Windmills on the Eastern Front - Windmühlen im Osten

[TabsTabs1964]

Hello friends. Today I'm starting a new thread with a few images that I've been collecting over the last few weeks....

Maybe the topic of the thread seems a little strange to you (me too at first) but I hope to take you, little by little, to curious places

The truth is that throughout Europe, from north to south and from east to west, there were many and there are still many windmills left.





In the other corner of my country, Spain; Many people around the world know the windmills that Don Quixote charged against, which in his mind he believed were giants...

But the windmills in this thread are much, much further east in Europe...

[TabsTabs1964]

For anyone who has visited Holland and for any fan of military history, there are other unmistakable windmills





It is true that many of these windmills are not used to grind grain into flour, but to drain canals in flood-prone areas, but there are many


A Dutch trench near a windmill, May 1940


Rijsoord Holland-1940







They were first photographed by the Germans when they invaded Holland in 1940


Windmühle am Kanal bei Utrecht, 1942, Niederlande

[TabsTabs1964]

But four years later, in 1944, a huge fleet of planes flew over them for the largest Allied airborne assault of the war....


Market Garden

So this year we will find images of German panzers


Panzerkampfwagen V Panther in Holland

And Canadian and British tanks, of course


Cromwell tanks of the Polish 1st Armoured Division advance past a windmill near the city of Breda, the Netherlands, 1944.


Hells Highway towards Nijmegen


Sherman Firefly tanks of the 1st Polish Armoured Division underneath a windmill at the Dutch village of Terheijden, October 1944.





Polish soldiers in front of Dutch mills, soon we will talk about the mills of the land of these men who helped liberate Holland. They are the men of the famous 1st Polish Armored Division, of General Stanisław Maczek



Two Dutch girls write, with chalk, slogans and messages for friends and family in other cities in a tank after the liberation of Breda

[TabsTabs1964]

And also soldiers, many. Germans and allies








Battle of the Scheldt 1944


Christmas With the British Liberation Army in Holland, November 1944



And of course, after the liberation of Holland, the windmills were once again photographed by soldiers. A nice souvenir to send home.

But these are not the windmills that interest us either.

[TabsTabs1964]

There were windmills all over France in 1940...






Café du Moulin à Vent, Bellecour square. Lyon 1940.

Even some places were called "windmills".... Although one was very, very famous

[toot]

WOW! I like them. a niche that has been over looked. you hit it out of the park again! please keep them coming. a great over looked part of history. thank you, toot.

[TabsTabs1964]

Well, it was red and it was certainly the most famous windmill in all of France. A cabaret, the Moulin Rouge.







A must visit for any German who could afford to pay the entrance fee.





But we must continue moving east....

[TabsTabs1964]

As in any other European country that for centuries lived off agriculture, in the 1940s, there were still many windmills throughout Germany.


Die letzte Windmühle in der Fidicinstraße - Kreuzberg, 1890 - The last windmill on Fidicinstrasse - Kreuzberg, 1890.

Just a few decades earlier it could still be seen even in large cities






Braunschweig






March 1939, arriving at the barracks - März 1939, Ankunft in der Kaserne


Windmill & ice cream






Even the RAD men had fun making some in miniature....


Or next the barracks

[TabsTabs1964]

At the end of the war, some were left standing and American soldiers photographed them again....


1946. A view from a German highway



Although the most famous windmill in all of Germany was in Potsdam....In the Sanssouci palace....

[TabsTabs1964]

The Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam was a very visited place.

A must-do excursion for the Hitler Youth boys....