Oestrich Germany: Row Houses

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My father 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken was approaching Dortmund with his C-Company in the 75th Infantry Division. They were clearing the approaches to Dortmund which was being heavily defended. Casualties were high.

Besides a hatred for Jews, the factory and mine owners of Dortmund liked the industrialized principles of the Nazi Party and they profited from the forced labor used to fuel the German war machine. Dortmund and the surrounding communities (like Oestrich Germany) worked at full to keep Hitler’s war machine running.

During WWII, Dortmund-Oestrich, like much of industrial Germany, relied heavily on forced laborers (Zwangsarbeiter) from occupied territories for its war effort, especially in its mines and factories. Forced laborers faced horrific conditions, malnutrition, and mistreatment, with many dying from abuse or bombings. Forced laborers made up a significant portion of Germany’s workforce by war’s end, a vast human tragedy involving millions across Europe.

Despite the Allied bombing campaign which leveled 66% of Dortmund’s homes and 98% of the inner city. Workers kept rebuilding the factories. It therefore made perfect sense that Dortmund would not surrender easily. Even after a heavy bombing raid on March 6, 1945, it become clear that the soldiers in Dortmund was determined to fight to the bitter end. Dortmund and the surrounding towns suffered immense destruction from Allied bombing. Unexploded bomb ordnance, especially near sites like the stadium, remain to this day.

Some of the Soldiers of C-Company who died on the approach to Dortmund Germany.
Edward H. Cockrell (Pvt.), Died April 1945, Dortmund Area Germany
Walter A. Jarosz (Pfc.), Died near Dortmund Germany
James A. Kukalis (Sgt.), Died near Dortmund Germany
Noah L. Laswell (Pfc.), From Perry County, Indiana died near Dortmund Germany

Bodelschwingh Germany: Zeche Westhausen

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Bodelschwingh is just a 7 minute drive south of Mengede, on the North West outskirts of Dortmund Germany. My father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken was leading C-Company in the 1st Platoon of the 75th Infantry Division. Their goal was to secure and cut off the western approaches to the city of Dortmund.

Dortmund has been bombed to the point of being a pile of rubble, but it became clear that the Germans were determined to hold on to this industrial stronghold with absolute radical determination. Dortmund was considered the Pittsburgh of Germany. Dortmund had been early supporters of the Nazi party. The large industries profited from forced labor and producing the fuel and armaments that fed the German war machine.

In 1933 the Jewish population in Dortmund was about 4,000. In 1935 local citizens boycotted Jewish businesses. By August 1938, the Jewish population dropped to 2,600. In October 1938, the government dismantled the synagogue. In November 1938, riots collectively known as Kristallnacht took place, as mobs destroyed Jewish businesses and homes in Dortmund’s city center. Within days, 600 Jews were arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen, near Frankfurt Germany, where 17 died and the survivors paid fines before the Nazi’s released them.

By May 1939, only 1.444 Jews remained in Dortmund. Some escaped Germany shortly after the start of WWII, leaving only 1,222 Jewish Dortmund residents by June 1940. They were not allowed to use public facilities such as bomb shelters or use radios or televisions. Eventually the Jews were confined to “Jewish Houses”. This made it easy for the Nazis when they began the Final Solution.

Between 1940 and 1945 Dortmund was a rally point for the deportation of Jews to death and forced labor camps. The Nazis gathered eight separate groups of 500 or more Jews in Dortmund and sent then to the camps. The larges group between 700 and 800 were removed in April 1942. They were sent to Belzec death camp in Poland where they all were killed.

Zeche Westhausen was a coal mine in Dortmund, Germany. During WWII it was active and utilized forced labor, particularly from the Soviet Union. Germans considered Soviets to be subhuman, and they would literally starve them and work them to death. German miners between the ages of 18 to 35 were drafted into the army and thus slave laborers took their places in the mines. By 1944, over 40% of the Ruhr mining workforce consisted of forced laborers, totaling around 163,000 people.

Mengede Germany: Noah Kirchengeneinde

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I thought that the villages in the Ruhr Pocket of Germany would all be industrial wastelands. I was quite mistaken. Mengede is the picture-perfect German village. German architecture is famous for its timber beams, primarily in the traditional Fachwerk (half-timbered) style, using exposed oak beams forming geometric patterns with infill of plaster, creating iconic, fairy tale-like buildings.

