new here

hi, i am Ulli, Ex German Serviceman and i served in Braunschweig (1st. armoured division, armoured brigade 2, transport co. 20) between 1979 / 1980. Found this website here as i was just searching about Normandy Barracks / Polish Barracks where we had been for training in 1980.

My Hometown ist Hilden , what used to be home for St. David Barracks wich is still used but now by Bundeswehr and renamed as Waldkaseren.

Hilden is twinned with the town of Warrington and i might deliver some Photos later about Wald Kaserne / St. David Barracks later, if i get permission, to take some pictures there.


cheers

Ulli

Hi Ulli and welcome
St Davids Barracks was home to HQ 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division from June 1945 renamed HQ 2nd Infantry Division Feb 47 you find more here
http://baor-locations.co.uk/StDavidsBks.aspx
Regards
Steve

Hi Steve, thanks for your friendly welcome .

I see that you have been serving in Niedersachsen as well by the white Horse, wich is on our sign as well.

About St. Davids Barracks, i remember a welsh guy. he was originally from cardiff and after serving with the army, he stayed in Hilden, got married here and he ran his own garage for years and years and he was very popular here - he saddly passed away some years ago, i think, due to cancer. I think, he is burried here, as he settled down in Hilden and that was his hometown then.

Some Soldiers (officers, seargents) where living in housing etates with their families. and i remember that i had to pass the area always on my way to school and for us it was very unusual to see the daily delivery of milk and bread rolls every morning, as most of the german families did their daily shopping at the local stores.

I was about 6 or 7 at the time.

The two Housing estates still exist and are used since the early seventies by people who work for the state or the local government or are ex members of the german bundeswehr.

What is basically left is that Hilden is twinned since with Warrington as there have been Regiments from Lancashire as well .


cheers

Ulli

Ulli

Herzlich wilkommen

In the late 1970s I lived up the hill from you in Hubbelrath

Am interested to see you were stationed in Braunschweig

You may have seem that Steve and I are involved in a project to trace the history of the early days of BAOR

One of the British formations based in the Braunschweig area from Summer 1948 to Autumn 1948 at the time of the Russian blockade of Berlin was 16 Parachute Brigade

We have located most of the units but there are one or two gaps. If you have any information it be very welcomei

Right so, Hubbelrath is not far away from us - and is - as far as i know still used .

About Braunschweig, i wrote this some time ago (basically for me son Francis, who grows up in Ireland :

(Text in german though)

http://thefootballweek.com/html/braunschweig.html

you might know this site here as well :

http://www.relikte.com/

I was stationed at Tannenberg Kaserne, now Braunschweig Airfield ( and for a short while at Leutnannt Müller Kaserne,)

Hello, Ulli, and welcome aboard! Lovely bunch of folks on here. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Thank you @ Dolmetscher

@ Steve : about the article of the closure of St. David Barracks in Hilden - The Barracks are still used by the german bundeswehr - recently there ist only a military police batallion (Feldjäger) and traditionally the german army musicians study here.

Before that, there where Saper Batallions, Transport Batallions and Signals Btls. stationed, as far as I know.

renamed as Waldkaserne again, it remains the only barracks in the borough of Mettmann still to be used.

All the Baracks in Wuppertal are closed as well, as Barracks in Düsseldorf, but Hubbelrath is still open but should be closing down as well in the near future

Welcome Ulli

Hi Ulli, welcome to the Website. I hope that you will join in with the banter - just don't mention Football, the English can get quite upset!

Shelldrake wrote:

Hi Ulli, welcome to the Website. I hope that you will join in with the banter - just don't mention Football, the English can get quite upset!

lol. or penalty shoot-outs, Herzlich willkommen Ulli.

Quote :

Hi Ulli, welcome to the Website. I hope that you will join in with the banter - just don't mention Football, the English can get quite upset!

Oh dear me Shelldrake!!! you have opened the door for the 1966 fiasco.Lets hope there are not too many fanatics on here

OH - Football - i am big into that, Everton and Ipswich in England, Fortuna Düsseldorf here in Germany

I am on holidays now and will provide some photos about St. David Baracks and for those, who served in Hilden, i will send some pics from the area here, i.e. the housing estates :

I found this photo here :


at :

http://www.11sphinxbtyweb.co.uk/4957.html

about this text :

Hilden,
Germany
1960s ?
The Tanze Casino.
? ?


