May 8, 1945: Plettenberg Germany

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Plettenberg, Germany was the last 75th Infantry Division command post in 1945 at the end of World War II. My father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken was leading C-Company of the 75th Infantry Division. The 75th was tasked with occupation duty in a large area around Plettenberg Germany, known as Westphalia.

On May 8, 1945 Nazi Germany signed an unconditional surrender of its armed forces to the Allied forces. The Stars and Stripes newspaper headline declared, NAZIS QUIT! Donitz Gives Order. Grand Admiral Donitz, Adolphthe successor to Adolph Hitler. Ordered the surrender. Celebrations broke out in New York City and London immediately. The 75th Infantry band marched through Plettenberg to celebrate the good news.

Relief was felt by every soldier, but the world war was still far from over. The 75th Infantry Division was engaged in routine duties of occupation in the Westphalia region of Germany. This was no easy task since they had to feed and care for 90,000 displaced persons many of them forced laborers and Prisoners of War.

Though victory in Europe was being celebrated, every soldier worried that they might be shipped off to the pacific where the war was still raging against Japan. Occupation duty meant that the soldiers were no longer being pushed from one battle front to another. The pace had slowed down and with peace in Europe men began to hope that they might get to go back home.

The military had a points system for discharging soldiers at the end of hostilities. Each soldier was granted one point for each month of service. They received 2 points for each month overseas. They would be given 5 points for each ribbon, and 5 points for each star. Soldiers with children under the age of 18 received 12 points for each child. Soldiers with 85 points qualified for immediate discharge. The demobilization system began on May 10, 1945.

So in May of 1945, Arthur Thorspecken would have built up the following points…
1 point per month in service… Arthur Thorspecken entered the service on February 4, 1943. On May 8, 1945 he would have served 2 years and 3 months. This amounted to 27 Points.
2 points for each month overseas. Arthur was overseas for 16 months. This amounted to 32 points.
5 points for each ribbon and 5 for each star. Arthur Thorspecken was awarded an American Campaign Medal, an African-Middle Eastern Campaign medal with 2 battle stars, a World War II Victory Medal, and a Combat Infantry Badge. Each medal equals a ribbon, so that amounts to 20 Points and 2 stars adds 10 points for 30 points total.

12 points for each child. Arthur Thorspecken married Elvira Corr while he was in Camp Davis in North Carolina. Elvira had her first child while he was still in infantry school. Elvira’s baby girl was born while Elvira was in Massachusetts. Arthur  did see pictures of his baby girl before being shipped overseas. That amounts to 12 points.

That would be a total of 101 points which would qualify him for immediate discharge. Arthur still served on Occupation Duty in Europe for 3 more months until his discharge could take effect.

In August of 1945, the 75th Infantry Division strength was 20,785. Of these 11,147 had less than 65 points. 7,183 had scores of 85 and higher. Arthur Thorspecken likely departed Europe on about July 29, 1945 when he would have taken the week long boat ride back to America. He was officially separated from the military on August 4, 1945 at Fort Dix, New Jersey, which was just 2 days before the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima Japan. The idea of a world at war took a seismic shift towards peace.

April 14, 1945: Herdecke Germany, Ruhr River Viaduct

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The Ruhr River-Viaduct was opened in 1879 as part of the Düsseldorf-Derendorf–Dortmund South Railway, In May 1943, it was damaged by a flood wave following Operation Chastise (Dambusters Raid ). 19 British Lancaster bombers from Royal Air Force 617 Squadron aimed to destroy the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe dams using “Upkeep” bombs, designed to skip across water and sink against the dam wall. The Möhne and Eder dams were breached, releasing massive floods. The Sorpe dam sustained little damage.

The devastating floodwaters traveled down the Ruhr river, impacting several towns and villages downstream in the Ruhr Valley, including the area surrounding Herdecke Germany, which is situated on the Ruhr between the Sorpe dam and the Rhine. The flood wave swept away a pillar of the viaduct, narrowly missing an approaching train. The destruction caused massive, though temporary, damage to water, power, and industrial infrastructure in the region. Over 1,600 people died in the flooding, a significant portion being allied prisoners of war and forced laborers.

Forced labor was used to reconstruct the arch destroyed in the floodwaters of the Dambusters Raid, but then in 1945, the Wehrmacht demolished two of the Viaduct’s arches to hinder Allied advances.

The three battalions of the 75th Infantry Division continued to press south towards the Ruhr River. Every yard was bitterly contested by the German enemy whose freedom of movement was limited and compressed on all sides. German troops were hopelessly trapped and were being fired upon by artillery from all sides. The American foot troops continued to press forward three abreast. The Germans were attempting to prevent the Americans from capturing a main road that could offer an escape route across the Ruhr River.

The 2nd Battalion found resistance weakening, and they took advantage of this to drive south through to the Ruhr River. E- Company of the 2nd Battalion wrestled their objective from the enemy. My father 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken was in the 1st Battalion which found it’s sector crumbling and they reached the Ruhr without major difficulty.

The 3rd Battalion encountered stiff resistance from Germans who had entrenched themselves on the opposite slope of a hill slightly north of the river with the intention of defending that high ground at all cost. As elements of the 3rd Battalion advanced toward the hilltop, F-Company of the 289th Infantry Division, pushed through on the enemy right flank, catching the enemy in a deadly cross fire.

The German positions collapsed and the advance continued to Herdecke with the enemy fighting a delaying action as they retreated. An airstrike was made on the town of Herdecke, and the city was offered an opportunity to surrender by L-Company. The offer was accepted and K and L Companies crossed the Ruhr River on the south side of the town.

The 290th Infantry Division was relieved on April 14, 1945 by elements of the 313th and 314th Infantry in what would prove to be the final battle action in the European Campaign.

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.

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.

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.