World War Two – Page 2

Görlitz

The town of Görlitz is located in the far south-eastern corner of Germany and is about two-and-a-half hours drive directly north from Prague. Back on Tuesday 18^th August 2015, Sybille and I drove to Görlitz, in order to spend the following week walking the first part of Der Ökumenische Pilgerweg. This is the first of three long-promised posts about that week mentioned in my summary post entitled ‘All those things in the second half of 2015 that got missed‘.

Having securely parked the ‘Carly’ in the gated backyard of the Peregrinus Herberge, we spent the rest of Tuesday 18^th August, exploring Görlitz, before setting out walking along our pilgrimage route the following morning. On Monday 24^th August, we returned to Görlitz by train, from Kamenz, which we had reached on foot the previous evening, and decided to further explore Görlitz, before driving back to Prague the next day. On Tuesday 18^th it was grey and cloudy, whilst on Monday 24^th it was fine and sunny with blue skies. Therefore it is fairly easy to tell on which day the photographs illustrating this post were taken 🙂

Beautiful exterior decoration on a Görlitz building © Ricky Yates

The Church of St Peter & St Paul, Görlitz, overlooking the Neiße river © Ricky Yates

Görlitz fortunately suffered relatively little physical damage during the Second World War. Post 1945, whilst part of the communist state of East Germany, it was rather grey and colourless. Since German reunification, many buildings have been redecorated and restored. It is now a very attractive place to visit and is beginning to realise its tourist potential.

The most prominent landmark in Görlitz, is the Protestant Church dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, with its intricate twin spires. It stands overlooking the Neiße river which now forms the border between Germany and Poland. Under the 1945 Potsdam Agreement, following the end of the Second World War, the border of Poland was moved westwards to the Oder-Neiße line. As a result, what used to be the eastern half of German Görlitz, is now the Polish town of Zgorzelec.

Looking across the Neiße river from Germany to Poland © Ricky Yates

This relatively recently reconstructed bridge links the two towns.

Waymarking of the pilgrimage routes © Ricky Yates

The Ökumenische Pilgerweg, following the ancient Via Regia, begins on the bridge and links back to the ‘camino’ coming from Wroclaw in Poland.

The Untermarkt, © Ricky Yates — The Untermarkt, Görlitz © Ricky Yates

This is the Untermarkt in the centre of Görlitz.

A side street & ancient tower in Görlitz © Ricky Yates

A side street with an ancient tower.

We discovered a couple of interesting businesses in Görlitz. This shop sells everything imaginable in relation to Christmas but is open all year round.

Jesus' Bakery © Ricky Yates — Jesus’ Bakery © Ricky Yates

And if you have to feed the five thousand, this is where you clearly need to come 🙂

On sunny Monday 24^th August, Sybille and I enjoyed some liquid refreshment on a terrace overlooking the bridge and the Neiße river. The young ladies serving us spoke German and we ordered auf Deutsch. But afterwards Sybille told me that they were Polish as she could tell by their accent 🙂

Buy your cheaper cigarettes here © Ricky Yates

Suitably refreshed, we walked over the bridge into Poland. Clearly there is less tax on cigarettes in Poland than in Germany, hence the advertisement in German for cigarettes, on the side of a Polish shop 😉

Sybille examoining the border marker as we walked back into Germany © Ricky Yates — Sybille examining the border marker as we walked back into Germany © Ricky Yates

We then walked south through part of Zgorzelec, parallel to the Neiße, before crossing another bridge to return to Germany, Freistaat Sachsen and Görlitz. With both Poland and Germany being EU members and part of the Schengen agreement, there were no border controls at all.

Wroclaw

We spent the final two nights of our October Polish adventure, staying in the city of Wroclaw, and used the intervening day to discover some of the delights it has to offer. Until 1945, Wroclaw was part of Germany and known as Breslau. In the last few months of the Second World War, it suffered serious destruction, with the Nazi forces seeking to defend the city, only surrendering to the Soviet Red Army on 6^th May 1945, just two days before the official end of the war.

As Sybille had organised advance booking of our accommodation for the two previous nights, she declared it was my turn to both find and pay, for somewhere for us to stay in Wroclaw. So, whilst enjoying a mid-morning coffee, sitting in the central market square of Poznan, I got online and reserved us a room for two nights at the B&B Hotel Wroclaw Centrum. It was little more expensive and upmarket compared to where we had stayed in Malbork and Poznan, but I decided we deserved it for the last nights of our holiday. The hotel was located within easy walking distance of the historic city centre, had secure off-street parking for the ‘Carly’, and all the reviews said that its wifi was excellent 🙂 The reviews were correct!

