Ehrwald, Austria – Leave Centre for the BAOR
By Sue Bramall
Between the summer of 1945 and 1957, the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) had around 80,000 people in Germany, but in the early years after the end of WWII, there were limited opportunities to travel back to the UK. As servicemen and women had to be in Germany for at least nine months, some alternative arrangement was needed.
Leave Centres were established by the NAAFI in nine tourist resorts for use by all ranks, with seven in Germany (Bad Harzburg, Bad Winterberg, Nordeney, Scharbeutz, Sylt, Tegensee, and Travemunde) and two in Austria in Ehrwald and Lermoos.
My grandfather (Ronald Peter de Berners Nicholson, usually known as ‘Nick’ or ‘Peter’) learnt to ski in Ehrwald, when he was working for the Control Commission for Germany (British Element) CCG (BE) as an engineer, first in Hamburg in 1945 and then in Hannover from early 1948 to 1949. He returned to the resort each year for a number of years, and photos show that he took part in some informal competitions, but apart from these pictures I only have his BAOR travel pass:
Travel pass for Ronald Peter de Berners Nicholson – date c1948
Travelling through Ehrwald this summer, I stopped to find the ‘leave centre’ where members of the BAOR had stayed – imagining a sort of hostel or mini-military camp. But the ‘Leave Centre’ referred to the resort, rather than one specific building, although certain hotels received a lot of guests in this way.
In Ehrwald, the NAAFI booked people into the Hotel zur Post, The Sonnenspitze, The Maria Regina, The Gruner Baum and the Gasthof Stern. A few of these hotels remain, and there is a charming small museum in the town at the Spinnhof, where they had a few bits of information about the BAOR in Ehrwald.
The importance of the leave centres, and a friendly (female) face was outlined in this extract from The Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) report on their work between 1938 and 1948:
‘Men serving overseas, far from family and home must have reasonable facilities for relaxation and recreation if moral and physical welfare are to be safeguarded, and it is no less desirable that there should be some means of outlet for the inevitable human need for “someone to talk to” in moments of depression or homesickness. In connection with both these needs, WVS members are giving valuable services as Welfare Officers in the Clubs and Leave Centres operated by N.A.A.F.I overseas; this work includes the supervision of games rooms, libraries and lounges, and the arrangement of tours, competitions, plays, gramophone recitals, etc, but perhaps its most valuable aspect is the provision of friendly feminine contact. A few minutes conversation with a cheerful but sympathetic and understanding WVS Welfare Worker can frequently help to roll away a gathering cloud of depression or throw a new and more favourable light on a worrying problem about friends or family at home.’
According to Lt Col (Retd) Mark Goodson, “Unofficial archivist” for the Army Winter Sports Association (AWSA), in 1947 there was a British Troops Austria Championships and the Army Ski Association (ASA) started to hold championships in Austria in 1948, the first one held in Kanzel near Villach.The 1947 and 1948 events were really designed for the 55,000 British soldiers then posted in Austria, most of whom were young conscripts. And I agreed with Goodson that “with the best will in the world, your grandfather’s group do not really look like ‘young’ conscripts!”
Ehrwald, c1948, photograph in collection of R.P.de B Nicholson
There seems to have been a good relationship between the Ehrwald ski champions (local heroes indeed) and BAOR troops. An information panel at the Spinnhof museum tells of how the British soldiers helped with the construction of the Sonnenhang – the first ski lift in Ehrwald, a T-bar which opened in 1947.
With trainloads of people arriving who were probably clueless on skis, there was a new opportunity to provide ski lessons, and in 1948 the Skischule was founded in Ehrwald. Tourist visitor numbers in that year reached 48,200.
There seems to be plenty of entente cordiale in this picture:
Ehrwald, c1948, photograph in collection of R.P.de B Nicholson
Fortunately, a few other visitors to Ehrwald have recorded their memories of their visits to Ehrwald and give us a flavour of those days.
Betty Lynas (nee Hill) joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), which was the women’s branch of the British army, in 1945 when she was 18 and trained to be a driver. In November 1946, she sailed to Cuxhaven in Germany on the troopship ‘Empire Wansbeck’ which carried the first married families, (wives and children) joining their husbands, and some 500 German prisoners of war returning home. Betty was posted in Bad Oeynhausen and remained there as part of the Field Marshal Montgomery’s 21st Army group.
