Plettenberg Germany: Böhler Chapel

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The Böhler Chapel in Plettenberg Germany is a historic religious site, serving as a significant Lutheran preaching spot from 1723 to the mid-18th century, particularly when the main town church was unavailable. It was a center for early morning services and is adjacent to a quiet, historic graveyard that reflects local history. A stone in the wall of the church has the date July 19, 1907. A sign in the cemetery notes that the cemetery was founded in 1906.

The wall surrounding the church has a World War I and World War II memorial. A Column with a metal dish on top that looks like an eternal flame has a plaque that says WE REMEMBER. Another plaque with a relief sculpture of a man in a trench coat with his hands outstretched says REMEMBER THE PRISONERS. At his feet are Prisoner barracks with four sentry towers. This is probably referring to the thousands of Russian Soldiers who were starved to death at Stalag VI-A.

On April 11, the Americans advanced as far as Meinerzhagen and Herscheid (West of Plettenberg) and arrived in the outskirts of Plettenberg around 1 p.m. on April 12. The German troops that had been stationed in and around Plettenberg in the preceding days had already withdrawn or gone into hiding. Nevertheless, there were instances where, despite the obvious futility of further resistance, the desperate orders of the higher command were followed verbatim. This was the case not only with the demolition of the road bridge at Kaley, but also with the railway bridge at Siesel. When the first American tanks entered Plettenberg, a German soldier attempted to destroy a tank with a Panzerfaust on Grafweg, next to the Rempel company, and was killed in the process.

During the course of April 12th, the Americans advanced on the center of Plettenberg. Artillery pieces were positioned near Sonneborn Germany. The town center around Christ Church came under fire.

According to eyewitnesses, the very first shell hit the church tower. On the morning of April 13th, the townspeople were startled early by renewed artillery fire. Bernhard Schulte wrote: “ On April 13th, 1945, Artillery shelling of Plettenberg. In the afternoon, American tanks advanced from the direction of Leinschede into our village. Houses along the main road, behind which German soldiers fled, were shelled. The Catholic church would also have fallen victim to the shelling if Father Busch, the parish priest, hadn’t left the air-raid shelter to go out to meet the Americans.”

Leinscheide is a 9 minute drive to the northeast on the opposite bank of the Lenne River. The American tanks would have needed a bridge to cross the river. It is possible they could have crossed at the Fish Belly Bridge.

When the Americans had actually occupied Plettenberg on April 13 and a truce had been declared, the terrified population still dared not believe that the horrors of war were over. That evening, most of the Americans retreated to their quarters and left Plettenberg by car, heading towards Herscheid Germany (the town West of Plettenberg). A rumor quickly spread through the town that Plettenberg was to be carpet-bombed, and some of the residents, along with their families, boxes, and suitcases, fled to the surrounding hills. Some of the more cautious didn’t return home until the following morning.

Schulte continued: There was Fierce resistance during fighting. “Albert’s house and farmer Otminghaus’s house received direct hits from the tank fire. No livestock was killed. The first tank then turned towards Grabenstraße. A truck was parked in front of the first house on the left. A German soldier fled behind it. The tank set the truck on fire. This caused the old house to catch fire and burn fiercely. The soldier was seriously wounded. At Siepmann’s bowling alley…” Seventy-year-old Mrs. Stutzke was hit by a bullet. She died soon after. At 6:05 p.m., the first Americans arrived in our cellar. I immediately looked at my watch to capture the moment. The German soldiers were captured and taken away. The fighting was over for our town,”

The 75th Inantry Division Command Post wasn’t set up in Plettenberg until April 22, 1945.

Plettenberg Germany: Fish belly arch bridge

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I I decided to spend several days in Plettenberg Germany which was the command post for the 75th Infantry Division at the end of WWII. I drove to the Lenne River where I parked at the AquaMagis water park and then walked to this steel beam Fish Belly Bridge built which was built in 1914. Since it was cold, the water park was quiet. It was a crisp fall afternoon and the walk along the river was gorgeous.

