Beer & The Bulge: Dragon Teeth Along the West Wall

I stepped out of my Airbnb under an ominous sky in the tiny hamlet of Udenbreth in the far west of Germany near the border with Belgium. It was March 29, and Spring was still hardly recognizable after weeks of relentless rain and clouds. It was dry at the moment, but I was not optimistic. The rolling hills of the Eifel tried their best to look lush in constrast to the grey hues of the sky. Udenbreth seemed to be only a few houses and some farmland. One quiet building with a beer sign offered no encouragement for a refreshment later. It was probably an inn only open during high season, but even then it was hard to imagine seeing any life there. It haunted the cool morning air like a ghost town. That was until my otherworldly ponderings were interrupted by a distant sound like the clopping of wood mallets which approached from the end of the street. It was a group a children holding what looked like a wooden toy. It had a handle with an attached plate and a small hammer which flip-flopped back and forth against the plate as they shook the device. The group of children walked by me smiling, making a lot of noise with this curious toy. They continued on past me as if their job was to wake up every resident in this small town. A couple days later I would come to find out that local churches send all of their bells to Rome to get filled with chocolate during Easter. The wooden toy is a temporary replacement for these bells while they wait for them to be returned. As I reached the edge of some farmland, the clamor of the children faded behind me.

The West Wall

In August 1944, quiet villages like Udenbreth along Germany’s borderlands from the Netherlands to Luxembourg were the scene of furious imports of concrete and steel. These villages had experienced this activity before in 1938 and 1939 when Hitler built a line of forts and bunkers to protect its west flank. Morale was probably high and the idea of an invasion must have felt outside the realm of possibility. Now it was August 1944, in response to the Allied beach landings in Normandy, Hitler ordered additional defenses in the form of tank obstacles called Dragon Teeth. The Russians were gaining ground on the Eastern Front and Hitler’s best chance was to shore up the Western Front and disrupt the efforts of the Americans and British, hoping that by capturing the port of Antwerp, the idea of the war being prolonged would cause them to negotiate a peace treaty together with the Russians.

Towards the end of 1944, all along the West Wall (called the Seigfried Line by the Allies), Hitler gathered troops including many diverted from the Eastern Front. They gathered amongst the forests and rolling hills, mostly hidden from the spy planes of the Allies in part due to the terrain, but also due to bad weather conditions and the Allied overconfidence that Germany was militarily incapable of launching a full-scale invasion.

In the land around Udenbreth and north towards the village of Hollerath, the Sixth Panzer Army led by Sepp Dietrich sat waiting. Under Dietrich was the 1st SS Panzer Division led by infamous Joachim Peiper, who we’ve crossed paths with before in my Trois-Ponts, Cheneux, La Gleize, Stourmont, and Malmedy hikes. But this hike will pass through the countryside where the Sixth Panzer Army and Peiper’s 1st SS were waiting on that early morning of December 16 when they launched the Battle of the Bulge.

Following the Sixth Panzer Army Blogs

Hike Details

Starting/Ending Point	Udenbreth
Distance	19.8 km
My Moving Time	4 hours 2 minutes

It’s Not Just a Beer, It’s a Journey

There’s not much beer on this journey, and, in fact, I don’t recall passing anywhere to stop for a pint. This is a very rural hike with a lot of quietude and scenery.

Dragon Teeth appear along roads, decorating backyards and dividing fields. They are a dramatic reminder of how this simple peaceful countryside was once caught in the middle of a World War.

The hike was quite muddy in places but eventually rises up to a plateau where you can imagine this terrain filled with the deafening sound of artillery fire and roaring Panzers churning down these mountain roads.

A drizzling rain started to fall as I arrived to the far point of this hike, the Hollerather Knie (or Hollerath Knee). The Hollerather Knie was the site of several bunkers, which have been destroyed and absorbed into the surrounding farmland. It symbolically memorializes the starting point of the Battle of the Bulge. From here, the Sixth Panzer Army headed into the direction of Krinkelt, Rocherath and the Elsenborn Ridge (foreshadowing my next hike).

Hollerather Knie

After the Hollerather Knie, the hike crosses the border into Belgium, in a little more peaceful manner than a division of Panzers and infantry. Here the hike meanders through these thick high forests which characterize the Eastern Cantons of Belgium.

There are some lush emerald forest scenes in these parts. Every place where you see a depression in the earth makes you wonder if they were a foxhole or crater.

By the time I was back in Udenbreth, the rain had started to wane. Approaching Udenbreth from the west revealed the Dragon Teeth that still protect the village from the ghosts of Sherman tanks.

Final Words

I arrived back in Udenbreth to empty streets devoid of children and their wooden bells. I admired the reclusiveness of living in such a place. It feels like a place where simple traditions are allowed to linger on like living breathing organisms while the rest of the world gets sucked into the artificiality of technology. By December 16, 1944, most of the people living in these homes would have already left to stay with friends and relatives farther away from the frontlines. When I turned up the road to my Airbnb, the final remnants of my tranquil hike were shattered, not by a column of Panzers, but by the revving motors of a long line of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Lotuses, and other sports cars of the über-rich which kept appearing from around a distant bend in the road. Taking advantage of the long straight road in front of my airbnb, they accelerated toward the village in the direction of Belgium. One after another. And then just as suddenly, the road was quiet again. What a difference eighty years makes. I plopped on the couch and opened a beer with a satisfying hiss. Reviewing the next day’s hike, I couldn’t help but wish a squadron of American P-47 Thunderbolts appeared out of the sky and laid down a strafe of firepower on a certain convoy of vehicles. But like the Nazis, they got lucky due to the cloud cover. When the Nazi machine rose out of the trees and into Belgium where the unwary Americans were undermanned and taken by surprise, it seemed like the Nazis had all the cards. But as the old proverb says, “One does not simply walk into Mordor.” Or Krinkelt… or Rocherath…