She wrote an account of her army years when “On our weekends off some of us used to go to different leave centres” including Ehrwald where Betty went in the summer:
“… we stayed in a chalet half-way up a mountain side. The road was so steep the transport had to try backing up the road but couldn’t manage it. We unloaded our luggage, plus ourselves and sat by the side of the road, which bordered a huge meadow. The sun was scorching, and my memory is of us listening to hordes of crickets singing. We reached our chalet and shown our rooms, with their huge duvets and feather beds. Our stay here was for 3 weeks. Once again, we climbed mountains and walked through shady woods. Our evenings we spent in the NAAFI for dancing and eating Austrian food. One night on our way back to the chalet, much to my shame I stole a bell off one of the cow’s neck. I use it as a door stop.”
“Incidentally a rather nasty accident occurred one night in Ehrwald. We were accosted by a very angry Black Watch soldier, who whipped a razor blade out of his ‘Glengarry’ (hat) Apparently, he had heard we had been hob knobbing with the American soldiers and, as his sister had had an unlucky experience with one, he was very much against their presence. We were saved by his pals restraining him.”
Ehrwald, c1948, photograph in collection of R.P.de B Nicholson
David Russell had a baptism of fire when he went to Ehrwald in the winter, as recorded in his book National Service:
“UK leave was only available after completing 9 months in Germany, but Continental leave could be taken earlier in a ‘Leave Centre’ and with a fellow ACS member of the mess I stayed for a week in Ehrwald in the Austrian Alps, just south of Zugspitze where the main activity in winter was skiing.
Our ex-Austrian Army ski instructor had previously trained mountain troops and believed in Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest methods. On day 2 half of the ‘beginners’ class of 32 failed to appear. At the end of day 2, the survivors were down to 8 men. On day 3 we were dispatched down a black run. On day 4 we climbed the southern slope of the Zugspitze on skis fitted with skins and stayed overnight in a mountain hut at 8,000 feet.
On day 5 we skied down. By the time we were down to 3,000 ft it was almost too much for my colleague who was on the point of collapse. So, I and another chap propped him up and the three of us skied down the lower slopes arm-in-arm. Doing turns was a difficult process,
The big day of the Leave Centre Races arrived and the ‘beginners’ were assembled from all the different groups. A race official pointed out the start line, which had been defined by our instructor and was high up, well above the nursery slopes. This produced a gasp of horror from all but our little group. A spokesman protested that the course was beyond their capabilities and a mass walk-out ensued. Our group of 8 was the sole entrant.”
Most of the troops will have arrived in Ehrwald by railway, and James Alan Bousfield Hamilton (1899-1971), recorded his impressions in his book The Autobiography of A Rail Fan:
“In the following year we sampled the BAOR leave centre at Ehrwald in the Austrian Tyrol. … The Ehrwald special followed a shorter route parallel with the Zone border, thence to Garmisch-Partenkirchen avoiding Munich; about a 12-hour overnight journey. We had sleepers, but I was far too interested to do much sleeping, and was out on the platforms in my pyjamas to watch the changing of motive power. Indeed this was worth watching, for it followed this sequence: steam (Pacific), electric, steam (2-10-0), steam cum-electric, and electric front and rear. I was having breakfast and missed the change to steam-cum-electric, but shortly afterwards, when we seemed to be making remarkably good progress up a rising gradient, I looked out and saw the electric hitched on in front and doing most of the work, with the 2-10-0 taking it very easily. The electrics front and rear came on at Garmisch, where the branch on which Ehrwald stands crosses the frontier and winds up a valley on fearsome gradients which looked to be about 1 in 30. This branch could only be reached at that time from the rest of the Austrian system through a corner of Germany; its trains of Austrian stock were hauled by German electrics and ran locked through the German corner.
On the return journey our 2-10-0 required no help down the hill from Garmisch, but we had yet a further variant on a short rising pitch, up which we had an electric banker. The railway at Garmisch was all-electric; I observed one 2-6-0 in steam – kept as a standby, I was told – but the once-in-five-days British special was the only steam-hauled train to use the station.
