger, cold and demeaning repression by overseers, SS men and some of the functionary prisoners that caused the most hardship”. Over 600 people died from their Nazi forced labor.

Locals in 1945 would have known about the forced laborers. “The locals were able to see the camp inmates, many of whom were colleagues, walk the around 600-metre route from the camp (…) to the main entrance of Annen Cast Steelworks. The factory lay in the center of the town district, close to the train station and the market square as well as the Evangelical and Catholic churches, the post office and the local school which were close by. The street where forced laborers were marched to work was lined with restaurants, shops and residential buildings”.

After the end of the Second World War were characterized by a refusal to talk about the Nazi history of the town. During that time, the history of the forced laborers in the town and the satellite concentration camp in Witten-Annen was ignored, and collective amnesia set in. In the 1980s that attitude started to change and the former memorial I was seeking resulted. With Forced Labor barracks foundations paved over, that history was quietly erased once again.

Witten-Düren Germany

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Düren is a quarter in Witten Germany just south of Dortmund. Rather than being a town, it is really just farm land. I parked on the side of a muddy farm road and hiked to a trail. That trail made its way along the edges of farm fields at the edge of the woods. A small stream separated the trail form the fields. I jumped the stream and set up to sketch at the edge of a farmers field. I worked quickly, but as I sketched it started to rain. The drops splattered on the page. A German woman was walking her dog on the trail She waved, but must have thought I was crazy to be sketching in the rain.

In April 1945, the 75th Infantry Division, 3rd Battalion followed the 2nd Battalion and then passed through them to attack and capture Düren Germany. With Düren secured they pressed forward and took Stockum Germany.

In the town of Witten, up to 25,000 people from different countries, including several hundred Poles, were forced to work for Nazi regime during the Second World War. The majority of the workforce in the town was made up of forced laborers, who were used mainly to produce weapons. In 1944, a satellite of the Buchenwald concentration camp was even created to accommodate the concentration camp inmates in the Annen Cast Steelworks.

During the WWII, there were a total of around 24,900 forced laborers from all the occupied territories in the area now covered by the town of Witten. On average, they worked for approximately 15 months in the town, and made up the majority of the workforce there. At the beginning of 1945, for example, the forced laborers constituted about 55 % of the total workforce in Witten. The different areas of work that they performed meant that large-scale forced labor camps were needed. As a result, it is thought that between 230 and 250 forced labor camps of different sizes were established in the town during that period.

“It was a beautiful afternoon the day we left Krakow. Our homeland, abused by the occupation, said goodbye to us with a sunny day. The monotonous clatter of the train wheels painfully reminded us that it was taking us away as slaves.”
– Maria Hosajowa, a former Polish forced laborer.

U.S. 75th Infantry Division liberated thousands of forced laborers and Prisoners of War (POWs) from Nazi camps, in the Ruhr Pocket region. Once liberated the infantry had to feed and house the displaced persons and find a way to get them back to their home countries. It was a task they were ill-prepared to carry out. Once liberated, forced laborers looted to began to find the basics for survival and decent clothing, Displaced persons consulted bulletin boards hoping to find out about transportation home. Hitch hiking wasn’t effective in war time. To survive you needed to carry all your belongings.

Witten Germany

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The 75th Infantry Division, 1st Battalion moved south with the other 2 Battalions against heavy last ditch German opposition on April 11th, 12th and 13th. My father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken lead C-Company as part of the 1st Battalion was part of this attack. They advanced towards Witten Germany and encountered stiff resistance as they neared the objective. They broke up a large scale counterattack with mortar and artillery fire. They then had to fight a fierce house to house battle through Witten to advance to the Ruhr River.

The 2nd Battalion followed the 1st Battalion for a short time and then it changed its angle of attack to the south, southeast, meeting heavy enemy resistance but reaching the town of Annen. Road blocks and large numbers of riflemen made taking Annen difficult. After entering the town just before it got dark, the Battalion held it’s ground and then continued the attack in the morning.

The 3rd Battalion met equally stiff resistance, with K-Company getting pinned down. Air support helped break up the situation and the Battalion continued it’s attack to the Ruhr River.

