Yesterday, I joined Mr. Kopp’s guided tour through the Camp King areal. He, as our local historian and Camp King archivist, offers these two-hour tours twice a year. They usually end up at the local Kirchencafé, where the basement houses all the Camp King documents, gathered by him over the years.

The photo on the bottom shows  the original Musterdorf Haus (exhibition house) for Germany’s Siedlungspläne (settlement plans), set up for the fair in Frankfurt in the fall of 1938. The top photo shows the house after it had been transplanted from Frankfurt to Oberursel. For the fair, the houses came without basement, but having been moved to Oberursel for a permanent location, basements were added.

Kinderhaus Oberursel, a place for children and teenagers to hang out

The same house from above is our Kinderhaus (child and youth centre) today.

Former Gestapo building

This former Gestapo building had been used as a temporary shelter for asylum seekers in years past. I had seen people occupying the building as late as the early years of this decade, but not so recently. It looks vacated to me.

Silk handkerchief with a complete map outline

This handkerchief served its purpose, especially when a POW got his hands on it.

Our small group walking up the Camp King slope

The chapel at Camp King

The chapel had been given a new coat of paint a while back. This was probably for the new neighbors out back (see left corner of the photo).

The next guided tour is set for 28 August 2010.

Meeting place: In front of the EDEKA supermarket on Hohemarkstrasse (you can take the U3 and get off at the station Kupferhammerweg)

Tour fee: € 3

I learned a lot from this tour and I plan on going again. Mr. Kopp is an infinite source of information and this tour is very recommendable to anyone interested in history and future political science.

For more information in German, visit CampKingOberursel.

Last week, I had the opportunity to meet our local Camp King historian, Manfred Kopp, at the neighborhood church café. At the moment, the café’s basement houses all the Camp King documents he has been collecting over the years.

In 2005, I have been told, the City of Oberursel decided to gather all documents related to Camp King with the intent to make the collection available to the public at some point in the future.

The former Mountain Lodge on Camp King has been chosen as the designated location where the archives shall be kept. This project is supposed to be completed sometime this year.

Camp King historian and archivist, Manfred Kopp

Again, most locals do not realize the overall importance of Camp King in its history making. Initially a Siedlungshof (settlement teaching farms), then a camp for the German Air Force to interrogate American and British prisoners of war, until American Intelligence took over.

We are fortunate to have the historian, Manfred Kopp, to have taken such a big interest in Camp King’s history. Without him, more and more information would be lost within the next few years. Not many Zeitzeugen (contemporary witnesses) are left to tell us their stories.

For his efforts in restoring and archiving local history, he had been awarded the Saalburgpreis (Saalburg Award) 2008. He closed his acceptance speech with this quotation: „Nicht die Asche wollen wir bewahren, sondern die Glut weitergeben.“ (We are here not to conserve the ashes, but to pass on the embers).

Thanks, Mr. Kopp.

Edit: Initially, I had mistakenly written that Nazis interrogated the POWs. The interrogators were not Nazis. My apologies.