Manfred has reached home

It was midnight on Monday, 16 November, when a French locomotive of the French Northern Railway with only a coal tender and a goods wagon rolled very slowly over the Kehl Rhine bridge. Whistle signals shrilled, and as the little train pulled into the German station, the few railwaymen working there took off their caps with a grimace. Manfred's earthly remains had reached home. The next morning, the coffin box, made of rough boards, was lifted into a German Reichsbahn baggage wagon and laid out there among fir branches and flowers.