The remaining German forces were being backed up against the Ruhr River with no retreat route. Their freedom of movement was curtailed, and they were being pressed in from all sides. The hopelessly trapped units receiving artillery fire from all directions from the Americans and the infantry kept pressing in making their plight hopeless.

Witten, a Ruhr industrial town, was heavily damaged by Allied bombing, particularly in late 1944. Ruhr AG Steelworks was crucial for weapon production, leading to high demand for forced laborers, including a Buchenwald sub-camp. Up to 25,000 people from different countries, including several hundred Poles, were forced to work for the National Socialist regime during the Second World War.

At the beginning of 1945, for example, the forced laborers constituted about 55 % of the total workforce in Witten. The different areas of work that they did meant that a large-scale accommodation was needed. As a result, it is thought that between 230 and 250 forced labor camps of different sizes were established in the town during that period.

The steelworks were not the only place where forced laborers were made to work: they were also used on farms, in various different trades and in other factories producing armaments, or even in private households. The majority of the forced laborers were the so-called “workers from the east”, who made up around 50% of all the prisoners working in Witten. The forced laborers in Witten also included Soviet and Italian prisoners of war. A far smaller number of the forced laborers who were made to work came from Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Czechoslovakia.

The Buchenwald sub-camp in Witten-Annen was created in September 1944 to supply prisoner labor to the Ruhr AG Steelworks in support of increased German rearmament efforts in the last year of the war. Like other sub camps attached to the Buchenwald main camp and within the camp system more generally, the supply of prisoner labor to the steel factory, followed from an agreement between the SS-Business Administration and the administration of the factory. Inmates were hired out from the SS by the firm at a cost of 6 Reichsmark (RM) per skilled laborer and 4 RM per unskilled laborer per day.

Dorney Germany: The Woe of the Vanquished

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I went for a walk in the Dorney Wald Nature Preserve. It was raining all day. I parked in a ball park parking lot and waited for the worst of the rain to stop. Then I ventured out in search of a statue of two German soldiers. I walked for miles and could not fin them. I finally gave up and when I got back to the car. I started searching for a place to eat. The place I found was right on the opposite sided of the forest within walking distance. I decided to walk over to get a gyro to eat. On that walk I ended up stumbling upon the statue I ad been searching for.

The memorial was erected in 1935-1935 by the Nazi Party. Though masked as an attempt to honor the losses of WWI, it was instead used to glorify the revenge felt for the loss and was used to recruit new youth for the battle to come. Every war brings unimaginable pain misery, displacement and death. The plaque next to the sculpture reminds any viewer to remember the costs of war.

Too many Germans were dying while trying to defuse unexploded Allied bombs. To remedy the situation, Himmler wrote a memo insisting that POWs and Forced Laborers should defuse the bombs. 40 prisoners from the Cologne-based SS-Baubrigade III were sent to Dortmund- Dorstfeld, Stalag VI-D  to work with the Luftwaffe‘s bomb disposal squad. There is little data, and only a few prisoner names are known, about the Dortmund POW bomb disposal squad. Thousands of tons of unexploded Allied bombs remain in Germany to this day, and 11 German bomb technicians have been killed since 2000. It is unknown if any POWs or forced laborers died defusing bombs. It would be a job that you would have to learn quickly and never do wrong.

“The Nazi regime of forced labor was a crime that made people throughout Europe slaves of the German war and business interests,” emphasized Günter Saathoff. “In contrast to the extermination camps in the east, the German population could not claim that they did not know anything about it because the wrongs were committed before their very eyes. Nevertheless, it was later denied or played down as a concomitant of war and the occupiers’ rule.

Every German man had to decide how to behave towards forced laborers: with the last bit of humanity or with the allegedly imperative coldness and relentlessness of a supposed higher race. There was scope of action and how such was made use of tells us something not only about the individual but also about the influence and attractiveness of National Socialist ideology and practice. While many Germans wanted to sweep the past under the rug, some wanted to learn from the past and build memorials to educate people of the future so that they might not repeat the horrors committed.

On April 12, 1945 Franklin Delano Roosivelt was having his portrait painted by artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff at the “Little White House” in Warm Springs Georgia. He suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage and collapsed after telling the artist that he felt dizzy. The portrait she was working on was a watercolor and she left it unfinished. She ultimately completed the commission by doing a painting from photo reference and memory. The uncompleted portrait became a historical relic.

