Diekirch military museum

I forgot to post these photos from last September. Diekirch in Luxembourg is home to - among other things - the national military museum. It’s a cracking little museum with lots of exhibits, mostly from the 1944/45 campaign. The photos are in no particular order but we start with the most important - the field bakery!

Jeep with chilly looking crew

Kubel - I particularly like the copy of ‘Signal’ in the door pocket. 

River crossing vignette 

M-24 Chaffee. To my eyes one of the most cohesive looking tank designs of WW2.

Freezing mortar crew

PAK-40 and crew

15cm infantry gun

Looking at this weekend’s weather forecast I can’t help but think one of these would be useful!

37mm Door Knocker with obligatory Stielgranate

Nice to see the Schwimmwagen crew have a Plan B in case the engine fails....

Muddy Ketterkrad

Ex Belgian Army M-47

57mm M-1 AT gun. What us Brits call a 6 pounder. 

Still worried about the Luftwaffe!

M-4A3E8 stuck at the Westwall

1940 Luxembourg Army uniform 

The Sherman again 

Sdkfz-251

155mm gun and ammunition 

Fort Thüngen

From Diekirch we caught a train for the 45 minute journey into Luxembourg City. First stop was Fort Thüngen  - formerly an artillery fort which formed part of the city’s defences, it is now a well-stocked museum.

Above and below -  fortress guns c1840. 

19th century light field gun. 

A large diorama which uses 1/72 figures to depict the retreat of the Austrians following the fall of the city in 1795.

 I was rather pleased with this sinister shot of Dr. Guillotin’s finest.

 A fine 3D diorama of the city fortifications lives under a glazed floor.

 The museum contains several fine paintings. This is the Battle of Thionville, 1639.

Detail from ‘General Hatry at the siege of Luxembourg in 1795’.

Beaufort Castle

Back to my travelogue from September now. After a couple of days in Trier, Germany, we set off back into Luxembourg. After a fairly short drive the first stop was Beaufort Castle which most recently suffered battle damage in the winter of 1944!

 Mrs G adding tone to the surroundings.

 Behind the medieval castle is a slightly newer chateau - this is currently undergoing refurbishment.

A few miles further on we found our overnight stop at Diekirch which sadly had a good seeing to during the 1944 Ardennes campaign. Now it is home to a brewery and a rather splendid WW2 museum. The spacious campsite is in the south bank of the river Sure about a 15 minute walk from town. We stayed for several days and availed ourselves of the riverside cycle paths.

Three Frontiers and a Trier

Having set off from Schwebsange, a wrong turn saw us crossing the border into Germany too early.  Luckily there was a roundabout after only half a mile so it was back into Luxembourg for some shopping and a top up of diesel at £1 a litre.  Then off again into Germany, heading for the old - originally Roman - town of Trier.

The Roman bridge over the Moselle.  This is the oldest standing bridge in Germany (we'll not dwell on what happened to the others...) and while the upperworks have been replaced twice, the piers date from 2nd Century AD.  Trier lies on the south bank of the river - the motorhome parking is on the north bank only about a 20-minute riverside walk away.

The view from the bridge - looking east.

Partly concealed by trees and more recent buildings I spotted this c1942 flak tower. Apparently so well built it's virtually impossible to demolish.

A rather older fortification - the Roman Porta Negra.

Teetering next to the dustbin of history was this statue of the least amusing of the Marx Brothers.  He lived here for a while so there are plentiful supplies of Mark-related tourist tat.

Mixed in with rather soul-less postwar edifices are plenty of nice old buildings.

Mrs G commented on the similarity to my collection of HO scale plastic model railway buildings.

Porta Negra again.  It's really quite a substantial edifice.

In the adjacent town museum was this (approximately 1/300 scale) model of Trier.  What a scandalous waste of wargames terrain!