I was staying in the building next to the Noah Evengelical Church. The view from my room window was of the large round stained glass window of the church. I decided to stay here several days to catch my breath after sketching so many cities in a row. I would usually only stay in a city for one day and then follow the my father’s 75th Infantry Division troop movements to the next city.

Being a short distance north west of Dortmund city center, Mengede would have experienced serious destruction from Allied bombings.  Dortmund was the most bombed city in Germany. The bombings destroyed approximately 66% of Dortmund’s homes. The most devastating raid occurred on March 12, 1945, when 1,108 aircraft dropped over 4,800 tons of bombs, destroying 98% of the buildings in the inner city center.

The Noah Kirchengemeinde Mengede church building survived World War II largely intact. In sketching the building I felt that rubble must have been used in some of the reconstruction of sections of the church. Some stones were no longer block shaped but rather random and inconsistent.

I have to wonder where church leadership stood on the question of the final solution. Generally, the leadership of both Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany adopted a cautious approach, during World War II. They often tried to compromise with the Nazi state or avoided confrontation to prevent internal division or antagonizing authorities. Historically the German Evangelical Church viewed itself as one of the pillars of German culture and society, with a theologically grounded tradition of loyalty to the state.

Most church leaders were neither equipped nor financially able to resist the Nazi regime. There was an overall lack of public opposition to antisemitism from church leadership.

The Nazo platform stated: “We demand freedom for all religious denominations in the State, provided they do not threaten its existence nor offend the moral feelings of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not commit itself to any particular denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health only from within on the basis of the principle: The common interest before self-interest.” Most church leaders to embraced the Nazi doctrine.

The Jewish community in Germany was less than 1% of the population. Throughout this period there was virtually no public opposition to antisemitism or any readiness by church leaders to publicly oppose the regime on the issues of antisemitism and state-sanctioned violence against the Jews. Jewish residents faced escalating persecution, and systematic deportation to death camps, with most either murdered or forced out before the war’s end, leaving the area effectively “clean” (judenrein) of Jews.

April 6, 1945: Mengede Germany

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Mengede Is a storybook old German town. I was staying in an Air B&B that was identical to the center building in the sketch. I found a perfect little restaurant that served a traditional German breakfast with a hard-boiled egg and assorted meats and cheeses. On this morning unfortunately it was raining. I hiked out anyway, to find a spot to sketch. This location has a nice overhang on the building I was sitting in front of.

The Pfarrkirche St. Remigius in Mengede, Dortmund, is a historic Catholic parish church, part of the larger Dortmund parish, known for its prominent Gothic tower and significant local history, serving the Mengede district within the Ruhr Pocket of Germany. It is the oldest building in the city. It was built in built in 1875-76, and expanded in 1901. The church sustained no significant damage during World War II.

Mengede is just a 25-minute ride to the north west of Dortmund Germany. Mengede was occupied by the 75th Infantry division as they were making their way south towards Dortmund.

On April 6, 1945. My father’s 1st Battalion and the 2nd Battalion jumped off at dawn encountering light resistance initially. My father’s 1st Battalion was delayed by numerous well organized defensive positions which had to be neutralized before the attack could move forward.

Mengede is now part of Dortmund Germany, suffered heavily in WWII as a key Ruhr industrial area, with massive bombing raids destroying its city center, especially in March 1945, leaving much of it in rubble. It’s industrial importance meant widespread infrastructure damage rather than just residential loss, with unexploded bombs still found today

Even after heavy artillery had been dropped on Dortmund, it became apparent that the city was determined to fight on. The 2nd Battalion of the 291st Infantry Division was pinned down by enemy fire which preceded a counter attack by German paratroopers. Allied artillery broke up the dual. On a flank, the 290th Infantry Division with my father’s C-Company cleared several towns (likely including Mengede), then encountered heavy resistance and was forced to dig in for the night.

The German 2nd Parachute Division which had caused so much trouble ever since Normandy France, fought back hard, but the 75th Infantry Division beat off every thrust.

Lünen Germany

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Lünen  is just a half hour drive north of Dortmund Germany. My father, 1st Leutenant Arthur Thorspecken in the 75th Infantry Division would have passed just west of this village as the 75th pushed south towards Dortmund.