A eulogy for FDR said that he had “given his life” through intense, unrelenting labor as Commander-in-Chief during World War II. Though not killed in combat, he died “in harness” or “in battle harness,” as described by Winston Churchill, having led the nation to the brink of victory but not living to see the final surrender of the Axis nations.

April 10, 1945: Dorney Germany

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Dorney Germany is a four road town just to the south of Dortmund. The 75th Infantry Division continued it’s attack south throughout April 9th and 10th with the 2nd Battalion capturing Oespel and Dorney then proceeding south to the regimental objective which ultimately would be the Ruhr river.

It was raining all day so my only hope was to sketch from inside the rental car. It was a grey lifeless day. Someone threw recycled bottles in a bin and that glass clattered loudly.

Dortmund had a POW–Forced Labor Camp. When Ninth U.S. Army troops captured Dortmund, Germany, April 14, 1945, they liberated 4,070 prisoners and slave laborers of 13 nationalities–men, women and children. The Americans discovered prisoners-of-war and workers too weak from starvation, malnutrition and disease to move. Dozens were found lying in manure piles, ditches and cellars, dying from neglect and lack of medical treatment. Fifty bodies were found in the yard of the German guard barracks, now used as a hospital, unhurried and decomposing. These people were then cared for at the displaced persons center in Dortmund under command of Captain William T. Drake of Wilmington, Ohio. Two Russian doctors and Russian women assisted medical corpsmen of the 79th Infantry Division of the Ninth Army in caring for them.

In entering one room in the Dortmund Forced Labor Camp, soldiers found 4 dead babies lying on a table covered with sheets. On the floor were naked skeletal men and woman also covered in sheets. Babies were systematically taken from Forced Labor women and then starved to death to satisfy the the German ideal of the final solution. If the woman did not get right back to work, she would be murdered as well. If a woman tried to recover her child from German custody, she would be shot.

The Germans abducted about 12 million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds of whom came from Eastern Europe. Many workers died as a result of their living conditions, mistreatment or were civilian casualties of the war. They received little or no compensation during or after the war … At the peak of the war, one of every five workers in the economy of the Third Reich was a forced labourer. According to Fried, in January 1944 the Third Reich was relying on 10 million forced labourers. Of these, 6.5 million were civilians within German borders, 2.2 million were prisoners of war, and 1.3 million were located at forced labor camps outside Germany’s borders. Homze reported that civilian forced labourers from other countries working within the German borders rose steeply from 300,000 in 1939 to more than 5 million in 1944.

April 9-10, 1945: Dortmund-Oespel Germany

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It started to rain as I sketched. Rain drop blasts littered the surface of the sketch. I could not protect the page. I closed the sketchbook and sat as it rained, thinking it might stop. I was sheltered in a rain jacket. I finally gave up and put the sketchbook away. After walking half way out of the cemetery, the rain stopped. I went back to my spot and sketched again quickly. I managed to cover the page before another wave of rain started. As I was leaving, I noticed a headstone for Fritz and Gerta Torspecken. My last name is Thorspecken and in America that is quite unique. With just one letter missing, I thought these might be long lost relatives. I know that my original ancestor, Dr. Elias Julius Thorspecken emigrated to America in 1830 or so to build a new life. He served his new country as a doctor during the Civil War. Arolsen Germany the city that Augustus left, is just 142 miles due west. This headstone left me thinking that I might have deep roots in this area of Germany.

Oespel is a district in Western Dortmund Germany. The attack by the 75th Infantry Division continued through April 9-10, 1945 with the 2nd Battalion advancing south to capture Oespel and Dorney Germany with light enemy opposition to their regimental objective which was ultimately the Ruhr River.

Searching the Arolen archives online, I found 225 Forced Laborers listed as being in Dortnund-Oespel. The first was named Marta Albert born Butschgau. She was 55 years old in 1945 and was born in Belgium. I was left wondering if she survived the war and returned to Belgium.

The Oespel coal mine was in operation in 1945 and this is possibly where Marta would have been forced to work. The mine had up to one thousand nine hundred and twenty workers in the underground shafts and in the sorting area. The Oespel coal mine was one of four mines in the village of Oespel.

