After the Allied airborne landings near Arnhem and Nijmegen, the small town on the River Niers was engulfed by the violence of war from the end of September 1944 onwards. Gennep was ravaged for months by increasingly heavy shelling, and the German troops did not know what to do. They dug in and built defences everywhere. The inhabitants were forced to leave. Following heavy fighting, British troops liberated Gennep on 12 February 1945, which had by then been largely destroyed, depopulated and plundered.After the Allied airborne landings near Arnhem and Nijmegen, the small town on the River Niers was engulfed by the violence of war from the end of September 1944 onwards. Gennep was ravaged for months by increasingly heavy shelling, and the German troops did not know what to do. They dug in and built defences everywhere. The inhabitants were forced to leave. Following heavy fighting, British troops liberated Gennep on 12 February 1945, which had by then been largely destroyed, depopulated and plundered.<iframe class="ql-video" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xMApaEbS10U?showinfo=0"></iframe>

The Netherlands

Churchill in Gennep, March 1945

Kasteel Huys Heijen directly after the war

Gennep and the price of freedom 

Milsbeek is located on the edge of the Reichswald. On 8 February 1945, British and Canadian forces launched a major offensive to capture the area between the rivers Meuse and Rhine. One of the most difficult obstacles was the Reichswald. The bitter fighting claimed a heavy death toll. The exceptionally gruesome and last great battle on the Western Front explains the presence of the many war cemeteries in and around the Reichswald. Sometimes, thousands of victims are buried there.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Eight British War Graves

In 2018 Harrie-Jan Metselaars wrote the book 'En toen waren ze weg' (And then they were gone) about the persecution of the Jews in Gennep. Since that year, 22 stumbling stones have been placed throughout the centre, giving a name to the Gennep victims of the Shoah.&nbsp;The concrete stones with a brass plate that includes some personal information can be found all over Europe. They are intended as small, individual monuments to the victims of National Socialism: Jews, Sinti and Roma, political prisoners, conscientious objectors, homosexuals, Jehovah's witnesses, and people with mental or physical disabilities. The stones have been embedded in the pavement in front of the victim's original home.

'And then they were gone...'

Initially, troops and supplies were brought in over a Bailey bridge across the Maas between Oeffelt and Gennep. British engineers had built the more than one-kilometre-long riverbank connection in February and March 1945. Not only was it the longest Bailey bridge of World War II, it was also an extraordinary feat of engineering skill. Churchill and Montgomery came to inspect it in person.Meanwhile, a temporary railway bridge was being constructed on the pillars of the railway bridge that had been blown up by the Germans in September 1944. On 1 April, this bridge was also ready for use.&nbsp;After completion of the two bridges, a large army camp was erected at the edge of the built-up area of Gennep, in the Maaskemp, in April 1945. It served as a transit camp for soldiers going to or returning from the frontline in Germany. They arrived and left via the so-called German line and stayed there for a few days at most.The British used the tent camp, which almost looked like a real village, until October 1945. There were tents for medical care, recreation, and church services. By far the most tents were used for preparing food, eating and sleeping. The duration of the stay of the returnees from Germany depended on the departure of the boat to England from Hoek of Holland. For those who stayed in the camp for a few days, there was a theatre and dance party in the hall of Hotel Van Bergen, to which the girls from Gennep were very welcome. Note: girls only!Today, only traces of the transit camp can still be found in the soil.&nbsp;

Transit Camp

The Martinus Tower is a striking reminder of the immense destruction that befell the northern part of Limburg at the end of the war. The tower overlooks the battlefields of Operation Market Garden (September 1944) and Operation Veritable (February 1945), which is also called the Battle of the Reichswald because this is where the fighting was most intense.The tower is close to the river Meuse, which was more or less the frontline for five months. Windmills, high buildings and all church towers in the area were shot to pieces or blown up because of their potential use as vantage points. The Martinus Tower was the only tower that was spared from destruction. It is thought that this had to do with the adjacent tuberculosis sanatorium Maria Oord, which had Red Cross flags on its roof, but this has not been confirmed.In the course of October 1944, the Germans began to evacuate Gennep and the sanatorium. Although the following months were relatively quiet because the worst war violence took place at other fronts, all hell broke loose for Gennep on 8 February 1945. The strategically located town on the river Niers had to be conquered at all costs to be able to enter the area between the rivers Meuse and Rhine. Heavy shellfire determined the fate of the St. Martin's Church then. Miraculously, only the weather vane came down from the tower; the rest remained standing.Visitor's CentreAt the visitor’s centre, that anyone can visit free of charge, you can find eight short informative videos regarding the end of World War II. The visitor’s centre also is the start and the finish of seven walking and biking routes. Together these routes form a network of walking and biking paths that take you through the region. The St. Martin’s tower is at the centre of the networks.

Martinus Tower and Visitor's Centre

Even before the Bailey bridge was ready for use, units of the Highland Division had crossed the river in boats and established a small bridgehead at Milsbeek. From there, they opened the attack on Gennep on 11 February. The German defenders were well entrenched and fierce street fighting ensued, with battles being fought for every house.A Scotsman wrote in his diary: 'The shop fronts are all destroyed and the roofs of the houses are on the verge of collapse. I stormed into such a house and found three Germans. One cried out in pain, he had a broken thighbone. The soldiers were old and scared and seemed happy to be captured. They carried the injured person outside on a plank. They were not very careful, and the injured leg slid off the plank. A terrible scream followed.‘ The fighting continued until 13 February.On the 70th anniversary of the liberation in 2015, the bridge was named Highlander Bridge.

