German placenames
 

Dear all,

In his Liberation Questionnaire POW Sgt Joseph Henry Dixon gives a short account of his escape attempt:

"6/4/45 Falling Bostel. Escaped from train during darkness by companions occupying guards attention until we had cut out underneath the wagon. Recaptured by Folksturm (sic) in woods, approx 10 miles East Neinberg 8/4/45."

I've tried to use multimap.com but couldn't find a match for both Falling Bostel or Neinberg, assuming both place names must be located somewhere close to each other. It also appears that Falling Bostel was also the name of the POW camp, however I couldn't find any clue in all my references to POW camps.

Perhaps someone of the German community of this Board can shed a light on this?

Thanks in advance,
Hans Nauta

Re: German placenames
 

After making other attempts, should the placenames Soltau-Fallingbostel and Nienburg make some sense?

Regards,
Hans Nauta

Re: German placenames
 

Hello Hans,

yes, Soltau-Fallingborstel and Nienburg are right.
These towns are in Niedersachsen, or Lower Saxony
in Northern Germany.

Greetings,
Sven.

Re: German placenames
 

Hans, do you use Google Earth for your searches? I have had good success using GE.

Re: German placenames
 

Hello Hans.
To be correct, Fallingbostel is a town on its own about 50 km north of Hannover and does not belong to Soltau. However, both towns belong to the county named Soltau-Fallingbostel and have a common car registration.
Regards
Robert

Re: German placenames
 

Gents,

Thanks a lot for your quick replies. So after all there was just one misspelling in the report: Nienberg instead of Nienburg.

Best regards,
Hans Nauta

Re: German placenames
 

Hans,
you have another misspelling here:
Instead of Folksturm it should spell Volkssturm.

Re: German placenames
 

Hi Chris,

Yep, that's why I added '(sic)' to it, Latin for 'literal', while the quoter is aware of the misspelling.

Thanks anyhow for the remark!

Regards,
Hans

Re: German placenames
 

Actually it's the Latin for "thus" - I knew that if I waited long enough I could use the Latin I learned at school 40 years ago!

Re: German placenames
 

Hans,

I lived just outside Fallingbostel for 2 years in the late 1970s and remember Nienburg as being quite close. I can confirm that it was a well known fact that Fallingbostel was a large prisoner of war centre towards the end of WW2 and there were reputedly scribbled messages in buildings left by British PoWs. The irony was that the Fallinbostel military camp now belonged to the British Army!

James

Re: German placenames
 

Hello James,

Thanks for your confirmation, all pieces of info now fit quite well!

Regards,
Hans Nauta

Re: German placenames
 

Heheheh - I used to scan across squadron badges for "pithy sayings" with which to impress my colleagues.


Sad, sad....

:D

Re: German placenames
 

Gentlemen,

This is a good source for place names:

http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/cntry_files.html

However, older names may not be included. Can't have everything :)

Walt

Re: German placenames
 

Hans,

short history of Fallingbostel and Stalag XIB here

http://www.207squadron.rafinfo.org.u..._ken_brown.htm