Stalag VI-D POW camp was in Dortmund Germany. Over 70,000 prisoners-of-war were imprisoned here in World War II.  The camp was closed in March of 1945, one month before my father’s unit was fighting to take Dortmund. Prisoners in the camp were primarily from Poland, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Italy. The POWs were forced to perform labor in armaments and industrial plants, in mines and in private and municipal enterprises under inhumane conditions. Several thousand of the POWs died from chronic illness, malnutrition and Allied bomb attacks. There were no air raid shelters for the POWs.

From September 1, 1939, Oespel suffered from Allied bombing raids, direct casualties, and soldiers killed in action during World War II.

On June 4, 1941 there was a low-level air raid that claimed ten lives. Residents sought refuge in the air-raid shelter at the Oespel 3 mine. Forced laborers were not granted shelter in the mines although they were forced to work there.

On March 23, 1944, an American B-17 bomber with a crew of ten, was shot down by an anti-aircraft gun stationed at Dorney Germany. The plane crashed on the spoil heap of the Oespel 3 mine and landed in two gardens in Heuerlingsweg Germany, just south or Oespel.

On December 1 and 12, 1944, the Protestant church, parsonage, community center, and the school were severely damaged in air raids.

On April 10, 1945, after a heavy artillery duel, American troops, including the 75th Infantry Division captured Oespel and Kley and looted valuables. My father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken was leading C-Company during the capture of Oespel Germany and the surrounding area.

On April 13, 1945, with the end of World War II close at hand, the Allies began efforts to repatriate foreign forced laborers from the coal mines. Once liberated, forced laborers became known as displaced persons. Rebuilding lives torn apart by war was a task above an beyond what any soldier could accomplish.

On June 7, 1945, the Americans withdraw from Oespel Germany. The British took over the occupation, and Oespel citizens were transferred to Allied prisoner-of-war camps.

April 12, 1945: Mahnmal Bittermark Massacre

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As Allied troops along with my father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken who was leading C-Company of the 1st Battalion of the 75th Infantry Division, were attacking Dortmund Germany and moving south, the German Gestapo were looking to hide atrocities before they retreated.

The Gestapo marched 300 people into the Bittermark Forest which is just to the south of Dortmund. They were members of the resistance and forced laborers from France, Belgium the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Poland and the Soviet Union.
The killings ended on April 12, 1945, one day before, the area was liberated on 13th April.

The Mahnmal Bittermark Memorial in Dortmund, Germany, was designed by German sculptor Karel Niestrath (1896–1971), with the memorial ensemble completed in 1960.

Hundreds of thousands of forced laborers were exploited in the armament factories and coal mines around the Ruhr River during the Second Word War. An estimated 30,000 forced laborers were deployed in Dortmund during the Second World War. They were accommodated in about 300 camps, one of those being a branch of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Forced labor was no secret, it was a public crime. During World War II, forced laborers were exploited on almost every building site and farm, in every factory, mine and even in private households in Germany. Every German had to decide how to behave towards forced laborers. Every German citizen would see the forced laborers being sent to work under armed guard. A few showed a bit of humanity, but most showed the coldness and disdain of a supposed higher race. How people responded to the laborers showed something not only about the individual but also about the influence and attractiveness of National Socialist ideology and practice.

Forced laborers made up 40% of the workforce mining in the Ruhr Region. Russian prisoners of war and slave labor from the east made up a majority of the forced labor force after 1942. Hard work and meager food rations drained the strength of the men. Physical violence was a daily occurrence. Cold and bad hygienic conditions were further accompanying aspects so that diseases like tuberculosis spread in many camps.

In March of 2012, Dortmund City Council. Lord Mayor Ullrich Sierau said: “The knowledge of the Nazi crimes is a precondition for fighting the ideology of the extreme right. The fight against right-wing extremism is at the top of our urban agenda.”

April 12, 1945: Old City Hall, Dortmund Germany

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In Dortmund Germany, I searched for an old building that might have stood back in 1945. The Altes Stadhaus was hosting a wedding when I stopped to sketch. People were gathered outside at the entrance to the building despite the intermittent rain. A woman released a metallic helium balloon and people cheered as the balloon floated up to the grey sky. I hunched over my drawing trying to block the rain before the page became a liquid mess. Saint Reynolds Church could be seen down the street.

