I had a wonderful time at “The Alpen Hof German Restaurant†on Saturday night June 6, 2009. The Alpen Hof is located on Morgantown Road in Reading, Pa. It is only three miles from the Mid Atlantic Air Museum.
The occasion for my being there was that our German reenacting unit “The Kaiserlautern Volks Sturm†was having a dinner party to celebrate two promotions. Mine to Sgt. Gruppenfuhrer (group leader), and Jim Barnes to Lt. Zugfuhrer der 2.Ko.15/1 Kaiserlautern Volks Sturm.
The Volkssturm was initated on October 18, 1944 so, at that late stage of the war, supplies were limited. Therefore, part of our table were dressed in proper German military uniforms, other were in captured Russian uniforms or a mix of civilian and military fashions. See the attached group photograph.
We noticed a sign posted on the outside wall of the restaurant “come see World War II period soldiers dressed in uniforms this week endâ€.
Once seated at our table we were serenaded by a Bavarian (in period Bavarian trachten kleid) playing the accordion. He had just finished his presentation when I asked him to play “Lilli Marleenâ€, which he did as I sang the words in German: Vor der Kaserne, vor dem grossen Tor, stand eine Laterne und steht sie noch davor, so wollen wir uns da wiedersehen bei der Laterne wollen wir steh’n wie einst Lilli Marleen, wie Einst Lilli Marleen.
Someone asked him to play something else, which he did. The poor man eventually skipped his break and played one song after the other as we wore him out singing. He actually out did us in the “accordion†vs “singing the words†face-off challenge as he knew more Bavarian songs than we did.
Finally, following a long wait, the food began arriving at the table. To some of our dismays, some of the ordered food items were not available as the restaurant ran out of food. The orders were then renegotiated and some people started getting their food. Our end of the table received our meals first. As we were politely waiting for the other end of the table to be served, someone still waiting for their food said, “Go ahead and eat we can wait for oursâ€. I dug into my food with typical Teutonic Genuss. After I was stuffed and said that I could not eat another bite, Mike Momot sitting next to me said, “Bill, you should clean your plate because there are people sitting at the other end of this table who are starvingâ€. This started a raucous of laughter at our end of the table while the other end was somberly waiting to be served.
As all this was going on, patrons of the restaurant were coming by snapping photographs of the men and women in period dress and uniforms.
One humorous quip from one of our drivers was this: “I will only have one beer because I am drivingâ€.  His one beer turned into three because of the long wait. And each succeeding beer was larger than the one preceding it.
Over all the experience was a pleasant one, but not if you are accustomed to fast food. We sang, danced, laughed, drank and ate during all the fun. This was the typical scenario that one would experience in France, Spain, Germany England, but this was here in the good old USA.
I give this restaurant my hearty approval.
Bill Donegan
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