The Fish Belly Bridge was once used for a railroad line. It was closed in 1969 and has been designated a historic site. The  Bridge survived World War II. A walking platform was added to the former railroad bridge. From on top of the walkway, you would have a wonderful view of the Lenne Valley. I climbed up onto the bridge platform. The bridge leading to the west stopped abruptly after a few yards. A metal gate kept people from walking on this dangerous section of the bridge. The other direction over the river is still operational.

As I was sketching, a grandmother and daughter stopped to talk to me for a while in German. I know enough German for short conversations but I only understood maybe half of what the grandmother told me. She was old enough to have been alive in 1945. She wished me safe travels. The daughter knew some English since she lived in the United States for some time. Talking to them made me realize I was hungry for conversation. I had been drawing for 3 months straight every day and people often stopped and spoke to me in French, Dutch, and German. My usual response was “Thank you” in each respective language. Distractions were limited when the people vying for my attention could not be understood. I missed talking to a friend back in the states who is a consummate conversationalist.

The 75th Infantry Division occupied Plettenberg in April of 1945, and stayed for some time while doing governmental work, building up the hospitals, railroads, bridges and water pipes. As always, immediately upon arriving in Plettenberg , the Division’s units set up their Command Posts and a series of signs throughout the town indicated their locations. Each Division in the European Theater of Operations, (ETO) had a different letter with which their individual outfits’ code name began. And so the indicator for 75th Headquarters was D for Diamond.

Water points were established to supply fresh filtered water for the troops. Not only was the job of purifying water in combat important, but it was equally vital when the Division settled in towns like Plettenberg where it was necessary not only to purify water to increase the supply for the troops, but also to test the civilian supply already in operation. With men living so close to one another, the dangers involved in contracting  germs carried by water could result in catastrophe. The men of the water points were diligent, knowledgeable , and tireless.

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.

Russian Memorial Hocklingerweg Hemer, Germany

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In the final months of World War II, the area around Islerohn Germany saw the surrender of German forces to the American troops. My father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken with his C-Company in the 75th Infantry Division, moved into Hemer to help liberate Stalag VI-A, one of Germany’s largest POW camps.

The Americans of the 75th Infantry Division distributed U.S. Military rations to the starving prisoners. Approximately 22,000 men were found at the camp with 9000 of those in the camp “hospital”. Patients suffered from Tuberculosis, Dysentery, Malnutrition, and Typhus fever. Inmates were from the Soviet Union, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Yugoslavia, Romania, Great Britain, Canada and America. American War photographer Joseph D. Karr was on the scene documenting the struggle to keep men alive. Despite being offered food rations, many men were just too far gone. Over 100 men (mostly Soviets) kept dying every day. Soviets were given half or less of the rations that other nationalities were given and over the week before liberation there was no food distributed in the camp since the cooks and guards had retreated East away from the advancing American troops.

Two cemeteries were established for the mass graves for all the men who were dying. The exact number of men who died is hard to calculate. Some researchers think 24,000 men lie in the two cemeteries. Others think that number is too high, while others think that number may be far higher, based on the rising numbers of inmates who died at the end of the war. The goal of commemorating is to never forget. Future generations need to know what man is willing to do in the name of an ideology and how quickly a society is willing to throw away basic moral principles.

Early in the war, the first men who died were buried in a forest near the Stalag. The dead were buried in simple wooden coffins. Most of these men were French (166) and Polish (42). By 1945 there were 335 graves. War graves agreements after the war, insisted that the bodies be returned to home countries. The remaining graves were then moved to the two cemeteries dedicated to the Stalag dead in Hemer.

The numbers of Soviet dead kept growing exponentially. They had been through the hell of war, capture, forced stays in the front-line Stalags followed by excruciatingly long cold train rides into the Reich where they were immediately put into forced labor details. Additional land had to be acquired from a Protestant parish for the hundreds of men who were dying each week. The bodies were carried on a horse drawn carriage on the shortest route up the hills and winding roads to the cemetery. Long excavated trenches had been dug, and the bodies were unceremoniously thrown into the pit. People walking down the street, or passing by train could see the grisly scene. There was no secrecy to the mass murder taking place.

