Claud Eggleston as US soldier in Pottenstein

Pottenstein, with its rugged Jura landscape, is known as a tourist destination far beyond the borders of Franconian Switzerland. A summer toboggan run and other leisure activities attract thousands of visitors to the small Franconian town every year. Few tourists are aware that a Waffen-SS training center was located in the immediate vicinity of today's attractions. Under the command of SS-Standartenführer Hans Brand, a barracks camp was built on the high plateau at Bernitz in the third year of the war, which at times housed several hundred soldiers. The Karstwehr battalion was formed in Pottenstein and intended as an elite unit for fighting gangs. The surrounding karst formations provided the ideal conditions for training experienced mountain troops. The battalion, reorganized in 1944 as the 24th SS Division, saw action for the first time on the southern front. The Pottenstein location increasingly lost its importance, since time-consuming mountain training seemed superfluous due to the critical overall situation at the time. An SS intelligence regiment from Nuremberg took up quarters at Bernitz and henceforth used the site. When American troops approached Pottenstein in April 1945, brief skirmishes broke out with retreating German soldiers, but there was no organized defense of Pottenstein. Most of the Waffen SS stationed in Pottenstein fled before the arrival of the Americans; only a small, lagging troop retreated to the surrounding rock formations and caves and waited for the end of the war.

It is not known whether and for how long the Americans were stationed in Pottenstein. At least the occupying troops did not seem to be very interested in the abandoned training area. During an inspection of the area, a soldier's silver armband was found at the entrance of a cave some distance from the barracks. At first, it was unclear to me when this had been worn. Identification bracelets were still used by the US troops after the war, so it is also possible that the bracelet was lost during a military exercise or something similar.

Through Facebook, contact was made with Uwe Benkel of the Missing Persons Research Group. The bracelet was sent in and the search for possible relatives began. Finally, with the help of the U.S. State Department, a grandson was found who was currently employed as a State Department employee at the American Embassy in London. Thanks to Konrad Braun from New York, it was possible to return the bracelet to the family.

As it turned out, Mr. Eggleston had survived the war and, after returning to the States, had studied at Cornell University. It can only be assumed that Eggleston was involved in the capture and/or occupation of Pottenstein as a soldier and had lost the bracelet while visiting the SS site.

Adrian Matthes, Erlangen, März 2020