The place was called Tanz Casino Jansen, and was situated just around the corner, wher i live.

Hope it is OK, to post this photo here.

Tanz Casino Jansen was very popular at this time ( i was to young then to visit the place) and later, it was a Disco, named The Houston Club. The Back House does not exist anymore.

If anyone tells me, where, apart from the tanz casino Jansen, the soldiers socialised at this time, just give me some names and i will send more photos and for those, serving in Düsseldorf, i can do this as well.

Again, thanks to everybody for the warm welcome here, and if there is special questions of interest about the Düsseldorf - Hilden - Wuppertal Area - i will see, wher to take photographs.

cheers

Ulli

Some fine upstanding young members of he Royal Artillery in that photograph, Ulli.

Gordon. wrote:

Quote :

Hi Ulli, welcome to the Website. I hope that you will join in with the banter - just don't mention Football, the English can get quite upset!

Oh dear me Shelldrake!!! you have opened the door for the 1966 fiasco.Lets hope there are not too many fanatics on here

Gordon, was thinking more along the lines of the previous World Cup, the one when parts of Scotland were coincidentally flooded at the same time as the England goal was disallowed.

Quote :

just don't mention Football, the English can get quite upset

I think most of us have moved on from 1966.
However, I was fortunate to be present at a very memorable game in 2001 - maybe you'll remember it Ulli?



In fact I am probably somewhere in that very famous pic!

Btw my Son worked for some years in Dusseldorf for Thyssen-Krupp before it moved back to its spiritual home in Essen (where he now lives).

[quote="dagian"]

Quote :

- maybe you'll remember it Ulli?



(where he now lives).

I remember it well

and a few other results between England and Germany as well

Ulli wrote:

OH - Football - i am big into that, Everton and Ipswich in England, Fortuna Düsseldorf here in Germany

I am on holidays now and will provide some photos about St. David Baracks and for those, who served in Hilden, i will send some pics from the area here, i.e. the housing estates :

I found this photo here :


at :

http://www.11sphinxbtyweb.co.uk/4957.html

about this text :

Hilden,
Germany
1960s ?
The Tanze Casino.
? ?


The place was called Tanz Casino Jansen, and was situated just around the corner, wher i live.

Hope it is OK, to post this photo here.

Tanz Casino Jansen was very popular at this time ( i was to young then to visit the place) and later, it was a Disco, named The Houston Club. The Back House does not exist anymore.

If anyone tells me, where, apart from the tanz casino Jansen, the soldiers socialised at this time, just give me some names and i will send more photos and for those, serving in Düsseldorf, i can do this as well.

Again, thanks to everybody for the warm welcome here, and if there is special questions of interest about the Düsseldorf - Hilden - Wuppertal Area - i will see, wher to take photographs.

cheers

Ulli

Sigh!!! And it was going so well.



Hello Ulli. Speaking as an ex referee, the ball was never over the line. Can't believe anyone follows that bunch of bitters at Woodison!

aye Teabag

I used to be a kind of a club official at FORTUNA DÜSSELDORF and I was the stadium speaker ( for our Reserves) and i had to look after the referees as well, what meant - paying out their expenses after the game ( petrol , travelling cost. i.e. etc.) and then , i alsways took them out for dinner,. Beeing an ex-footballer myself, i never had a real impression about the refs job.

Meanwhile i know about their difficoult job.

While serving at Wildenrath, thats somwhere around Monchengladbach isnt it ? have you been then at the Dusseldorf Altstadt ? - we call it the longest bar of the world ?

Fortuna Dusseldorf ... used to have some great players -

Allofs brothers/Zewe/Bommer etc

Ulli wrote:

aye Teabag

I used to be a kind of a club official at FORTUNA DÜSSELDORF and I was the stadium speaker ( for our Reserves) and i had to look after the referees as well, what meant - paying out their expenses after the game ( petrol , travelling cost. i.e. etc.) and then , i alsways took them out for dinner,. Beeing an ex-footballer myself, i never had a real impression about the refs job.

Meanwhile i know about their difficoult job.

While serving at Wildenrath, thats somwhere around Monchengladbach isnt it ? have you been then at the Dusseldorf Altstadt ? - we call it the longest bar of the world ?

Yes near Monchengladbach but no I never went to Alstadt. Used to drive past Gladbach's stadium on the way to exercise sometimes. They have a good relationship with Liverpool (my team) and visit each other every year.

