1 October (Monday) we departed this fairy-tale little town of Kiedrich and headed to Heidelberg. Our group took the tram up to the ruined castle. It was good to be the King - or even a prince; the dukes and barons didn’t have it too bad either!

Pretty super tour so far, isn’t it…..and this is only the second day. Do you find yourself wishing that you had been along with us? No worries - as you will see further on in this issue, we are going back to this fairy-tale part of Europe in the fall of 2002.

Bayern (Bavaria) and Österreich (Austria) are waiting for us. Don’t miss this time, or you’ll really be kicking yourself.

Top left: Sinsheim museum
Top right: Nurnburg Cafe
Bottom left: Hauptmarkt Platz
Bottom right: Palace of Justice

After lunch, we rode to Sinsheim and a fantastic museum. On entering the first hall, we were confronted by a 1954 Corvette and then more and more Corvettes and other American classic cars of the 1950’s. There were cars of every era and from many countries as well as many racing cars, but that’s not all. There were extensive and intricate military exhibits with tanks, planes (inside and outside) as well as dioramas of trench life, soldiers in foxholes and just about every phase of military activity. There were many planes outside the museum for all to see - inside and outside, including the Russian SST. We walked through all these planes, some suspended as much as 200 or 300 feet in the air. Two weeks would not have been enough to cover this huge museum.

We had some light food, then boarded our bus for the ride to Nürnberg and our four star hotel there.

2 October (Tuesday) something must be said about this Four Star hotel (we always stay in three and four star hotels) and its breakfast buffet. We measured it off, and the breakfast buffet is some thirty yards long! It’s got champagne and other fine wines to go with our breakfast. This is all just part of the normal breakfast here.

We met our friend MICHAEL KAISER (6166-2000) before 0900 and headed out on our tour of this famous city. We toured the Hauptmarkt which had been Adolf Hitler Platz in the 1930’s until 1945, when it was renamed Eisenhower Plaza and finally, back to its original name of Hauptmarkt. There is a famous fountain there and a beautiful old church.

We toured the grounds of the three castles and we learned how the city got its colors of red over white over red, then we went into a special room, not open to the public, where the truce the ending of the Thirty-Years War was celebrated with a feast. Since a feast was in order, we enjoyed lunch at an old sidewalk café (photo above).

Then we went to the ‘Palace of Justice’ where we again, were allowed into the famous ‘Room 600’ where the Nürnberg trials took place more than half a century ago. Again, this room is not normally open to the public but then, SHARKHUNTERS are not the public and we had free run to shoot as many photos and videotapes as we wished.

We drove to the Congress Hall, shaped like the Coliseum but more than four times its size. This is where the Party was to have all its offices, but the place was still unfinished when the war ended. It is now being renovated for new government offices. We drove in, right past the sign that said ‘SHARKHUNTERS Welcome’. Actually, the sign said ‘eintritt verboten’ but we know they really mean it is okay for us.

We had ample time to shoot photos and videos before we went to the famous Zeppellinfeld and the place where the ‘Death Ceremony’ was held. You recognize it from ‘Triumph of the Will’ by LENI RIEFENSTAHL (3157-1993).

Top left: Congress Hall
center left: Memorial for the ‘Death Ceremony’
Top right: Berlin Muuseum of Michael Kaiser
Bottom left: Luftwaffe Memorial
Bottom right: the invading leader

Again, there was plenty of time for photos and videos, and we were at the Luftwaffe Memorial to the fallen pilots of both World Wars. Thanks to DAVID (Hans) STALTER (5733-LIFE-1999), we all had a piece of the famous podium at Zeppellenfeld. Workmen were refurbishing the place, and there were scraps on the ground, headed for the trash and Hans grabbed them for us.

Again, we go where no one else is allowed and we were in a bunker beneath Nürnberg. During the war, it was an air-raid shelter with the upper chamber holding 800 people and the lower chamber holding 6,000. We were joined by MICHAEL’s girlfriend Innes, his father, a veteran named Eugen and Frau Höstel. They were full of history! MICHAEL’s father was in the Hitler Youth, and he showed us a badge that was given to his Hitler Youth group at the 1934 Party Congress, which was made famous in ‘Triumph of the Will’.

He donated that badge to SHARKHUNTERS! Vielen Dank, Herr Kaiser.

Eugen is a veteran of the Hermann Göring Division, Paratroops and he told us many stories of the war. As a young woman, Frau Höstel sold wurst (sausages) from a tray at the Party rallies and she met Hitler. As she was walking from the field, Hermann Göring drove up and thought her tray was too heavy, so he gave her a lift in his car. The stories from these veterans were just great, and they all signed autographs freely and had their photos taken countless times with our Members.

Again we were at the restaurant Zum Goldner Stern where EDDIE PHILLIPS (220-A/LIFE-1997) set a SHARKHUNTERS record for sausage eating in 2000 by eating 22 of these little delights in this restaurant that first opened in the 1400’s. EDDIE’s record still stands, as no one even came close to 22 sausages. PHIL BROWN (2229-2000) however, set another kind of a record - he didn’t eat anything. He drank a lot of beer though.

3 October (Wednesday) This is the 10th Anniversary of the reunification of Germany! Our SHARKHUNTERS group was in Berlin on that very day 10 years ago for another ‘Patrol’. It was nice of President RONALD REAGAN (1858-LIFE-1991) to arrange for the reunification to coincide with our ‘Patrol’.

A couple of our German friends were not in good shape for breakfast. Seems that JOHN BUCK (3884-LIFE-1994) took them to a bar the previous night and introduced them to a famous American named Jack Daniels. They were paying the price for making that acquaintance all too freely.

We went to the outstanding military museum that MICHAEL KAISER (6166-2000) founded and operates. It is difficult to describe this outstanding museum, built into a World War II bomb shelter. There are a great many beautifully restored and maintained artifacts from the war years, many in diorama settings as seen here with MICHAEL at the top of column two on this page.

In the late morning, we depart for Dinkelsbühl, a beautiful walled medieval city that originated in the 900’s. We enjoyed the wine and trumpet ceremony as we did in 2000, then went again to the restaurant in the Bishop’s personal wine cellar from the 1500’s. I guess they didn’t live so poorly in those days.

The wine and trumpet ceremony dates back to the Thirty Years War when, upon being confronted by one of the armies the people of Dinkelsbühl declared that they did not wish to take sides in the war and wanted to be left in peace. They sent a young wine maiden out to give a sample of the local wine to the leader of the invading army, but she had to drink it first. They all watched her to see if the wine was poisoned but after some time, she did not turn blue or fall over dead, so the leader of the army drank, enjoyed the wine, so there was no attack on Dinkelsbühl.

As ‘leader’ of the modern day ‘invading army’, it fell upon HARRY to taste the wine after the wine maiden. The wine was very good, she did not fall over dead and neither did HARRY, and so all our group had a taste of this nice white wine.

After dinner, GERD DIETRICH (5923-LIFE-1999) got a room in which to show his videotapes of the Crimean campaign. GERD was a cannonneer in World War II and he was in the Crimean Campaign under von Manstein. These great videotapes are all right from GERD’s wartime experience.

Patrol 2001 in Southern Germany and Austria

September 29 and 30
October 1, 2, and 3
October 4 and 5
October 6 and 7
October 8, 9, and 10