Some sad news...

After contacting Heilbronn tourist bureau of Heilbronn, Germany for a tourist visit this autumn I was informed that Wharton Barracks a former Wermacht artillery kaserne had been torn down and was now Heilbronn Industrial park and police station. This was in the same town where I lived for a few years in the early 1970s and I physically toured the barracks many times where much physical architecture remained from the war of Allied and Bolshevik agression on Germany. I talked to many former wermacht soldat that lived in the town and have written down all I can remember talking to them. I published one account about fighting in the battle of Kursk on your web site. Wharton Barracks was located in SE section of Germany not far from Stuttgart in Bavaria if I remember right. Wharton Barracks was a monument to German craftsmanship and ability, a huge barracks complex with mess halls, EM clubs, etc. On the inside walls of the barracks one could still see the depressions and inlets on the walls where the wermacht soldats placed their K 98s. The americans that were there locked their weapons in a room, the germans kept theirs in the open.

The bad thing is history was, is destroyed when this happened. What stories those walls could have told!!! How many young national socialist men who truly beleived in Folk and Fatherland a few of them Knights Cross winners their foot steps once echoed in these halls have been still now for almost 60 years!!! This is not progress when this occurs. I wonder how much the destruction had to do with political correctness which is the sickness in all western countries?

Gut auben mein herr!

W. L.

P.S. A few days ago I found a fact that could be added to Wharton Barracks on the personal stories on your web site. Waffen SS Totenkopf. After 30 January 1933, tens of thousands poured in to join the Waffen SS. The men of the Waffen SS belonged to all professions. The verfugungstruppe, including Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler had only 10.4% of its members 39 years and older compared with the Allgemeine SS had 62% of its men were more than 39 years old. There for its apparent that the Totenkopf consisted of older men, who were workers, employees, officials, self employed, tradesman and farmers. Brothers of the plow and mine. After 1941, SS Totenkopf Division was among the most rock steady of the divisions. A member of the 8. Panzer Division wrote "In 1941 they had gotten us out of a jam, They were the best soldiers in the world."In the battles of Kharkov and Kursk and on the Mius, it performed with such a highdegee of military proficiency that i was noticed by all. Fourteen days after Stalingradand the loss of 6.army, it destroyed the Soviet 3rd tank army. The division moved on 1 December 1939 in two night marches to the area of Ludwigsburg-Heilbronn- Neckersulm into army barracks. This would mean that large elements of the Totenkopf Division stayed at Wharton barracks a wermacht artillery kasern. It is to my most pleasant ever lasting memory that I walked the same halls, visited many of the rooms, saw the many rifle pits still in the walls for weapons, and walked the very floors that hobnailed boots that were headed east into Operation Barbarossa and matchless endurance and eternal glory would be most of their story.

Swastika at Nuremberg Stadium

A few years ago we received a phone call from one of my father's army buddies, my father was a WWII vet and served with Patton's 3rd Army 1301st Engineers. My father had died in 1968 so his buddy thought that he was calling his pal when if fact he was calling my brother (they both shared the same first name, Roman).

We met for lunch and exchanged stores as well as my black and white photos. One of the many jobs that was performed by the 1301st was demolition and Mr victor Tufano was the man who placed the charges on the large Swastika at Nuremberg Stadium. I have every reason to believe him, we also have photos of the 1301st at the stadium.

Ed, Des Plaines, Illinois