As mentioned somewhere else on the forum the confiscation of Dutch bicycles by the Germans 1940-1945 is something that comes up on occasions. This reminded me of something I saw this year in a museum in Amersfoort: a bicycle that was retuned by a former wehrmacht soldier in 2009 because he was ashamed he took it in 1945...
Nice post. Brought a wry smile to my face. Any chance of a brief translation? Also could you link the threads where confiscated bicycles have been mentioned before on the forum. Did a search for 'confiscated bicycles' and only this thread & one about Audrey Hepburn turned up in the results? Thanks
Man, don't get us started! As for the previous thread, I was quoting myself: Militracks SdKfz. event - Overloon - 17-18 May
Ok, so I have been asked "well, how did the Dutch combat this German obsession of nicking every serviceable bike"? From 1940-1944 the trick to replace the front wheel with a wheel of a 'step' worked fine: I mean, no member of the Arian race would be caught dead on a contraption shown above..... That was until Arnhem, when the rules changed again. More on that in lesson #3
During my time living in the Netherlands from 1976 to 1981, the joke that a Dutch person used to say upon meeting a German was "have you got my bike?"