Highlander Bridge

Ellen Hoffmann was a Jewess from Gennep who died during the years of occupation, a fate that befell almost all Jews from Gennep. She was originally from Goch in Germany, but she married cattle trader Arthur van Leeuwen and ended up in the small town on the river Niers in 1939.Fearing deportation, Ellen went into hiding with her sister in Berlin in 1943. There she fell into the hands of the Gestapo following betrayal. Miraculously, she survived several camps, but a so-called death march (murderous evacuations of emaciated camp residents) at the end of the war proved fatal to her. Presumably, she was shot dead. Her husband Arthur van Leeuwen and daughter Anneke survived the war.

Ellen Hoffmann Square

In an explanation of his work, Maris said that his intention was not to depict the suffering of the victims, because that would have been a constant reminder to the next of kin of what they had experienced. In his opinion, the fallen heroes of the war were best honoured for their sacrifice and neighbourly love with a statue. That is why he had chosen the Good Samaritan: a man on a horse carrying a wounded warrior on his lap.This view is also expressed in the foot of the monument. Neighbourly love is depicted in large format and the reality of war in small format.A piece of parchment with the names of the fifty-four war victims from Gennep has been embedded in the pedestal. An apt text by the Dutch poet Anton van Duinkerken has been inscribed on the pedestal: 'The lifes they gave for freedom forbid us to live as fearful slaves'.Jac Maris has made several well-known war monuments, such as the Airborne monument in Oosterbeek.

The Good Samaritan

Tuberculosis was still rife in The Netherlands in the twentieth century, and in 1918, a sanatorium was built in Gennep to provide care for sufferers of this disease. In the years that followed, the Mariaoord sanatorium grew into a health resort with more than one hundred beds and a separate health resort for aftercare called 'Zon-licht-heide' (Sun-light-heath). Then when the front lines came to a standstill at the end of September 1944, military forces started evacuating the people. This included the residents of Gennep in the week starting the 15th October 1944.However, the Mariaoord sanatorium and 'Zon-licht-heide' health resort were not evacuated out of fear of infection and a complicated evacuation procedure. Consequently, the resorts turned into two inhabited islands in an otherwise deserted village. Evacuees from the surrounding area were given (temporary) shelter there, but with the front lines so close by, it was not uncommon for the occasional British shell to fall nearby, like the one that hit the children's ward on 30th October 1944. In December 1944, after the St. Nicholas celebrations, both of these institutions were evacuated. The patients were taken to Winterswijk.

Sinterklaas at Mariaoord

War reporting is of all ages, and goes back even to the highly detailed descriptions of Roman battles. The first Gulf War was brought into our homes thanks to Peter Arnett and CNN News. During the Second World War the British and Americans had their war reporters with them, who recorded their accounts in writing or with the camera.The Allies finally captured the small town of Gennep early in 1945. The capture of Gennep was essential to open the way for the advance towards Goch and the heart of Germany. The attack on Gennep would be the start of what later became known as the Rhineland Offensive.The Rhineland Offensive would in the end make possible the total liberation of Limburg, Gelderland, the Lower Rhine area, and then finally the whole of Western Europe.Unimaginable numbers and quanities of personnel, vehicles, munitions, fuel and supplies were transported to the area. The border region became the key to the end of the Second World War. Never before had an offensive of such magnitude been launched from Dutch territory.<iframe class="ql-video" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xMApaEbS10U?showinfo=0"></iframe>

The Capture of Gennep

The restaurant on the Brabant side of the river Maas is the Oeffelt Ferry House (Veerhuis Oeffelt). For centuries, people and livestock were carried over the river by the ferryman here. In mid-1944, the area around the Ferry House had been liberated, but the Limburg side of the Maas was German-occupied territory.Every evening, the British troops withdrew to the village of Oeffelt. German soldiers and their prisoners dug trenches in the fields along their side of the Maas. At some point, their enemies would attempt the river crossing. This situation, with the river as physical separation between the British on the Brabant bank and the Germans on the Limburg side, lasted until February 1945. Then the Allies decided to advance. The Bailey Bridge between Gennep and Oeffelt became the longest river span built during World War II. The impressive bridge was built by the British Royal Engineers and consisted of bridge elements on pontoons. Gennep was liberated on 12 February 1945 and construction started immediately. On 20 February 1945, the bridge was completed and the first vehicles made the crossing.The Bailey Bridge had been designed by Captain Hunt and Lieutenant Lambrechtsen of Ritthem, a former 'Rijkswaterstaat' engineer. The latter's knowledge was important to be able to use the bridge at different water levels. Indeed, the water level was high due to the large amount of precipitation. Moreover, the retreating German army had blown up the installations in the Ruhr dams and extra water was entering the Meuse at Roermond.Thanks to this Bailey Bridge, Montgomery was able to cross the Rhine a few weeks later, in late 1945, with the aim of taking the Ruhr area. The bridge at Gennep remained in use until well after the Second World War, when a permanent bridge could be built.&nbsp;<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_Be6vdgo-p0?showinfo=0" frameborder="0" class="ql-video"></iframe> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Eu5Fg06_y38?showinfo=0" frameborder="0" class="ql-video"></iframe>

Gennep et le prix de la liberté

Photos

Sites et histoires le long de la route