Determined to avoid a repeat of the problems we’d had, trying to drive to our hostel in Poznan the previous afternoon, I’d found the street on which the B&B Hotel is located, using the city centre plan in our Polish guidebook, and worked out a route of how to get there. All went perfectly to plan, except that we found ourselves driving along on the opposite side of the street to the hotel, with a set of tramlines in-between, which it was impossible to drive across 🙁 Fortunately, we kept our sense of direction and managed to eventually find a legitimate way to drive back up the other side of the street and reach the hotel and its car park.

After checking into the hotel and getting our belongings from the car to our room, we set out to walk into the historic city centre and main market square, just as it was getting dark. The floodlit Gothic Town Hall looked magnificent, as you can see in the photograph at the top of this post. The square has numerous bars and restaurants. We eventually chose to eat at a Greek restaurant and shared an amazing seafood platter.

The weather next morning was cloudy and grey. By mid-morning, it started to rain and got progressively heavier as the day went on. This was great shame as there was much to see. The rain and lack of light, also made taking photographs more difficult. Those that follow, were taken before the rain really set in.

Buildings on one side of Wroclaw Market Square © Sybille Yates

Ornamental façade of the House of the seven Electors © Ricky Yates — Ornamental façade of the House of the Seven Electors © Ricky Yates

Various creatures on the gable end of a building in Wroclaw © Sybille Yates

Tower of the Church of St Elizabeth © Ricky Yates

Memorial to Dietrich Bonhoeffer © Sybille Yates

Near the Church of St Elizabeth, (which was unfortunately closed due to major restoration work taking place), we found this memorial to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran Pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident, who was born in Wroclaw in 1906.

Plaques below the memorial. In Polish on the left, in German on the right © Sybille Yates

In the afternoon rain, we walked from the city centre, to an island in the Odra/Oder river, to visit the Cathedral Church of St. John the Baptist.

Wroclaw Cathedral from a distance across the Odra/Oder river © Sybille Yates	Wroclaw Cathedral © Sybille Yates
Interior of Wroclaw Cathedral © Sybille Yates	Wroclaw Cathedral in 1945 © Sybille Yates

Whilst walking to the Cathedral, we spotted a statue of St. James. Within the Cathedral was a sign indicating it as being a point on the Via Regia, leading to Zgorzelic/Görlitz and the der Ökumenische Pilgerweg which Sybille had walked earlier in 2015.

Noticeboard in the Cathedral © Sybille Yates

Outside was a map, showing various waymarked pilgrimage routes. Notice how far it is to Santiago de Compostela!

Recovering the ‘Carly’, Hitler’s Führerhauptquartiere, and the canal that was never completed

Several people have asked how we got reunited with the ‘Carly’ after leaving it with a mechanic in Zambrów, and taking an expensive taxi journey, in order to reach Mikolajki and begin our boating holiday on the Masurian Lakes. So here is the promised explanation.

Having cruised back to Mikolajki on Tuesday 13^th October, we had planned to cruise on the following day, to the historic small town of Ryn. However, when the next morning dawned cloudy and quite windy, we decided to rethink our plans, especially as the day afterwards, Thursday 15^th, was promised to be fine and sunny with far less wind, a forecast that proved to be correct.

So instead that Wednesday morning, we went and spoke to Magda in the Marina Miko office, to ask if she would phone the mechanic in Zambrów, (we had his business card), and enquire about the well-being of the ‘Carly’. She duly did so and reported that the news was good – the ‘Carly’ was once more mobile.

We then asked about travelling from Mikolajki to Zambrów by train. Magda kindly informed us that, although there is a railway line through Mikolajki, there are no longer any trains 🙁 What about a bus? A quick bit of internet research revealed that the journey would take five and a half hours, with three changes of bus 🙁 So we were once more required to bite the bullet.

Magda rang the local taxi owner in Mikolajki. How much would it cost to drive me to Zambrów? The taxi owner quoted, ‘Five hundred zloty’. We immediately said that we only paid four hundred zloty for the journey in the other direction. The price immediately came down by one hundred zloty 🙂 Afterwards, Magda revealed that this taxi owner has a very good business in the summer months, of bringing boat hirers, especially Germans 🙂 , from Warsaw Airport to Marina Miko in Mikolajki. Not wanting to damage his profitable summer business, he reduced his price accordingly!

