The Battle of Spaichingen

My father-in-law and I were playing cribbage at the kitchen table in the middle of a hot afternoon during the summer of 1968. We spent hours playing that game; it fascinated him. It was funny because he would miss points and the rule is the other player counts the points that are missed, but stubborn Bert would refuse to allow it and would take the points that he missed. So I simply stopped telling him about them.

As we played he told me that there was, at one time, some money in Germany in Rose’s name that they could not take out of the country. It gave them a reason to go back every few years after the war to see everyone without spending their hard-earned money.

Here’s the story: In the later stages of World War II, as the Allies were closing in on Germany and forcing the German army back towards Berlin, the French were advancing along the route that runs north from the Bodensee (Lake of Constance.) Their hometown of Spaichingen/Hoven was on the way and it was under the control of a German colonel. It was evident to the world, and the Germans, that they were about to be defeated. The colonel, for this and perhaps other reasons, was drunk most of the time; perhaps he didn’t want to face reality.

One day, a message came that the French army was coming toward Spaichingen. He was drunk but roused himself from his office and charged into the square in front of the church and assembled his troops. There he was in his uniform pants with suspenders over his undershirt, wearing his boots, whirling around and around in the square waving his arms, telling his soldiers and the people of the town, to bring everything they could to build a barricade across the road to stop the advance. It was comical but they complied and frantically piled carts, boxes, furniture, and whatever else they could find, across the road.

Air patrols of the advancing army saw the barricade and called in a strike. A couple of bombs were dropped and the make-do barricade was blown to smithereens and so was the house that belonged to Rose’s family. After the war, the family was paid for the damages but she couldn’t take the money out of the country. The only thing left of the house is a street scene painted earlier by Rose’s brother Albert, which shows the house as it was before the war.

End