By the end of 1943 all the rows had been filled with bodies. The capacity of the cemetery was exhausted. More than 3,500 Soviet prisoners were buried in 16 mass graves in about 15 months. Since men were buried with bodies stacked on top of one another, about 3 men deep, it became impossible to figure out who was buried where. At first there were distinct rows with metal plates to delineate the rows, but over time the landscape was flattened and a featureless lawn with a few birch trees remains. The metal plates had been discarded or lost.

A small concrete monument had been built by Soviet inmates after the liberation of the camp, but it was replaced by a memorial stone designed by Menden Germany sculptor, Walter Voss. It was dedicated on the Sunday of the Dead, in 1967. The stone says: Rest. Soviet Citizens who died in the years 1941-1945 far from home. The number of deceased, at 3000, was the credible number at the time when the stone was carved. As of 2021, 3,513 of the Soviet prisoners could be named. The exact number may never be known.

April 14, 1945: Old City, Herdecke Germany

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At the little town of Herdecke Germany, the burgomeister formally declared: “I surrender the town of Herdecke to the Allied Military forces at 1000 April 14, 1945. It is understood that from this time forward, control of Herdecke will be by the Allied forces.”

The surrender was to L-Company of the 289th Infantry Division.

Within several days, First Army units to the south of Herdecke had closed in to the other side of the Ruhr River. The battle was over.

Albert Vögler, a prominent industrialist and Nazi supporter, committed suicide while being led away by American soldiers from his luxurious Hause Ende Ville in north Herdecke. He bit down on a hidden cyanide pill, dying instantly. Despite his death, he was still identified as one of the defendants in the Nuremberg trials of prominent industrialists, which prosecuted the group of businessmen who helped Hitler. The industrialists were tried at Nuremberg, for using slave labor, plundering occupied territories, and aiding the Nazi war machine. Most received prison sentences ranging from 2 to 12 years, though many were released early in the 1950s.

The Nazis initiated a conscious policy of “annihilation through work,” under which certain categories of prisoners were literally worked to death. Camp prisoners were forced to work under conditions that would directly and deliberately lead to illness, injury, and death.

Vögler an important executive in the munitions industry during World War II was an industrialist who financed the Nazis, Vögler was a member of the Circle of Friends of the Economy, which was a of German industrialists whose aim was to strengthen the ties between the Nazi Party and business and industry. As a business man, Vögler feared the rise of communism in Germany. Records of donations from Vögler to the Nazi Party from as early as 1931 exist. Vögler met Adolf Hitler on September 11, 1931. Beginning in 1932, Vögler openly funded the Nazi Party.

Vögler invited Hitler several times to his Haus Ended estate. Hitler did not feel safe at the estate at the beginning of the war, so Vögler spared no expense and effort to develop a huge bunker system and to install extensive security measures for the protection of his villa.

After 1940, Vögler was heavily involved with the manufacture of munitions. The armaments industry used much forced labor as well as slave labor so the costs of manufacturing were minimal. Albert had his fingers in many industrial pies, he was involved with United Steel Works in Düsseldorf as Chairman of the Board,. He was also associated with the German-Luxembourg Mining and Smelting Company and Rhein-Westphalian Coal Syndicate in Essen Germany. In the end his guilt over the blood money he had made resulted in his suicide by cyanide.

April 7-10 1945: Kirchlinde Germany

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In Kirchlinde Germany,  I decided to sketch the Zeche Zollern I/III coal mine which was functioning to fuel the German war machine in 1945. It was closed and empty when I sketched it. Many of the windows were broken. I sat in a German grocery store parking lot to get the sketch. A cemetery was across the street behind me.

Kirchlinde Germany and the surrounding communities north west of Dortmund were critical for final Allied combat operations in the Western Theater of WWII from April 7th to 10th, 1945. It was hit hard by 75th Infantry Division artillery essentially flattening the city. The 290th Infantry Division captured the city and cleared it. My father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken was leading C-Company in the 75th Infantry Division during the attack. My father lost 12 men under his command in the attack on Dortmund. Around April 7-10, 1945, US forces faced, among others, the German 2nd Parachute Division, which conducted counterattacks in the area.