As promised, an hour later, the taxi driver arrived, and a further hour and a half afterwards, he delivered me to the mechanic’s workshop in Zambrów. Once more by gestures and sign language, it was explained to me that they had successfully bypassed the immobilizer, to ensure that it couldn’t malfunction again. The bill was 700 zloty/4500 Czech crowns. After a visit to an ATM to obtain the cash to settle my debts, I was able to drive the ‘Carly’ back to Mikolajki.

Although we had lost a day’s cruising, it did mean that on the morning of Saturday 17^th October, we were very easily able to transfer all our belongings from the good ship ‘Mamry’, straight back into the ‘Carly’, and set off to visit two places in this far corner of Poland, that I was keen to see.

Wolf's Lair © Ricky Yates — Wolf’s Lair © Ricky Yates

The 'Carly' at Wolf's Lair © Sybille Yates — The ‘Carly’ at Wolf’s Lair © Sybille Yates

Sign for the Wolfsschanze © Sybille Yates

The first of these was one of Adolf Hitler’s Führerhauptquartiere, commonly known as Wolfsschanze / Wolf’s Lair. Built in 1941, in advance of Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, it lies between Ketrzyn and Wegorzewo, (to where we had cruised and spent the night a few days previously), and is a massive series of fortified concrete buildings, hidden in the Masurian forests. Never discovered by the Allies, it was the scene of an unsuccessful attempt by Claus von Stauffenberg and others, to assassinate Hitler on 20^th July 1944.

With the advance of the Soviet Red Army in the Autumn of 1944, Hitler departed from the Wolf’s Lair for the final time on 20 November, when the Soviet advance reached Wegorzewo. Attempts were made to blow up the complex by the retreating Nazis, but much of it has survived. One unintended benefit is that parts of the complex have now become the ideal home of numerous bat colonies 🙂

The second thing I wanted to see was the Masurian Canal – an unsuccessful attempt to connect the Masurian Lakes with the Baltic Sea at Kaliningrad, formerly Königsberg. It runs from the western side of Lake Mamry, to the Lava river, which in turn is navigable and connects with the Pregolya river, on which Kaliningrad is situated.

There is contradictory information on the internet regarding the first attempts at the construction of this canal. But it would appear that work came to a halt early in the twentieth century, because of the outbreak of the First World War. Then when work recommenced in the 1920s and 1930s, it also was eventually abandoned with the outbreak of the Second World War.

Remains of a lock on the Masurian Canal © Ricky Yates

With the Potsdam agreement of 1945, dividing East Prussia between Poland and the Soviet Union, nowadays one half of the canal lies in Poland, whilst the other half lies in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Therefore, given the current political climate, the likelihood of work to complete and restore the canal, is exceedingly remote. However, as you can see below, the incomplete engineering works on the Polish side, are quite impressive.

Impressive disused lock on the Masurian Canal © Sybille Yates

Kraków

Ever since moving to Prague just over seven years ago, Sybille and I have adopted the view that we should take full advantage of being based in Central Europe, to explore both the Czech Republic beyond Prague, together with neighbouring countries. So earlier this year, we decided that we would spend two weeks of my 2015 annual leave, visiting the Czech Republic’s immediate northern neighbour, Poland.

Whilst Sybille had made a previous brief visit to Poland in the early 1990s, my only experience of the country was through briefly walking over the border from Ceský Tešín with Sybille, in 2010, and when climbing Snežka in 2011. We also briefly drove into Poland when staying in the Orlické hory in 2013.

Our Polish odyssey began last Wednesday 7^th October, when we set out to drive from Prague to Kraków. Ironically, although Kraków lies north-east of Prague, the quickest way to get there was to drive south-east on the D1 motorway to the outskirts of Brno before then heading north-east, passing around Ostrava and over the border into Poland.

For the first time in our travels, we used airbnb to find appropriate accommodation. Using their website, Sybille found us a studio apartment within walking distance of the historic centre of Kraków which also had secure parking for the ‘Carly’. We spent two nights staying in the apartment and the intervening day exploring the city.

First we visited Rynek Glówny, the main market square, where the title photograph and the following three photographs were taken.

Whilst in the square, we witnessed the filming of part of a TV series featuring my namesake, Ricky Gervais, with a drone being used to take pictures, and several ‘heavies’ to keep the crowds at bay!