The Altes Stadhaus is an office block which was built in 1899, designed by “master builder” Friedrich Kullrich, an architect from Berlin. It was built in the Renaissance Revival style. The building was partially  damaged in World War II, due to heavy Allied bombing which leveled the city center. A record-breaking air raid on March 12, 1945, dropped over 4,800 tons of bombs, the largest in a single city during the war. 98% of the city center was leveled. The Stadhaus was rebuilt in the same Renaissance Revival style to remind people of the cities past. Though opulent in design it was simplified compared to the 13th century original building. Reconstruction seldom restored the full grandeur of the past.

On April 12, 1945, the 95th Infantry Division attacked attacked Dortmund from the southeast and liberating the central and southern part of the city. Edward D. Snell, in F-Company, 2nd Battalion, 378th Regiment, said he couldn’t believe how much of the city was destroyed by years of bombing. There was nothing left of the center municipality of Dortmund, it was completely gutted.

After the fighting subsided, there were many displaced persons (DPs) running around looting stores and shops. Displaced persons were usually forced laborers who had been starved on minimal rations of a thin watery “soup”. This “soup” was low in nutrients (e.g., swede soup, or “Yoshnik” made of a few potatoes, barley, and beans), and it was intentionally inadequate for sustaining the heavy labor demanded of the prisoners. After liberation, they foraged for food to survive.

It was about this time that Ed and his squad were informed that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died. This news had a solemn effect on the whole Division. His squad captured a Nazi headquarters near the center of Dortmund. He relieved one of the German officers of his P-08 Lugar, and his dress sword. Within the headquarters, they found racks and racks of beautiful rifles and shotguns that the German military police had confiscated from the public. Ed and his squad were ordered to destroy them. He said he felt awful having to break up those weapons in the middle of the street. They were some of the finest rifles and shotguns he had ever seen.

The 290th Infantry Division  passed to the west of the city of Dortmund in a push to get to the Ruhr River. With Dortmund surrounded the Ruhr pocket was crushed. The 290th Infantry Division, 75th Infantry, 2nd Battalion captured Herdeke Germany on April 14, 1945. Herdeke is directly south of Dortmund on the Ruhr River. The enemy had fought  a delaying action as they retreated. An air strike was made on the town. The burgermeister surrendered to L- Company. He wrote, “I surrender the town of Herdeke to the Allied military forces at 1000 April 14, 1945. It is understood that from this time forward, control of Herdeke will be by allied forces.” K and L-Companies crossed the Ruhr River to secure it’s southern bank. This would prove to be the last battle for the 75th Infantry Division of the European campaign.

Saint Reynold’s, Dortmund Germany

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I knew of several photos of the partially destroyed Saint Reynold’s Church in Dortmund Germany after the Allies had captured the city in April of 1945. I found the exact location where one of the 1945 photos was taken but I would have been run over if I sketched from that spot. I decided to sketch from the next street over which was more pedestrian.

As I finished my basic pen and ink line work, it started to rain. I only had a short time in Dortmund, so I had to finish the painting despite the rain. Rain drop splashes can be seen all over the sketch. I started scribbling with colored pencils to try and darken spots which were flooded with water making darker watercolor washes ineffective.

Saint Raymond’s is the oldest church in Dortmund. St. Reinold’s was built from 1250 to 1270, and is located in the center of the city, The church was heavily damaged in World War II.

In December 2016, nine neo-Nazis from various German cities who were associated with the Die Rechte right wing group occupied the church steeple and appeared to set off fireworks from it. The members were subsequently taken into custody by police. Neo-Nazi slogans shouted from the steeple through a megaphone were drowned out by the church bells, ordered to be rung by the vicar of St. Reinold’s.  The illegal occupation of the church’s tower was met with disbelief and anger from the church’s spokespersons and the vast majority of the public.

Dortmund was the most heavily bombed city in Germany by the end of WWII, resulting in over 6000 deaths. Dortmund was the largest industrial city captured at the end of the war by the Allies. With the City surrounded, the Ruhr ceased to exist as an industrial powerhouse. Hitler’ bread basket was empty. American troops captured flak trains, guns, ammunition and supplies.

