... (title deleted by Stolpi)

I have another question regarding the name of Moyland. I heard two stories about it. One story says the Castle was grounded by an Italian noble family originating from Milan - which in German is 'Mailand', which subsequently turned into 'Moyland'. The other is that Moyland derives from the Dutch words 'Mooi Land' (lovely country). Do you know which of the stories is the right one.

Stolpi,
Het is een heel mooi land... B)

I´ve always been told that it derives from "mooi Land", which makes perfectly sense as our local dialect (Kleverlandse Platt) is more or less
a rather old-fashioned Dutch dialect.

Wiki (en+de), same opinion:
Its name derives from the Dutch word Moiland which means "beautiful country". The name was probably coined by Dutch workers, which the former owner Jacob van den Eger of the Lower Rhine had brought to his property to drain the surrounding wetlands.
Moyland Castle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Cheers,
Kesha

 

Kesha - Danke schön, bedankt!

Maybe you could also help me out with the following. Many of the farms in the area are named kath, for example Bergsekath, Hufsche kath, Tillemanskath. Where does 'kath' stand for? Is it something like 'small farm' - Hütte?

Graag gedaan, Stolpi

I didn`t find an appropiate translation for "Kathe" or "Kathstelle", so I need to describe it:

The Freudenthal Farm you mentioned in your report is a "Guts-Hof", Gut Freudenthal, an estate, owned by the Lord of the manor. His farm workers usually lived in surrounding huts -> Kathen and had the right to farm a small field for their own needs.


Hope I made it clear,
Kesha

 

Schloss Moyland

Pre 1945 Postcard

 

Schloss Moyland

Pre 1945 Postcard

We used to play in it`s ruins as kids... kinda "Adventure Playground Deluxe"! B)

Found a gallery with 20 pics from 1978... that`s exactly how I remember it:
Diashow


Here`s another interesting detail from Wiki:
The castle survived the last battles of the Second World War relatively unscathed, until the arrival of the Allies on February 25, 1945. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery took the castle as his headquarters. In this period Winston Churchill also came to Moyland. After they left almost all of the sumptuous interior went through theft and vandalism by Canadian soldiers, and the castle was devastated. The castle's owner Gustav Adolf Steengracht von Moyland was Ribbentrop's state secretary and was tried for war crimes by the Americans, but in January 1950 he was given an amnesty and freed. A temporary repair was done in 1954 but a fire in the western roof truss in 1956 caused damage, so that the buildings gradually fell into disrepair, despite a temporary roof.
1987 began with repairs to restore the buildings.
Moyland Castle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I used to metal detect in these woods back in the late 70's, early 80's. A B-26 Marauder crashed on the Katzenbuckel in October 1944. Some of the more interesting finds back then were a MG42 spare barrel in its original container, a wooden box of Miles grenades and a huge artillery round, which was marked by us and when the EOD turned up, had been stolen. A few months later 3 boys blew themselves and the garage of one of their father's up. They had found a Riegelmine (AT Mine) and must have thought it was an ammo can. When the local newspaper featured a story of this tragic event, they showed a photo of one of the kid's bedroom. His room was filled with WW2 ordonance, one of the items being my missing artillery round. His parents of course claimed they had no clue!
My most treasured items are from the B-26 though and I had contact with the tail gunner until his passing a few years back.

Danny

 

Lol, Kesha..same here....we used to roam the castle at night to see if there were any ghosts. Needless to say, ghosts or not, we were scared out of our wits most of the time
Did you know a school girl was found killed in the basement of the Schloss???
We actually were at the castle that night and heard sounds, so we run away. Perhaps we could have prevented a crime, but we were young teenagers back then and might have ended up the same way.

Danny

 

Oh forgot, castle was sold for 1 Deutsche mark under the condition that whoever purchased it, would restore it.

 

Excellent work Stolpi , i had a Tour to the Veritable / Battle of the Reichswald Rhine Crossing area last year with some veterans from 8th Royal Scots , 15th Scottish Division, it is a Battle that probably hasn't recieved the recognition it should have done , very hard fighting in terrible conditions with both sides realises the impact of turning the flank of the Siegfried line in this area !!

Really enjoyed your presentation

cheers

Paul

 

Thanks Stopli quite a few threads seem to be running parallels to this at present good to cross reference with some of your work with veteran accounts and such.
Matt

 

The doubles cover up lost pics, thread pretty messed up.

 

Hello to you all, I'm new on this forum.

I have seen a couple of weeks ago on this topic a very good story of the clearing of the Moyland woods.
It was with photo's and a very good map of the wood.
The map was divided into sections with numbers linked to the pictures.
I can't find it anymore.
I would like to visit the Moyland woods and I would like to have specific information were and whats happened there.
Is there anybody who can give some more information.

I am also looking for specific information and maps about the battle in the reichswald.

Thanks

regards, Diemer

 

Diemer - I 've send you a PM.

 

Owen,
Maybe you can see the photos but we who do not moderate cannot see them.
Damn shame, as Stolpi put a huge amount of work into this thread.

Can the photos be retrieved?

Cheers

 

Dyrch - Owen responded before I deleted the posts. At the time there were pics visible, but many were duplictations.

Thanks anyway

 

Stolpi,
I wanted to visit the Woods this summer.
Maybe you have some usefull information for me?

 

Diemer - I would not wait until summer, because the ground by then will be invisible, completely overgrown by ferns and brambles. Making the wood impenetrable .

The best time to visit is now or in late fall/winter. I myself will re-visit the area by the end of this month.

The map you are looking for, can be found here http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,92204.msg911924.html#msg911924

Hope this helps.