Dormagen: Easy Company’s Twilight Zone
The Strange Days Before Victory
In April 1945, the war was almost over—but nobody knew it yet. Easy Company had just settled into Dormagen, a small town on the west bank of the Rhine, near Zons. They traded foxholes for real houses. There were no firefights. No long marches. Just patrols, paperwork, and the uneasy sense that something big could still happen at any moment.
You can still walk these quiet streets today. You can still feel it—the waiting.
What to See in Dormagen Today
Most travelers skip Dormagen. But if you slow down here, you’ll glimpse a side of the war—and of Germany—that few visitors ever see.
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Walk the medieval walls of Zons, once a fortified town guarding the Rhine. (Learn more)
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Follow the river south—castles, vineyards, and wide hilltop views still line the banks, just as Easy Company saw them.
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Explore local museums to better understand life along the Rhine as the war drew to a close.
Dormagen today is calm, colorful, and full of quiet corners worth lingering in.
A Moment Between Two Worlds
Don Malarkey, in Easy Company Soldier, remembered how strange it all felt:
"After surviving all the tough stuff—you couldn’t help thinking if your number would come up on something simple like this."
It wasn’t victory yet. It wasn’t exactly war either. It was the twilight zone of 1945.
Easy Company left Dormagen in old French 40x8 railcars—forty men or eight horses to a car—rolling south through a peaceful, wounded Germany. You can follow that path today, past castles and farmland, feeling the world change mile by mile.
Plan your route with Google Maps.
Plan Your Own Journey
Dormagen isn’t just a side trip—it’s part of the real story. If you're tracing Easy Company’s footsteps, don’t just visit the battlefields. Visit the places where they waited, wondered, and watched history turning.
For more travel guides, stories, and maps, visit Bergs & Burgs.
Thank you to James Skeffington, the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and the photographers at Unsplash for the images used in this post.