Lünen was crucial for Germany’s war effort in WWII, supplying coal and steel. The city had steel production, copper refineries, and a large electric power station. Manufactures include machinery, electronic products, cement structures, glass, and shoes.

In Lünen I sketched the Miner’s Housing Museum. The museum is located in the colony of the former Minister Achenbach Coal Mine. The interior rooms are quaintly decorated to recreate what the place might have looked like in the 1920s and 30s, with a tin stove and tea cups on a manicured tablecloth.  The forced laborers would not have had such luxuries.

Lünen, Germany, was a location where forced labor was extensively used during World War II, which was a common practice throughout the Third Reich’s economy. Forced laborers would have had to work deep in the coal mines. Millions of people from across occupied Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, were deported to Germany to work in various industries and agriculture to support the war effort.

The majority of forced laborers were Poles, Slavs, and Soviet prisoners of war, who faced brutal and discriminatory treatment, including inadequate rations, poor sanitation, and constant surveillance. These individuals were forced to work in key war-related industries, such as coal mines (Lünen is in the heart of the Ruhr coal-mining region), steel plants, chemical plants, and armament factories.

Laborers were housed in cramped, unhygienic barracks and often worked to the point of exhaustion or death. The majority of camps in Lünen were civilian forced labor camps, which were widespread across Germany and numbered over 30,000 in total. These typically consisted of basic barracks or converted buildings. The conditions in these camps were generally catastrophic, involving long hours of hard physical labor, minimal food rations, inadequate sanitation, and constant abuse from guards. The Nazi regime implemented a policy of “extermination through labor,” where workers were intentionally worked to death.

Once liberated by the Allies, the Forced Laborers became known as Displaced Persons. It became the allies responsibility to feed and try and return displaced persons back east to their homes. Back in Russia, these displaced persons would be seen as traitors and they would be treated as the enemy.

Numerous German companies profited from this system, including major corporations like Krupp, Thyssen, and Siemens, as well as smaller local firms.

The city faced significant damage from Allied bombings.

On April 7, 1945, a train carrying around 400 German concentration camp prisoners from the Wilhelmshaven satellite camp who were “unable to march” was attacked by Allied bombers at the Lüneburg railway station. At least 256 concentration camp prisoners died in the attack. The survivors were rounded up in a field. The next day, the SS took around 140 of them to Bergen-Belsen. The remaining 60 to 80 prisoners, some of whom were injured, were murdered on 11 April 1945 in in the Tiergarten Forest near Lüneburg by the Wehrmacht soldiers who were guarding them and the single remaining SS officer, Gustav Alfred Jepsen.

Ickern Germany

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n Ickern Germany I decided to sketch former coal miner’s homes. This was the week leading up to Halloween, and I was surprised that Germans celebrate the holiday very much the way we do in America, with commercial inflatables and plastic spiders. The addition of a human wrapped up and hanging upside down was new to me.

A neighbor noticed me sketching, and he had to knock on the front door of the home to let the owner know that his display was being immortalized in a sketch. The owner eventually came out. He explained in German that his wife had created the display and she would be pleased that it was beings sketched.

He asked me about American politics and I apologized saying I didn’t vote for the present administration. He let je know that he liked the hard ball policy on immigration. He explained that Germany has quite a problem with immigrants and he wouldn’t mind ICE taking a few away. We clearly stood on two different sides of the fence. He kept explaining his views but my ability to listed and try and understand had faded.

The XVICorps which included the 75th Infantry Division, attacked to the south to the Ruhr River from its position north o f the Lippe Canal. Troops moved across the Dortmund-Ems Canal which ran parallel to the Rhine River to the west. German opposition consisted of the 116th Panzer Division, composed of the 116th Panzer Grenadier Regiment and the 116th Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, as well as reported elements of the 180th Division and none other miscellaneous units.

During WWII, Ickern, Germany, near Castrop-Rauxel, was the site of intense fighting in early April 1945 as the U.S. 75th Infantry Division pushed into the Ruhr Pocket, with American soldiers famously painting signs like “You are in Ickern, courtesy of the 289th Infantry. Another sign read, “Roses is Red, Violets is Blue, the 289th took Ickern for you.”

