Author: Emily Ryan

Late at night on March 22nd, 1945, General George S. Patton and some of his legendary Third Army crossed the Rhine River into central Germany. This weekend marks the 75th anniversary of this historic event – although due to the current Covid-19 restrictions, all events commemorating the crossing have been cancelled.

For a quick trip outside in the fresh air, and a chance to honor the occasion, Palatinate member Emily Ryan drove 30 minutes to the location of the monument in Nierstein, Rheinland-Palatinate (the state our chapter is named after).

This crossing was an important step in bringing the conflict to a close on May 8th, 1945. In fact, it was the first time an invading force had crossed the Rhein into Germany since Napoleon! You can read more about the day and how Patton channeled William the Conqueror in the article “Patton’s Entrance into Germany.“

On June 29th, we celebrated our 10th annual Flag Day and Hot Dog picnic at the Oscar Mayer Memorial in Kosingen, Germany. With 21 attendees from both the Palatinate DAR and Zweibrücken CAR, it was a fun filled day! Vietnam Veteran, Ken Aungst, from the Ansbach American Legion Post, made meaningful remarks to open the celebration.

We also held a Flag Retirement ceremony, to show how you can symbolically cut the flag into 4 pieces, one piece for the field of blue with stars (never to be divided) and 3 pieces with the red and white stripes, in preparation for the Ansbach Scouts to complete the ceremony.

On May 26th, members from the Palatinate Chapter and friends met at the largest WWII American cemetery in Europe for their annual memorial ceremony. The town of St. Avold, France, along with the American Battle Monuments Commission and the American Memorial Day Committee hosted the event, attended by more than 100 French, Americans, Germans and more. The Lorraine American cemetery is located about 30 minutes over the border from Germany, near Saarbruecken.

On February 4th, the Chaplain of our chapter, Tiffin Fox, presented the Palatinate Chapter’s annual donation to the Landstuhl Fisher House at Ramstein Air Base.  The Fisher House provides a ‘home-away-from-home’ for families and patients who are receiving treatment at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany. They take care of families of all service members in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. We are very proud to support their efforts!

Girl Scouts Frankfurt Taunus and DAR Palatinate Chapter gathered together on the first day of December 2018 to give the American Children‘s Cemetery Frankfurt some holiday cheer.

With a little bird seed and a lot of festive singing; the two organizations for the first time joined in their service project hours.

Jo Cothran Ator, who is responsible for maintaining awareness of the Kinderfeld section of Frankfurt Main Cemetery, was grateful for the time that the our two groups took from their busy days to be together and sing Christmas carols.

I think the birds were happy too! As we left the Cemetery I could hear the chirps of the birds as they feasted on the recently filled feeders…

– Katherine Hansen (Palatinate Treasurer)

On the Centennial of the Armistice to end World War I, our chapter honored veterans at the largest American Cemetery from WWI in Europe, Meuse-Argonne, France. Not only did we pay respects to the fallen American, French and German soldiers but we also heard excerpts from the diary of a veteran of that same named battle in 1918 who is the great-grandfather of one of our members!