Kirchhellen

Hi

Buer Hassel are 2 districts - one called Buer, the other just North of it is Hassel. They're located in the north of the somewhat sizeable city of Gelsenkirchen, located some 20km WNW of Dortmund, and about 40km East of the Germany/Netherlands border. It's pretty much in the centre of this grab of Google Maps I took: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Bottrop/@51.5927021,7.0540388,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x47b8ebd6912e5e2f:0x9dee8340d56bd0e0

If that link doesn't work, search for SC Buer-Hassel 1919 e.V., on Google Maps (which is the local football/soccer club - their website is http://www.sc-hassel1919.de although it likely holds little of interest to you). Of perhaps more interest is the Wikipedia entry for Gelsenkirchen as well as the Wikipedia entry for Bottrop, which are the 2 cities that kinda border Buer Hassel to the SE and SW respectively. The Wikipedia entries have some fairly high level stuff about what happened to them during the second world war.

Kirchhellen is about 5km to the West of Hassel. Head for the extremely obvious power station and you're about half way there to Kirchhellen.

As for Margraten, details of how to get there are available at http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials/europe/netherlands-american-cemetery .

To be honest, I wouldn't bother hiring a car except for a day to drive around Buer, Hassel and Kirchhellen (and only then to avoid getting confused by local bus services). Public transport in this part of the world is just too good - when you're in this densely populated an area. Refer to http://www.bahn.co.uk (which is the English language version of the German rail system) for a full train + bus + tram timetable which will tell you how to get to wherever you're going whenever you're going there. Basically, from Amsterdam airport (which I assume you fly into), take a train to Amsterdam Centraal, then from there you can head down into Germany, or direct to Maastricht if you want to visit his grave first. If you do hire a car, get a sat nav.

The sightseeing options are numerous. Refer to http://www.ruhr-tourismus.de/en.html which is the official tourist webpage for this area. The Landschaftspark is quite something, as is the surprisingly interesting Bergbau museum, all about mining which dominated this area.

As an alternative to flying into Amsterdam, consider investigating flying into Duesseldorf airport which is much closer to the region in which he was killed than Amsterdam is. I can't really help with hotels or restaurants (I live at the other end of the Ruhr valley some 80 odd miles away so am not that locally familiar). Tripadvisor and Yelp are quite handy for identifying good places to stay and eat.

As for finding a road map of Kirchhellen for that time of year, dunno, that's stumped me. Perhaps you could try emailing stadtbibliothek@gelsenkirchen.de (try using Google Translate if you don't speak German and can't find anyone who does) which is the local library in Gelsenkirchen. They may not have one on file, but maybe know someone who does. In the interim, I will ask around if anyone I know has any idea.

One note of caution - Gelsenkirchen suffered particularly severe damage in world war 2 because it was home to a hydrogenation plant at Gelsenkirchen-Scholven (which is extremely close - a mile or two) to where you said your Dad was killed. Because it produced gasoline this was of particular importance for air strikes, maybe your Dad was involved in trying to capture/destroy it at the time. If he was in the USAF, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_Campaign_chronology_of_World_War_II says they attacked it on March 8th 1945 with the RAF following up again 2 days later. To get an idea of the damage caused to the area by Allied attacks, here's a picture of the plant 2 months dated May 1945 as taken by the USAF: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/photo-gallery-documenting-destruction-fotostrecke-54868-32.html . As you'll appreciate, there's little trace left today of what it looked like, nearly 70 years later. As a result of such damage this may cause you problems specifically with road layout - it may well have substantially changed from 1945's layout. Still, I'll try to find out where on earth you could get a copy of a map of the area (I have no idea).

Here is a collection of scanned maps which were collected by the allies at the end of 1945.
http://lib.byu.edu/collections/german-maps/
The area you are looking for, is a bit difficult to find because it is at the intersection of four sheets of the map.
Kirchhellen is at the bottom of sheet 4307, and at the top of sheet 4407.
The next sheets to the east are numbers 4308 and 4408.
(just enter the sheet numbers in the search box).
Once you have located the sheet, there is a "download" button where you can choose the "large" format to save the map on your computer at full resolution (16 MByte per file).

If you have more specific information on the exact location you are looking for (street names, buildings, industrial or military sites) I might be able to help figure them out.

