April 6, 1945: Castrop-Rauxel Germany

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Castrop-Rauxel was an important Coal mining town North West of Dortmnd Germany. Castrop-Rauxel is near the Rhine-Herne Canal, in the eastern part of the Ruhr industrial district. The 75th Infantry Division, which included my father 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken’s C-Company would have entered the city on April 6, 1945.

The city faced heavy Allied bombing, suffering significant destruction (around 24-26% of all buildings) and was the site of fierce fighting as U.S. forces entered the Ruhr Pocket in April 1945.

The 75th Infantry Division liberated slave laborers and encountered German resistance in its coal mines and synthetic oil plants, which were strategic targets. The fighting involved intense urban combat as American troops pushed through the industrial heartland, leaving a legacy of damaged infrastructure and the complex task of dealing with Displaced Persons.

The 75th Infantry Division held a line from the Zweg Canal on their Western flank east just south of Ickern and Brambauer Germany. The 2nd Battalion of the 291st Infantry Division was given the task of attacking south into Castrop-Rauxel. Company G and F moved into the city with a selection of machine guns, 81mm mortars and a platoon of tanks. Elements of the German Parachute Division lay ahead and heavy resistance was expected. A captured German soldier confirmed the reports.

At 4:30AM on April 6, 1945, G Company soldiers were fed a hot meal from the company kitchen truck which had arrived during the night. The kitchen was set up in a German home and the men ate silently. By 6:45 AM troops were in position and ready to begin the attack.

Half of the homes in Castrop-Rauxel were two story homes build to wood and stucco. The other half of the city consisted of small industrial factories. Partially destroyed buildings offered good cover for enemy snipers. The German 40mm Anti tank guns were being used to fire on American troops with lethal efficiency. Being hit by one of these large shells would literally cause a soldier to explode.

Many of the homes flew white flags, but the citizens had been recruited as a make shift army known as the Volksstrom. The citizen army would fight fanatically and then surrender in droves. They did not have uniforms and they would surrender in civilian clothes. The Volksstrum did have the assistance of well-trained German officers.

The 75th Infantry faced increasing fire from snipers and 120mm mortars. The first German captured was a Volksstrom and he stepped out waving a white flag. He was shot from behind in the hip, by a soldier from the German 2nd Parachute division. The parachute division had been given orders to fight to the last man.

Coal, known as “Black Gold”, was the life blood of the German war machine. The Germans developed a method of converting coal into a cheap diesel fuel that could be used to power the Panzer tanks and other machines of death. Knowing coal was so important, I decided to go to the Zeche Zollern Coal mine, which is now a museum. The site is famous for its light and airy Art Nouveau style architecture. Miraculously this mine went largely undamaged by Allied bombings. The mine used prisoners of war and forced laborers who suffered immensely under horrific conditions.

The mine became known as the “Castle of Work.” The mine was central to Germany’s war effort, with production focused on supporting military needs. The shaft hall was the link between the working worlds above and below ground. This is where the miners climbed into the cage that took them underground. The work in the shaft hall was considered particularly monotonous and was not very popular. Around 60 miners worked here in noise and dust, unloading the wagons and sorting the waste material. It was loud and stuffy at the sorting belt, unbearably hot in summer and freezing cold in winter – an unpopular place to work.

April 5, 1945: Brambauer Germany

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From April 5 to April 15, 1945, Bambauer Germany was a command post for the 75th Infantry Division. The troops got some much needed rest and relaxation. After the 75th Infantry Division crossed the Dortmund-Ems Canal they held a line from the Zweg Canal just south of Ickern to Brambauer Germany.

In Brambauer, I decided to sketch the Martin Luther Church. I was seated right next to a World War II memorial that was a stone courtyard where the walls had plaques covered with the names of soldiers who had died in that war. Since it was World War 1 related, I decided to pass on sketching it. It was a bitter cold day and a tram car would pass the church every half hour or so.

Brambauer contributed to the German war effort thanks to its coal mines which provided fuel for factories and German tanks. Brambauer’s location near the industrial heartland meant it experienced the war’s impact through industrial demands, bombings, coal extraction, and the final battles of the war as Allied forces advanced.

The original Martin Luther Church was was a neo-Renaissance style church built between 1904 and 1906. It was largely destroyed during World War II. Only the tower stood at the end of the war. During the Nazi period, the broader German Protestant church was divided between the “German Christians” movement, which aligned with Nazi ideology and antisemitism, and the “Confessing Church”, which resisted state control. Pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, a member of the Confessing Church preached in Lübeck until his arrest and murder by the Nazi regime.

At first Karl Friedrich embraced the Nazi ideals, but he soon felt that the Nazi’s had a hatred for Christ. On a Palm Sunday sermon in 1942, after the devastating bombing of Lübeck, Karl Frederick exclamation: “God has spoken in mighty language – the people of Lübeck will learn to pray again.” This sermon led to his arrest by the SS Police, followed by the arrest of the three Catholic chaplains. Along with them, 17 members of the Catholic community and one Protestant Christian in Lübeck were charged. Karl Frederick was murdered for his anti – Nazi sermon.

The present-day Martin Luther Church in Brambauer was erected as a simple brick building between 1962 and 1964. The original, surviving tower still bears the scars of the war.

After the war the town was used as a site for German war graves, including fallen soldiers and Soviet prisoners.

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. 

 

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.