A Texas flag flies at the Westwallmuseum in Bad Bergzabern, Germany, on July 6, 2026. The flag is part of a new memorial to the Texas-based 36th Infantry Division. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
In the final months of World War II, soldiers of the Texas National Guard’s 36th Infantry Division crossed into Germany from France.
Soon after arriving in Schweigen, they raised the Texas Lone Star flag over the village’s monumental customs gate.
A U.S. soldier waves a Texas flag over a customs gate in Schweigen, Germany, in March 1945 after U.S. forces broke through the World War II-era Siegfried Line and into Germany. (U.S. Army photo provided by the Texas Military Forces Museum)
Today, about 4 miles north in Bad Bergzabern, another Lone Star flag flies in honor of those same soldiers, part of a memorial to the division unveiled in June on the grounds of the Westwallmuseum.
The memorial, museum and nearby historic sites, all within about an hour’s drive of the Kaiserslautern area, offer visitors a chance to explore one of the lesser-known chapters of the victors’ advance into Germany.
Known to Allied troops as the Siegfried Line, the Westwall was a vast defensive network of bunkers, fortifications and antitank obstacles along the western border of Nazi Germany.
The U.S. Seventh Army breached the line in multiple sectors in March 1945. Near Schweigen, the 36th Infantry Division crossed into Germany before advancing toward Bad Bergzabern, while other Seventh Army units broke through nearby.
A sign for the Westwallmuseum in Bad Bergzabern, Germany, is fastened to one of three World War II bunkers on the museum grounds. The structures were originally part of a vast network of bunkers and antitank obstacles that was known in Germany as the Westwall and among Allied forces as the Siegfried Line. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
The fighting in southern France and southwestern Germany has long received less attention than many of the war’s better-known campaigns.
“I always thought it was kind of sad that this history is not remembered,” said museum director Martin Galle, who grew up in the area and whose idea it was to create the memorial honoring the 36th Infantry Division. “After the war, it was Patton, it was D-Day, it was Bastogne, and the Seventh Army somehow got forgotten.”
The new memorial stands just yards from bunkers where German troops once fought the advancing Americans. Galle allows visitors from Texas to tour the museum for free.
It contains the last three surviving Siegfried Line bunkers in the South Pfalz region, according to the museum.
A memorial to the 36th Infantry Division was unveiled at the Westwallmuseum in Bad Bergzabern, Germany, in June. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Martin Galle is the director of the Westwallmuseum in Bad Bergzabern, Germany. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Although built between 1936 and 1940, the bunkers were not used in combat until the Seventh Army reached France’s Alsace region in late 1944, prompting German forces to reoccupy them in an attempt to defend the frontier.
The artillery pieces used at the time were able to fire over the border into France from the bunkers on the museum grounds. Two of the bunkers are open to visitors.
One has exhibits explaining the history of the Siegfried Line and what the war was like for civilians in the area. Various artifacts are on display, many with English descriptions, though not all.
The other bunker has been furnished to look as it did during the war. It contains an original 105 mm field artillery piece in one room and living quarters in another, with several small cotlike beds suspended from the walls that could be folded up to provide more space.
A room inside a bunker at the Westwallmuseum in Bad Bergzabern, Germany, shows what daily life was like for German troops during World War II. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Part of the exhibition at the Westwallmuseum in Bad Bergzabern, Germany, shows a German soldier in World War II observing with binoculars. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
“People experience what it was like to be in such a crammed room,” Galle said, joking about what it must have smelled like with several men in such a small space. “We basically want to teach people that it’s better to cooperate and build bridges than hide in these bunkers.”
Several artifacts are also displayed outdoors. The third bunker was not open in early July.
One of the defining features of the Siegfried Line was the dragon’s teeth, rows of pyramid-shaped concrete obstacles designed to stop or slow enemy tanks.
While there are none at the Westwallmuseum, original dragon’s teeth remain along an outdoor path a little over 4 miles south of the museum in the village of Steinfeld.
About 4 miles west of Steinfeld is the former customs gate where the 36th Infantry Division raised its Texas flag. Today known as the Deutsches Weintor, or German Wine Gate, it marks the southern entrance to Germany’s oldest scenic wine route.
The Deutsches Weintor, or German Wine Gate, marks the southern entrance to Germany’s oldest scenic wine route. The Texas National Guard’s 36th Infantry Division hung a Lone Star flag from the gate once it crossed into Germany from France in World War II. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
A defining feature of the Siegfried Line was dragon’s teeth, rows of pyramid-shaped concrete obstacles designed to stop or slow enemy tanks. An outdoor path in the village of Steinfeld, about 4 miles south of the Westwallmuseum, has a set of dragon’s teeth that visitors can see. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Visitors to the gate, which stands just a few hundred yards from the French border near Wissembourg, can still see the German eagle carved into the stone, with the swastika it once held chiseled out.
They also can climb a few flights of stairs to the area where the U.S. soldiers raised the flag.
“For me, those Americans were liberators,” Galle said. “I didn’t have to wear a Nazi uniform when I was young. I had the chance to grow up in liberty.”
On the QT
Address: Kurfürstenstrasse 21, Bad Bergzabern, Germany Hours: Every second and fourth Sunday of the month from Good Friday until the end of October and on public holidays (except Easter) Costs: Adults and children 14 and over, 4 euros; children 8 -13, 3 euros; children under 8 and anyone from Texas, free. Information: Phone: +49 1525 9659063; Online: www.otterbachabschnitt.de/Home
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