Kirchlinde (a western district of Dortmund, Germany) was the site of  intense fighting during the final stages of the Ruhr Pocket battle. American forces, including field artillery units, encountered enemy machine gun fire in the area, resulting in casualties while pushing through the region. Forward Allied observation units directed the Allied artillery fire.

The Zeche Zollern Mine founded in 1873, used forced labor from Russia and Poland as well as Allied Prisoners of War. Forced laborers were starved and literally worked to death. During World War II, the German war economy, including the mining industry, relied heavily on forced labor to replace conscripted German soldiers. By 1944, over 40% of the Ruhr mining workforce consisted of forced laborers, totaling around 163,000 people.

Over 12 million people were brought to Germany as forced laborers in the course of World War II. In the summer  of 1944 alone, in addition to six million civilian laborers, two million prisoners of war and over half a million concentration camp prisoners were forced to work in the German Reich. Many were forced into the depths of the earth to mine coal to fuel the German war effort.

Also in the occupied territories, millions of men, women and children were forced to work for the enemy. It was the forced laborers who kept the agricultural supply and arms production going. The industry profited from the expansion of production. German employees advanced to supervisor positions, until the 75th Infantry Division captured the mine and liberated the forced laborers. All these displaced persons became a logistical nightmare to feed and house.

Other C-Company soldiers who died on the approach to Dortmund Germany…

John Romero (Private First Class), From Las Animas County, Colorado died in the Dortmund area.

Harold E. Rosen (Private First Class), Died near Dortmund Germany.

Richard C. Ruggles (Private), From Orleans County, New York died  April 7, 1945 in the Dortmund Germany area.

John R. Sockich (Private First Class), From Riverside County, California died in the Dortmund area.

On On January 24, 2026, Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old American intensive care nurse for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, was executed by multiple masked ICE agents in Minneapolis Minnesota USA. I was in Europe documenting the final stages of America defeating the Nazi fascist regime, but Nazism seems very much in force in America with brutal misconduct of ICE agents on the streets of my fatherland.

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.

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.

Old Town, Westerholt Germany

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The 75th Infantry Division went to an assembly area near Westerholt Germany after clearing Die Haard Forest. They might not have been in the city center but I decided I should explore regardless. Westerholt was impacted by World War II  because of its industrial importance, the presence of key military figures, and its experience as part of occupied Germany after the war. Though much of the city experienced significant damage from Allied bombing, somehow the Altes Dorf (Old City) managed to be spared. By sketching here I felt I was seeing what the city looked like before World War II. My German Great HGreat Great grandfather left Arolsen Germany in 1830 which was a city that looks very similar to theWesterholt old city.

Westerholt, Germany, fell during the final months of World War II as Allied forces pushed into Germany, likely around in late March or early April of 1945, with American forces capturing areas near the Rhine River and puching south to the Ruhr River, leading to mass surrenders of German soldiers and the end of fighting in the region by May 1945, coinciding with Germany’s overall surrender on May 8th. 

I was seated on my artist stool in front of an artist gallery. There was a bench in front of the gallery and I had considered sitting there but the bench faced straight a ross the street. I wanted a view down the old city street. The gallery owner noticed me at work and started taking to be in German. I have been studying German on Duolingo which gave me enough vocabulary to order food and check in to hotels but fast conversation always would leave me like a dear staring at headlights.

I always assume people who approach are scolding me for creating art in public. In Winter Park Florida it is illegal to create art in public. Through our broken conversation I figured out that she was offering her bench for me to sit on. I was already adding color to my sketch, so changing location wasn’t an option. After my sketch was done, I looked at the display on the gallery window. The artist’s work was bold and abstract. She offers printing workshops in the downstairs gallery. What a beautiful way to make a living.

The tiny building across the street was new but it was being build using the old beam and stucco techniques. It used to be a storage shed but it was being rebuilt to blend in better with the whole neighborhood. The whole time I was sketching the neighborhood were chatting in German on the street or walking their dogs. I felt at peace. If only I could find such a beautiful historic place to set down roots.