Thank you both. Good ionfo. fwoggle, dad was a tank commander, drove into Buer Hassel on March 28th 1945, turned a corner, and a Panzier came out from behind a building. They got into a shell firing battle. The guns of the Sherman tank was no match to the guns and armor of the panzier.

brodowb, Is there something special you like to see when sightseeing?
Also war-related? And in the Margraten area?

Hotels? When George W. Bush visited Margraten he (and his entourage) was staying here:
NB. I underline the Landschafftspark Duisburg-Nord as suggested above. And Zeche-Zollverein is also a good example of the area's industry-history.

NB. A link telling something about some of the areas castles; one of them, chateau Gerlach is a hotel where George Bush stayed when visisitng Margraten in 2005. And since you were asking for hotels... But as to the budget?!

I cannot add anything to this thread except my good wishes and hope that you will find what all the information you are looking for.

The link in #4 about Bush' hotel when visiting Margraten: http://hollandtour.org/chateau-st-gerlach-and-chateau-neercanne.html

there's a local historical society that has collected accounts on the last days of war in Gelsenkirchen: http://www.gelsenzentrum.de/kriegsende_gelsenkirchen.htm which mentions two American tanks being destroyed by panzerfaust on March 29th on the Feldhauser Straße in Buer-Scholven - it's a different date and approx. 2kms west of Hassel, yet there's no mention of other similar clashes. you might consider contacting that society to see whether they're able to help you further: [http://www.gelsenzentrum.de/kontakt.htm] - drop a line if you wish help with that.

the Feldhauser Straße still exists, you can find it in google maps - mind you, it's a long street. I can only assume that the surrounding building structures have changed a lot, though the layout of the streets themselves seem more or less intact. if you follow klaus' link in #2 to the sheet 4408, the area you're looking for is near the top left corner, between the captions 'Zeche und Kol. Scholven' and 'Sp.Pl.'. the southern part of the street towards Buer has been altered, but that bit probably isn't relevant for your search.

raising my hat to your father.

This page mentions fighting between US forces and the 116 Panzer Division in the area of Kirchhellen and Polsum, north of Hassel: http://www.dorsten-unterm-hakenkreuz.de/2012/05/28/116-panzerdivision-%E2%80%9Edie-windhunde%E2%80%9C-%E2%80%93-sie-kampfte-auch-in-dorsten-und-ging-auf-den-rheinwiesen-in-gefangenschaft/
Quote: "Die Amerikaner traten bereits am frühen Morgen des 28. April zum Angriff auf Kirchhellen an und drangen in den Ort ein. Die [116.] Panzerdivision ging auf die Frontlinie nordwestlich von Polsum-Buer zurück. [...] Am 28. März verteidigten noch Kompanien der Panzerdivision den Raum Dorsten-Kirchhellen-Polsum.Sie verfügten noch über vier Panzer. Ihre Gegner waren hier die 30. US-Infanteriedivision und die 8. US-Panzerdivision. [...] Am Abend zogen sich die [...] 116. Panzerdivision auf eine Linie am Hasseler Mühlenbach [...] zurück."
The page linked by nautiker also says: "In Hassel drückten am Gründonnerstagabend [March 29] die Amerikaner von Polsum aus stadteinwärts. Sie wurden von Resten der 116. deutschen Panzerdivision nördlich der Valentinstraße noch einmal aufgehalten."
To summarize, there were remnants of the 116. Panzer Division in the area between Kirchhellen and Polsum, north of Hassel. The US forces took Kirchhellen in the very early morning of March 28th. The 116. Panzer had 4 remaining tanks, and was fighting US forces in small battles in the area between Dorsten, Kirchhellen and Polsum.
It goes on that US forces approached Hassel on March 29th, via Polsum and were stopped for a last time north of Valentinstraße, then they took the place. On March 30th, the 116. Panzer took back Polsum for a few hours and then retreated towards Marl.

It seems difficult to spot the exact location of each of the small battles, but the place where US forces could have met German tanks on an approach to Hassel seem to have been the Polsumer Straße, from the north, and Feldhause Straße, from the north-west. Other info also says that US forces in jeeps were approaching from Gladbeck across the "Heege" fields, taking some prisoners along the Devese Straße.
Not a nice subject at all, but trying my best to piece it together...

nautiker-thanks. I emailed them the info I have of the battle in Kirchellen and Buer-Hassel.