de Gaulle to Ludwigsburg

   I usually tried to read a little German each day.  Harry usually brought the morning edition of the Stuttgarter Zeitung each day. Since I liked sports I usually read the sports section figuring that it would be easier to read if I knew what they were talking about.

   One morning in 1961 I read in the paper that De Gaulle was coming to Ludwigsburg.  He would be arriving at Echterdingen airport (Stuttgart) and then be taking a limo to Ludwig’s Castle in Ludwigsburg. I checked with Harry to make sure I was reading the article correctly. What a grand reason to have a beer bash. We could have our own tailgate party and flip de Gaulle the bird as he went by. 

   The road between Zuffenhausen and Ludwigsburg in 1961 was a two lane road. (Today it is multiple lanes each way)  We decided that we would set up our tailgate party on a slight knoll so we could see the “Big Snot Locker” go by in his limo.  We had a few weeks to plan this outing and it kept getting bigger and bigger.  It was taking on a life of it’s own. The final count was about 30 people including girl friends. 

   I’m not sure what time of day it was but the weather was reasonably good and we had large amounts of Dinky Pop Tops (Local beer), Brotchen und schinken mit senf and other picnic supplies.  We were well “oiled” by the time the Polizei showed up. The MP’s showed up shortly after when the Polizei called them.  Fortunately we had parked our cars on another road and walked to the knoll over looking the road. No drunk driving charges. No eye balling of the French guy either.  We just took our empties and went home.

   Bottom line, only one GI arrested and he wasn’t in our outfit. Like I said this whole escapade took on a life of it’s own.  The GI was a SP-4 from the signal outfit next door. Sloppy drunk…

  The picture above was from an archive of the actual speech at Ludwig’s castle.  Of course we didn’t see it, we were tucking tail and retreating to Grenadier Kaserne less one GI from next door.

   Given what I know now I would have been a little suspect of a rowdy group of people on a knoll over looking the driving route of a foreign President.

   If you were here in 1961 feel free to leave a comment.