In 2020 . about 14,000 German residents were ordered to leave their homes when several WWII undetonated bombs were discovered in western Dortmund. German disposal experts were brought in to detonate the bombs. The two devices — an American bomb and a British bomb — were successfully detonated on Sunday afternoon. Shipping containers stacked as walls blocked streets to absorb potential blast waves, and barriers warned that “entry is forbidden,” (verboten) as the operation got underway. Police helicopters scanned the streets from overhead to ensure residents had left as instructed.

The 290th Infantry Division which my father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken was in, kept to the west of Dortmund proceeding south. By April 10, 1945 they were getting close to Witten Germany. The 2nd Battalion advanced south and southeast through light enemy opposition to capture Ospel and Dorney Germany and then continued to the regimental objective. The 3rd Battalion followed the 2nd Battalion then passed through them to attack and capture Duren. With Duren captured the Battalion moved ahead and took Stockum Germany, reaching the regimental objective an hour before midnight.

Prisoners poured into the 75th Infantry Division cage. The battle raged on from one town to town.

Marten Germany

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A dawn attack on April 8, 1945 resulted in the 75th Infantry Division capturing Kirchlinde and Marten Germany, cutting the rail lines leading into Dortmund, thus effectively isolating the city from the west. Marten is a district in western Dortmund, Germany, It is directly south of Kirchlinde.

Marten was part of a major industrial hub heavily targeted during WWII. As part of the Ruhr region, the area suffered severe destruction, with up to 98% of the inner city was destroyed by March 1945. Local, industrial sites, in Marten, were key targets for Allied bombing.

I found a location near the railway lines to sketch. The neighborhood where I sketched had industrial buildings along the railroad tracks and row houses across the street. This street is right next to the railway lines and an 8 foot high wall obstructed any view of the rails. I could hear the trains roaring by once in a while as I sketched. This building which resembles the bow of a ship on a triangular block in the city. Much of Marten had been flattened by the 75th Infantry artillery before troops did the hard work of mopping up any isolated enemy resistance.

The Germania coal mine (Zeche Germania) was an industrial coal mine located in the Marten district of Dortmund, Germany. It operating from 1854 until its closure in 1930. It therefor wasn’t feeding the German war efforts in 1945. I decided not to sketch Germania.

The 75th Infantry Division freed thousands of Forced Laborers from Nazi Camps. Once freed, the laborers became known as displaced persons and it fell on the 75th Infantry Division to feed and care for them. If they fed the starving inmates too fast they would die. They then needed to send the displaced persons back east where they had been abducted and sent to German forced labor camps. The problem is that the displaced persons would be seen as traitors once they were sent back to Russia or Poland. Many would face certain death back east, or they would be treated as pariahs for the rest of their lives.

1st Lieutenant Joe Colcord of the 75th Infantry Division related the following. “We captured several small un-named cities in the Ruhr Pocket and my only horrible recollection is in the liberation of a displaced person’s camp. Some poor souls were wandering weakly around in near death as the German guards had wisely left. Some were lying in stacked beds too weak to walk and all were in effect skeletons. They almost seemed non-human. I suspect this was a work camp like that of Schindler’s List depiction except the actors in the movie were far too fat by comparison. I cannot recall the name of the place but the inhumanity of this treatment lingers on in my mind. we had a strange task that I have brooded about for years. There were many Displaced Persons (DP’s) that apparently, by treaty, were to be shipped home by the easiest rail line. I, of course, would have given my eyeteeth to be sent home and 50 was thus very perplexed as many of these people did not want to go “east”. In fact, we had to nail the doors shut in the 40-8’s to keep them on board at least until they left the marshaling yard. I now realize that for many there was no “home” and that this act that I considered a good deal was often really a potential death sentence. I can still see the sad faces as they were boxed up to go “home”.

Since Joe served in the same outfit as my father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken, I have to wonder if my father lived with the horror of such memories for the rest of his life. If he did , he never spoke about them.

The attack continued through April 9th and 10th, 1945. The 2nd Battalion advanced south, and southeast of Marten Germany.