Fruehlingsfest in Stuttgart

Just a short one this week. I met some coworkers from the Frankfurt and Stuttgart offices in Stuttgart on Saturday for Fruehlingsfest (Spring Festival). Really, it was nothing more than a good excuse to wear lederhosen and enjoy a few cold beers on a 75 degree sunny day.

Tulips in a park in Stuttgart. (after I got home, I realized I should have taken more pictures, but didn't think about it at the time.)

Brian and me.

Most of the crew. From left to right: Alissa, Brian, Jo, Charles, Shaun, Tim, me, and Kate (and Shaun and Kate's baby Morgan).

View of the festival at night. The beer tent we were in is the big building in the bottom right corner. And no, I didn't ride any of the carnival rides. I'm not sure who thinks that is a good idea after a few beers anyway!

Belgium - My Battle of the Bulge Tour

Just like in grade school, Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays in Germany, so I took a trip to Belgium. Friday and Saturday were focused on touring the Battle of the Bulge areas and Sunday and Monday were spent in Brugge and Brussels.

I apologize in advance for this one because it's a pretty long blog and if you aren't that interested in WWII history, I would suggest to skip this first part and scroll down (or at least the writing part). But if you are interested or have seen the miniseries Band of Brothers, hopefully you get at least half the excitement out of this as I did.

First I drove to the American Cemetery in Hamm, Luxembourg, then to Lanzerath and Losheim (ie Losheim Gap), Malmedy/Baugnez (site of the Malmedy Massacre), St. Vith, and then on to Bastogne where I spent the night. On Saturday, I took a tour with a tour guide who was just amazing. It was just me and him from 9 to 5 and we had an amazing time. We toured the battlefields around Bastogne and he would show old pictures and tell stories from numerous vets he's given tours to and is friends with (many of them from Band of Brothers "fame" - Easy Company of the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne).

This is the American Cemetery in Luxembourg where about 5k US soldiers are buried.

From Luxembourg I drove north and near Lanzerath and Losheim (ie Losheim Gap), I saw what's left of the Siegfried Line. These cement "dragon's teeth" were put up along the German border to prevent attacks from tanks. The cement "blocks" were really small in the front rows, but about 5 feet tall in the back ones! I had no idea they were so big.

This is the site of the Malmedy Massacre. This is where about 90 US POWs were shot by the SS.

I went to a museum at the site of the massacre and these are a pair of Patton's boots. The bayonet leaning against them is engraved with "PFC Joe R Strout - Kansas".

Also from Kansas was another pair of boots donated from a Bill Meyer of Marion.

Sherman Tank in front of the Bastogne Historical Center Museum.

New memorial to the 101st Airborne in Bastogne.

Mardasson Memorial in Bastogne (has all 50 states and all military divisions listed).

The people of Bastogne are definitely proud of the 101st Airborne (and the US military in general). This restaurant has the 101st patch under the sign and is also called "Le Nuts" from General McAuliffe's famous response to the German's order for the US to surrender.

These next pictures are when I was with the tour guide on Saturday. This was the headquarters of Easy Company of the 501st Infantry Regiment. The tour guide had a picture from right here that showed about 20 German POWs with their hands on their head just to the right of that grey barn.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but near that group of trees is a ridge. I took this picture from the headquarters of Easy Company. That ridge is where the Germans were dug in on Christmas and were singing Christmas carols. They knew the Americans could hear them and was meant to make the Americans homesick.

Barn between the headquarters of Easy and Fox Company of the 501st. You can't even count how many bullet holes it has.

Because it was so foggy and snowy during the 2 months they were in this area, neither side could tell where the other was. I took this from the area that Easy Company of the 506th Infantry Regiment (featured in Band of Brothers) was in during the series and literally across the road is where the Germans were.

Untouched foxhole from 65 years ago.

View from a machine gun foxhole to the town of Foy (episode in Band of Brothers focuses on them taking this town). The Germans had 2 88mm guns pointed directly at this forest. How would you like to be in the front row? It actually wasn't any better anywhere in the forest because if the shells would hit a tree, part of the tree would shatter sending splinters or huge peices of tree crashing down.

This is where the attack on Foy started. (Where Sgt Speirs leads the charge)
One of the many "then and now" pictures during the tour. This might be my favorite picture of the whole trip.

This is a pillbox with that Germans had machine guns in that was hit 3 times by a US tank (from Patton's 3rd Army). After taking out this pillbox, soldiers from the 101st met up with the 3rd Army and then it was known that the US finally realized it was no longer surrounded.

This is the farm where the famous "Nuts" reply was given to the Germans.

This used to be a convent and is where the nuns sang to the soldiers (also in the Band of Brothers).

German cemetery just outside of Bastogne. There are 6 soldiers buried per cross headstone for a total of about 7k in this cemetery. The German government decided it didn't have enough money to bring them back to Germany, so they made the families pay themselves if they wanted them returned.

This was the town square (Grand Place) in Brussels.

These next pictures were all taken in Brugge. It is a town that was built around 1500.

There is a church in Brugge that has a small vial that contains a few drops of Jesus's blood. Being Easter, they brought it out for the public to see and you could walk up, say a short prayer and "touch it" (it was covered by a glass covering to protect it).

Snowshoeing and Military Band Concert

Chris, Alissa and I went snowshoeing just south of Munich near a town and lake called Tegernsee on Saturday. The weather was perfect - lots of sunshine and warm enough to go without a jacket most of the time. None of us had ever been snowshoeing before, but it was a lot of fun. It was obviously a lot like hiking in the summertime, but was a little more work because of the snow even with the shoes. We did a pretty easy one not knowing how it would be, so it was only about a 2,700 ft elevation gain.





Alissa and I cracking up trying to keep our balance while showing off those stupid shoes! This was at the top (that's a church/chapel in the background).

Chris and I doing our best serious pose.

Me and Alissa

This is a monstary on the lake that is also a famous brewery in the area, so of course we had to make sure their beer was still good after the hike.

Today, I went to a Military Band Concert. To call it a military band concert is a little bit of a stretch though. There were 7 countries represented, but not all of them were military bands and there was quite a bit more "show" (performance) than I was expecting, but it was still fun and pretty neat. I love watching military bands and marching bands, so was a great combination. Texas A&M's is still the best I've ever seen by a long shot!

This is Poland.

Ukraine

Germany (if you couldn't tell)

France

At the end everyone performed together. From top left clockwise...France, Lithuania, Germany, Italy, Poland, Ukraine.

Scotland is the 7th country and is in the front with the bagpipes.

This is a short video of one of the Ukrainians (I can do this I'm pretty sure).

The next three videos are of the crazy Germans of course. The crowd went nuts for these guys as you can tell from the half yodel half hollars in the background! (gotta love Munich too - there was no shortage of lederhosen and dirndls in the crowd either! Maybe I should have worn mine - I will have to wait 3 more weeks I guess until I go to Fruelingsfest in Stuttgart.)