Above Ehrwald towers the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak, which stands practically on the frontier. The summit area is festooned with hotels, two on the German side and one on the Austrian; the latter is linked to Ehrwald by a cable railway. ‘Luftseilbahn’, Cecil J. Allen has recently told us, is the term used in Switzerland; here I observed it was ‘Schwebebahn’ – suspension railway. One day my elder boy and I walked up the mountain, stopped the night in the Austrian hotel, and returned down the Schwebebahn. As I took a stroll very early the following morning I observed another use for the cable cars. A car was being loaded with dustbins containing the previous day’s refuse; it moved a little way down, halted, and an unsightly mixture of papers, dust, kitchen scraps and general rubbish was precipitated on to the mountain side. Some refuse disposal system.”
The only ‘team report’ of skiing in Ehrwald that I could find was from the Journal of the Royal Dragoons.
Sadly, poor snow in January 1948 had meant that ‘the whole BAOR party, about 60 strong and reinforced by wives, W.R.V.S and families’ had to move to St. Anton am Arlberg for a while, before returning to Erhwald on 31 January for the races which were scheduled for 7th February.
“As the snow had not improved it was decided to run the downhill race inside the Zugspitze bowl – about 9,500 feet above sea level.
On the 6th, a course was laid out and we spent the day practising down it, in deep heavy snow; hardly racing conditions, but exhilarating to ski on, in spite of the dull weather. The next day dawned with a blizzard which made racing out of the question, so once again the organisers did some quick thinking and this time chose for the downhill race the middle section of the Olympic Run at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, now an American Leave Centre.”
The first season didn’t finish in glory for the Royal Dragoons who although ‘had all been bruised black and blue’, they ‘had at least broken no bones’ and had ‘thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in spite of some of the coldest weather we had ever experienced’.
Due to declining demand and increasing overheads, all the original NAAFI Leave Centres closed in the early 1950s, but Ehrwald remained a popular destination for ski training for the BAOR and the RAF. For example, a Winter Survival Course, was based at the Hotel Thorle in Ehrwald in January 1954 – there are a few photographs on this website by Bebe Sharman (but you need to scroll down to find them).
Ehrwald, c1948, photograph in collection of R.P.de B Nicholson
Mark Goodson also recalled Ehrwald from more recent times:
“By amazing coincidence, I also skied there in 1968 as a 2Lt in my Regiment (4 RTR) Nordic (langlauf) team. We stayed in a small village called Biberwier, approx 3 km from Ehrwald. I was to stay there again in 1970, 71 and 75. And have been through a few times since. A retired Colonel called Bill Cross had been the Commandant of the Leave Centre and had stayed on living in Ehrwald, in a VERY small apartment near the Church, after it closed a few years before my first visit. He was a “fixer/agent” for British visitors and the various BAOR teams who were still allowed to train and race in Austria and over the border in Germany.
In the Leave Centre days, there was certainly sufficient skiing in Ehrwald, Lermoos and Biberwier for the soldiers, and for a growing civilian market. Ehrwald was also the valley station for the Tiroler Zugspitzbahn – a cable car to the top of Germany’s highest mountain the Zugspitze, which towers above Ehrwald. Only it didn’t quite reach the summit when either the Leave Centre soldiers or I skied there! There was a 400m long tunnel from the top station of the cable car through the mountain to the ski area and actual summit – all on the German side. Halfway through the tunnel one had to show your passport to a couple of humourless officials in the Customs Post hewn into the rock! (There is now a modern cable car from Ehrwald to the summit of the Zugspitze).
Your grandfather would have to show his special pass if he went through the tunnel and when he crossed into Austria, either on the train or by road from Garmisch. (Note the wrong spelling “Garmicsh” on the special pass!).
The train runs on its scenic route through to Reutte in Tirol and on to Kempten back in the Allgau region of Germany to this day. Until the mid or late 70s the road from the German Border to Ehrwald was gravel but is now tarmacked. The Austrian Customs officials never grasped why we used to travel several times a week from Biberwier/Ehrwald to Garmisch. It was to pick up our duty free alcohol and cigarettes which were far cheaper to leave in the left luggage lockers at Garmisch station than to buy in Austria! Also there was a PX (US NAAFI) in Garmisch which we could use.”
An information panel at the Spinnhof museum in Ehrwald tells of how the British soldiers helped with the construction of the Sonnenhang – the first ski lift in Ehrwald, a T-bar which opened in 1947.
Having spent some time in Ehrwald in the summer, I could see its attraction – the beautiful meadows, charming hotels, delicious strudel, etc. and could easily imagine how pleasant it must be in the winter. Now I just need to find a reason to return … for some more historical research perhaps?