Exterior of the Dominican Church of the Holy Trinity © Ricky Yates

We also visited Churches belonging to two different Roman Catholic Orders – the Dominicans and the Franciscans. This is the Dominican Church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. Below is a photograph of part of the reredos within the Church, seeking to illustrate the Trinity, with God the Father portrayed as an old man with a long beard 🙂

Reredos depicting the Holy Trinity © Ricky Yates

Then it was on to the Wawel, the site of Kraków’s Cathedral and Royal Castle.

Directly opposite the Cathedral was this statue of the late Pope John Paul II. He was Archbishop of Kraków before becoming Pope.

Statue of Pope John Paul II © Ricky Yates

We spent the last part of our day in Kraków, exploring the Kamimierz district, the former Jewish quarter. This area is far less ‘spruced up’ than the other central parts of the city and remains a poignant reminder that around 65,000 Jews from the city of Kraków and the surrounding districts, were murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War.

The Ökumenische Pilgerweg, Vacha and the Inner German Border

Here Germany & Europe were divided until 08.00, 12th November 1989 © Ricky Yates

Observant readers of this blog may have noticed that my wife Sybille, has not had a mention in any of my recent posts. This is because on Maundy Thursday 2^nd April, Sybille travelled by train from Prague to Görlitz, a town lying in the south-eastern corner of the former East Germany on the border with Poland. Then on Good Friday morning, she set out to walk from Görlitz, 470 km along Der Ökumenische Pilgerweg, to the small town of Vacha, which lies on the former Inner German Border.

Der Ökumenische Pilgerweg was established in 2002-3, almost solely by the efforts of one lady, Esther Zeiher. It follows the line of the ancient Via Regia passing through Leipzig, Erfurt and Eisenach. Simple pilgrim accommodation is available along the way at quite reasonable cost, provided by both the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches.

Sybille’s original plan was to complete her pilgrimage and be back in Prague, before I left for the ICS Chaplains Conference in the Netherlands on Monday 27^th April. But a slight problem with her knee just over two weeks into her journey, caused a delay in her anticipated schedule. Fortunately, ‘Aunty Karen’ agreed to have Šárek the cat whilst I was to be away, allowing Sybille to complete her pilgrimage, which she did by successfully, arriving in Vacha on Wednesday 29^th April. She was then able to stay on in Vacha for another night, allowing me to pick her up on my return journey to Prague from the Netherlands, on Friday 1^st May.

So after breakfast on Friday 1^st May, I set off from the Mennorode Conference Centre, driving back into Germany and soon afterwards headed south towards Dortmund and then east towards Kassel, the city where Sybille was born. Then it was south again and around Bad Hersfeld, before leaving the autobahn for the final 20 km into Vacha. I had promised Sybille that I would reach her between 14.00 and 14.30, so I was pleased to drive into the town square of Vacha at 14.15, to be greeted by Sybille, seeking to attract my attention by waving my walking pole at me!

Vacha, pronounced by the locals ‘Facher‘ – native English-speakers beware 🙂 – lies within the former East Germany, adjacent to the Inner German Border with the former West Germany. These days, the Inner German Border is simply the boundary between the Bundesland of Thüringen and the Bundesland of Hessen. But there remains on the edge of the town, both evidence of recent past history, together with artwork celebrating the end, in November 1989, of the post-Second World War internal division of Germany.

Remains of the former dividing wall outside Vacha © Ricky Yates

The remains of the dividing wall between East and West.

In freedom. Wall opening 12.11.1989 © Ricky Yates

Decoration of an electricity sub station, adjacent to the dividing wall.

East German watchtower under renovation! © Sybille Yates

Overlooking both the sub station and the dividing wall, was this watchtower, surrounded by scaffolding as it is undergoing restoration! I forgot to photograph it but fortunately, Sybille did!. But it does raise the question that I’ve written about previously on this blog, as to what structures and memorials from past unpleasant history do you preserve, and what do you demolish or destroy?

Deciding that I was too tired to drive all the way back to Prague that day, we headed eastwards and eventually turned off the autobahn to the town of Apolda where we stayed in a B and B overnight. In the centre of Apolda was a large red brick Protestant Church with an early reminder of the forthcoming five-hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther and the German Reformation to be marked and celebrated in two years time.

Poster on the tower of the Protestant Church in Apolda © Ricky Yates