Winston Churchill

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This statue of  Winston Churchill by Jean Cardot was inaugurated in the grounds of the Petit Palais on the Avenue Winston Churchill in Paris France. The 10 foot high statue was funded by 3,000 donations totaling the equivalent of £250,000. It is based on a photograph of Churchill marching with De Gaulle down the Champs-Élysées on November 11, 1944. This one of the few statues of a foreigner in Paris.

Winston Churchill made several high-profile visits to the Western Front to witness the final Allied push into Germany. Key events included the Yalta Conference in February 1945, crossing the Rhine River with Montgomery on March 25, 1945, inspecting the Siegfried Line, and touring the ruined city of Berlin Germany in July 1945. He attended the start of the Potsdam Conference in July. He also toured the ruins of Berlin and Hitler’s bunker in July before losing the general election. These visits were designed to sculpt the post war world, boost morale, show defiance, and directly observe the collapse of the Nazi regime.

Churchill led Britain to victory in Europe in May 1945 but was stunningly removed from office months later. Despite high personal popularity, voters favored the Labour Party’s platform for social reform, resulting in his resignation on July 26, 1945, after a landslide election defeat. Churchill called the transition from war time leader to opposition leader an “anticlimax”. After Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party suffered a landslide defeat in the July 1945 general election, King George VI offered  him the Order of the Garter, the highest honor of knighthood in the King’s honor’s system. Churchill declined the honor, famously remarking that he could not accept it because the British people had just given him “the order of the boot”.

Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin gathered in Potsdam, near the heavily bombed Berlin, to discuss the end of the war in the Pacific and the fate of the postwar world. After nine meetings over eight days, and with another week of the conference remaining, Churchill had to return to London for the results of the general election. Millions of British servicemen were casting their ballots from overseas. Churchill’s personal physician, left most of Churchill’s baggage behind in anticipation of a swift return. The opposing Labor party won the election in a sweeping victory. To add insult to injury, a large majority of the service vote went for Labour, deserting the man who had led them for five years and sung their praises in historic speeches. Churchill did not return to Potsdam. He had led Britain through its darkest hours and achieved final victory only to be booted from office.

Aachen Germany: Siegfried Line

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The Siegfried Line known in Germany as the Westwall, was a German defensive line built during the late 1930s. Started in 1936, opposite the French Maginot Line, it stretched more than 390 miles from Kleve Germany on the border with the Netherlands, along the western border of Nazi Germany, to the town of Weil am Rhein Germany on the border with Switzerland. The line featured more than 18,000 bunkers, tunnels and tank traps.

German propaganda promoted the WestwWall as an impenetrable line. To counter this propaganda, a British song writer wrote a song titled: Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line.

Finding these Dragon’s Teeth involved a long hike deep into the woods. It was a lovely hike to start. There were a few other people on the trail and then, as I got ready to sketch the sky once again threatened rain. When the rain hits, it comes in like a sheet of grey, darkening the woods. I worked fast knowing that I had a decent sketch from the previous day, of dragon’s teeth. These teeth were taller and more imposing and I suspect they had been cleaned off since there was far less moss growing on them.

From September 17-25 1945, Operation Market Garden, conceived by British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was a bold, single-thrust strategy designed to outflank the Siegfried Line from the north. The goal was to seize key bridges in the Netherlands with airborne troops and then have ground forces advance rapidly to link up with them, crossing the Rhine and pushing into Germany. The operation failed due to German resistance, a captured operational plan, and a slow ground advance down a single congested roadway, resulting in heavy losses for the airborne troops at Arnhem Netherlands.

After the failure of Market Garden, Supreme Commander Dwight D. General Eisenhower preferred a broad front approach to advance through the Siegfried line and into Germany. The American forces launched a slow advance, attacking strongpoints and bunkers directly all along the line. The 30th Infantry Division led an attack along a 14-mile front to clear areas and reduce the defenses. Other units, like the 1st and 28th Infantry Divisions, also engaged in hard-fought battles to breach the line. This method was a “grinding and bloody” approach that made slow, costly progress against the heavily fortified German positions. The Siegfried line was breached in October of 1944. By the time the 75th Infantry Division was crossing the Siegfried line in March of 1945, the hardest battles to push through the defenses had been fought. The next line was to cross the Rhine River.

The Siegfried Line

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West of the Roer River the 75th Infantry Division would have faced the Siegfried Line which is a a fortified area meant to stop an allied advance. There is not much of the Siegfried line still in existence today. After the war, many sections of the Siegfried Line were removed using explosives, but I found these “Dragon’s Teeth” in a forest in Aachen Germany.

The bunkers consisted mainly of unarmed shelters, which were built of concrete. The bunkers were often placed near agricultural farms for reasons of camouflage. Thinking a man Mande fortification might stop an army in World War II was rather medieval. Any modern mechanized army would find ways to move over or through such fortifications.

Since 1997, with the motto “The value of the unpleasant as a memorial”, an effort has been made to preserve the remains of the Siegfried Line as a historical monument. It was intended to stop reactionary fascist groups from using the Siegfried Line for propaganda purposes.

The Siegfried line in the area that the 75th Infantry Division moved through west of the Roer River was known as the Geldernstellung referring to the fortifications of the Westwall, in particular to the unarmed but massively built concrete bunkers from the Second World War. These bunkers were often referred to as “standard buildings” and were originally intended to camouflage the agricultural landscape, as they were built near farms.

The bunkers consisted mainly of unarmed shelters, which were built of concrete. The bunkers were often placed near agricultural farms for reasons of camouflage. Thinking a man made fortification might stop an army in World War II was a rather medieval  fantasy. Any modern mechanized army would find ways to move over or through such fortifications.

March 7, 1945: Leutherheide Germany

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The 75th Infantry Division Command Post was in Leutherheide Germany on March 7, 1945. The troops were in Kaldenkirchen Germany a 10 minute drive to the west. During World War II Kaldenkirchen was located near the Siegfried line which was a critical German defensive position along the Western front. Allied forces encountered the Siegfried line in the final months of the war. The Rhineland campaign which involved allies clearing the area west of the Rhine and then crossing the Rhine River involved significant fighting in this area.

About 65 German soldiers marched into Leutherheide Germany. An allied patrol spotted the troops and reported their position back to the 135th Infantry Division headquarters. A convoy was assembles of anti tank guns, assorted vehicles and 7 jeeps carrying troops from Company’s K and L. When the American troops rolled into town the German troops were completely surprised. About 40 surrendered and the others fled. There were no casualties.

The saying on the large headstone with the German helmet on top, translated says…”We remember our hero’s.”

What I sketched was the Peter and Paul German War Graves in Leutherheide Germany. After completing the sketch I was getting back in the rental car when an old woman drive her motorized scooter up to my drivers door window. She asked me a question in German and I didn’t understand. She sounded upset or annoyed, soI decided to just show her my sketch. Then she pointed at the gate to the cemetery and I understood enough words to realize she wanted me to let her into the cemetery. I flipped open the squeaky iron latch and swung the gate open for her. She thanked me and motored inside. When I left the gate swung closed. Now I am wondering how she got back out of the cemetery. If she couldn’t open the gate going in, then she wouldn’t be able to open the gate to get back out.