[/quote]

Yes near Monchengladbach but no I never went to Alstadt. Used to drive past Gladbach's stadium on the way to exercise sometimes. They have a good relationship with Liverpool (my team) and visit each other every year.
[/quote]

@ Teabag - thats a pity , you missed some good crack here, only a few KM`s away. By the way, my favourite in England ist Everton , they played Gladbach in the European Comp. during the late 70ties, Gladbach is together with Cologne and Essen our fierce local rival.

Some of our friends have a friendship since a couple of years with some supporters from Ipswich Town.

@ Dagian - thts right, most famaous from the very past was Paul Janes (Record international for Germany and member of the team, wich won the german championship in 1933) Our Home Ground lies in Flingern (used to be called Flinger Broich) and is meanwhile named after Paul Janes.

Toni Turek, Goalkeeper of our National-Team in 1954 when we won the world cup v Hungary (3-2) is a famous Fortuna player as well.

During our european cup days we took, concerning british teams on Rangers (lost on aggregate) and on Aberdeen, won on agregate.

A popular welsh player here in Düsseldorf was Dean Thomas (Alemannia Aachen, Fort. Düsseldorf) His older brother Wayne played here at : Aachen, Uerdingen, Offenbach and Hannover.

Our Dean, who was quite popular with the fans startetd his senior career at wimbledon, then Fortuna, then Northampton Twn, Then Notts Co. He was also manager at Bedford Utd. and Hinckley Utd.

Ulli wrote:

Hi Steve, thanks for your friendly welcome .

I see that you have been serving in Niedersachsen as well by the white Horse, wich is on our sign as well.

About St. Davids Barracks, i remember a welsh guy. he was originally from cardiff and after serving with the army, he stayed in Hilden, got married here and he ran his own garage for years and years and he was very popular here - he saddly passed away some years ago, i think, due to cancer. I think, he is burried here, as he settled down in Hilden and that was his hometown then.

Some Soldiers (officers, seargents) where living in housing etates with their families. and i remember that i had to pass the area always on my way to school and for us it was very unusual to see the daily delivery of milk and bread rolls every morning, as most of the german families did their daily shopping at the local stores.

I was about 6 or 7 at the time.

The two Housing estates still exist and are used since the early seventies by people who work for the state or the local government or are ex members of the german bundeswehr.

What is basically left is that Hilden is twinned since with Warrington as there have been Regiments from Lancashire as well .


cheers

Ulli

Moin Ulli
I served in Niedersachsen aka Lower Saxony in the late 60s in Verden-Aller and have great memories of the Bremen clubs...Twen Club comes to mind meeting the American Drifters not playing just having a night out there...have known Iserlohn since serving there in the late 70s and returning in the early 80s as a civvy and met my good lady after some time in the UK we moved back to Iserlohn with the euro Jan 2002 and Jan this year moved to near Cuxhaven to retire here in a few years time...have been researching the British Army in Iserlohn formerly the home of 1st British Corps (hence the white spear) District 45-47 and have got together with JPW and with his research of Northern Germany and we are trying to put together the "British Army of Occupation in Germany" 1945 to 1949 not well recorded on the www...watch this space
Regards
Steve
http://britisharmyiniserlohn.blogspot.com/

Moin Moin Steve,

lovely area where you living there in the Cuxhaven region.

I was in verden only once, traelling through as a tourist. About your search about the occupation in Northern germany, all i know is a fellow, who lives in London and he was stationed in Wolfenbüttel near Braunschweig in the very early 50ties and i remember the British Yacht Club in Kiel (Pries, Friedrichsort, Prieser Strand) may be i find out more.

i have started to take photos from the St. David Barracks Days in Hilden, starting with the housing estates outside the barracks and i will deliver a starting - report and photos soon.


cheers

Ulli


ACHTUNG !!!!

Hi Ulli, and welcome. Steve some of my best memories are of a place just outside Iserlohn, Hohenlimburg. it was the haunt of the LAD from the Queens regt at Werl. we were very careful never to tell the regt boys where it was we all dissapeared to on weekends. i came very close to staying there full time.

Just joined I have been lurking for some time. I did join but for some reason I could not log on. I spent 5 years in BAOR same unit as Shelldrake. I decided a change was needed and joined the cabbage heads. Postings to the middle east and then the far east. I finally became a civy and have been working as a heating /gas engineer with spells off shore northern sector/Norway.