The 75th Infantry Division liberated Ickern on April 4, 1945. Hundreds of Catholic German prisoners attended mass given by Lieutenant Colonel John D. Duggen the 75th Infantry’s Chaplin. This was their first service in 3 years.Along the way the 75th freed thousands of slave laborers and POWs from Nazi camps. 

 

Waltrop Germany: Datteln-Hamm Canal

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In Waltrop Germany, I hiked along the Datteln-Hamm Canal which runs east and west branching off of the Dortmund-Ems Canal. The 75th Infantry Division would have crossed the canal as they moved south towards Dortmund Germany.

The Waltrop Vegetable Growers’ Cooperative established a maternity camp in the sewage fields outside of Waltrop in 1943 on behalf of the National Socialists. During WWII, the Waltrop-Holthausen Maternity Camp, a forced labor facility where hundreds of foreign female workers gave birth, and many of their infants died due to neglect, and starvation, highlighting the brutal Nazi racial policies and treatment of “Untermenschen” (subhumans). These “assembly stations” were set up by the Gestapo to manage births from Eastern European forced laborers, with infants deemed racially “valuable” (blonde/blue-eyed) often given to German parents, while others perished, a grim aspect of Nazi racial ideology.
During World War II, Nazi birthing centers for foreign workers, known as “foreign Children Nurseries“, “Eastern Worker Children Nurseries“), or “Baby Homes” were used as stations for abandoned infants. These Nazi Party facilities established in the heartland of Germany for the so-called ‘troublesome’ babies according to Himler’s decree, were for the offspring born to foreign women and girls servicing the German war economy, including Polish and Eastern European female forced labour. The babies and children, most of them resulting from rape at the place of enslavement, were taken from the mothers en masse between 1943 and 1945. At some locations, up to 90 percent of infants died a torturous death due to calculated neglect. Research indicates that over 500 babies were murdered.
While liberating forced labor camps, the American soldiers were just beginning to learn of the atrocities committed.
During WWII, the Datteln-Hamm Canal, a crucial part of Germany’s inland waterway network, was severely damaged by Allied air attacks as part of the overall strategy to cripple the German transportation of war supplies. Canal walls were breached and bridges destroyed, like those near the Dortmund-Ems Canal junction. These air raids had halted most movement by March 1945. Barges lay fallow in the now empty canals.
Significant repairs were needed post-war to restore navigability. Nuclear power plants and wind turbines also came post war.

Meckinghoven Germany: Henrichenburg Boat Lift

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Germany is just to the south of Datteln Germany. In Meckinhoven Germany I sketched the boat lift. This historic structure would lift barges to a higher level so they could adjust to the changing water levels in the canal. Here the Zweg Canal which runs North West meet up with the Dortmund-Ems Canal which runs east to west.

The historic Henrichenburg Boat Lift on the Dortmund-Ems Canal, is a marvel of engineering that lifted boats up a significant height, it is now a preserved museum piece. The original Henrichenburg lift, opened in 1899, and it used counterweighted troughs to move ships. The lift was operational during World War II, suffering from only minor damage form Allied Bombings. It allowed large cargo barges to navigate the significant height difference (46 feet) on the canal. The lift is now a static monument, while nearby lifts handle current traffic. 

The 75th Infantry Division was heading south west through Meckinghoven towards the large industrial city of Dortmund Germany. Dortmund was considered the Pittsburgh of Germany. If the 75th could push beyond to the Ruhr River, the city would be isolated. In many of the smaller villages in the Ruhr, Allied units made quick headway with little German resistance. Dortmund was different. Besides being a strategically important city because of it’s industry, the citizens were early supporters of Hitler and the Nazi party. As early as 1933, Hitler’s storm troopers marched through the streets of Dortmund, cheered on by crowds of local citizens. Later Hitler announced the end of many of the post WWI agreements at a rally in Dortmund. The population embraced many of his ideals.

In the late 19e0s, the Aplerbeck Hospital in Dortmund transferred mentally and or physically disabled patents, including children from the area to Hadar Mental Hospital. Patients were first killed by backing up a truch and having the carb0n monoxide fumes pumped into the air ducts of the patent rooms. These patients were murdered as part of the Nazi eugenics program implemented by Hitler before the Final Solution, the extermination of Europe’s Jews.

Forced Labor Barracks, Waltrop-Ickern Germany

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In Waltrop-Ickern Germany I sketched a former forced labor barracks. Today this long building is part of a quiet suburb. Fireplace smoke rose from the quiet home on a peaceful morning. During World War II, Krupp industry in nearby Essen Germany tilized POWs and forced labor for their war production, highlighting the reliance on slave labor in the region’s factories.

In August 1944, there were over 7.6 million Fremdarbeiter (foreign workers) officially registered in the “Greater German Reich,” which represented one-fifth of the total German labor force. Of those, 1.9 million were prisoners of war and 5.7 million were civilian forced laborers. Eastern Europeans made up the majority of civilian forced laborers, a term used to describe people who were involuntarily taken from their homes and deported to work in various places throughout the Third Reich during World War II. The labor policy regarding Eastern Europeans was directly related to Nazi racial ideology, which viewed Slavic peoples as Untermenschen, or subhuman.

In the Waltrop-Holthausen maternity confinement camp, specially established for female forced laborers, 1,273 babies were born during World War II. Most of the infants which were taken from the women, died of starvation or inadequate care within their first year of life. The babies were specifically starved to death by the Germans as a form of racial cleansing.

The camp was set up to manage pregnancies among non-German forced laborers (mostly Polish and Soviets) who had been deported to Westphalia to work in local industries and on farms. The system was intended to ensure these women could quickly return to work and to forcibly abort fetuses and guarantee the deaths of “racially undesirable” children within the German population.

The Polish girl Maria Wieclaw is one of the young women deported to Waltrop Germany for forced labor. At the age of twenty she met her future husband and became pregnant. She gave birth to her daughter Valentina in the Waltrop-Holthausen maternity confinement camp. Her baby was immediately taken from her. To this day, Maria Wieclaw still does not know what happened to her daughter.

Some women tried to break into the maternity confinement camp to recover their children, but if caught they would face certain death. Mothers who were deemed unable to return to work quickly after childbirth were often murdered along with their babies. After the war, many survivors were forcibly returned to Eastern Europe and were ostracized as “traitors of the fatherland” and faced continued hardship. 

On April 4, 1945 three American Infantry Divisions advanced south after crossing the Dortmund-Ems Canal. The 291st Infantry Division was on the left, the 289th Infantry Division was on the right and the 116th Infantry Division in the center. They rolled south to crush Waltrop Germany. The 289th pushed forward to seize Ickern Germany. Coal mines factories, and houses needed to be cleared. K-Company of the 289th Infantry Division killed a German platoon when they met them at an underpass of a superhighway.

The canal system was bridged and supplies rolled forward. Tanks moved forward for support and troops climbed aboard jeeps to keep pace with the fast moving column. Although there was some heavy resistance, the Volksstrom or peoples army, often threw ip their hands and dropped their weapons, begging to go home.

The large city of Dortmund Germany lay ahead and it was the task of the 75th Infantry Division to clear the approaches.

Restaurant in Datteln Germany

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On April 4, 1945 the stage was set for an assault crossing of the Dortmind-Ems Canal at Datteln Germany. This would be a tough crossing but important for the advance into the heart of the Ruhr Pocket. Having reached the Dortmund-Ema Canal, the first stage of the Ruhr campaign was complete. The second stage would have the 75th Infantry Division push south, thus dividing the encircled German troops in half.

The attack across the Dortmind-Ems Canal jumped off with the 75th Infantry Division scaling ladders to cross up and over the canal. Bulldozers followed to mound up dirt to create a path for the tanks and tank destroyers. Creating these paths using bulldozers was a slow process since the Vanal was so wide, and the troops had already advanced across the canal and they were without supplies. Cub planes of the division were flown in to the rescue. They landed necessary supples and evacuated the wounded.

The Germans had retreated, however, they left ground mines behind. Martin Freeman Ables and one other soldier were in a Jeep, returning from picking up two wounded men, to take for medical treatment. Leaving the road to go around a tank, they ran over a ground mine and all four men were killed. This happened on April 1, 1945.

Allied air attacks heavily destroyed Datteln’s residential area. The worst attack was on March 9, 1944 by 77 Royal Air Force Halifax Bombers. They destroyed the churches, including St. Amanduskirche, 3 schools, several buildings of the local mine and 12% of the houses. 64% of the remaining homes were gravely damaged. There were a number of dead civilians who were buried in a mass grave. All of the bridges were blown up by Allied troops.