The Trichterkuchen Incident
In 1945, in the end of the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII), Allied forces were pushing deep into German territory. The Third Riech knew that the end was prominent, and began to cover up any evidence of the experiments that they were performing on concentration camp prisoners. It was at this time that a majority of the Third Riech leadership had gone underground, into their bunkers. Communication was difficult to continue, so the German scientists were left with the responsibility of clearing any evidence. Because of the impending government collapse, several German scientists fled the country and communication within the scientist community proved to be difficult as well. On February 7th, Dr. Leonard Cooper Trichterkuchen decided that it was time to leave the country as well. Instead of destroying the evidence, however, Dr. Trichterkuchen instead hid his findings in his family’s funnel cake factory, King Kuchen. He would write in his diary, “[I] decided to wait out remainder of [the war] in [Switzerland], and I, ironically, have plans to retrieve [the plans.]” On February 8th, Dr. Trichterkuchen attempted to leave the country but had gotten lost in the woods and would die there. Before he left, Dr. Trichterkuchen sent a letter to his distant family that had immigrated to American.
On February 20th, the Kitchen family received a letter from their deceased uncle, and within the letter contained information to where the documents were being held. The Kitchen family agreed to had over the information to the United States Government, but had a small request: To retrieve the valuable Trichterkuchen original recipe. Since 1937, the Kitchen family ran a failed local funnel cake business. When news of this letter came to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Eisenhower immediately got on a plane and flew to West Philadelphia. After several weeks of intense negotiations, Eisenhower and the Kitchen family came to an agreement:
- To retrieve the family’s original recipe for funnel cake
- Information to where the Dr. Trichterkuchen’s findings are hidden specifically once the original recipe is retrieved.
- Parking Ticket immunity
On March 17th, a small team of infantry men entered the now abandoned funnel cake factory. Once the original recipe had been found, the soldiers radioed to the command station located on the Rhine river, who then radioed the White House. Eisenhower, nervous that this would be a ploy, called the Kitchen family and gave them the recipe verbatim. The Kitchen family, pleased with the results of their new funnel cakes, gave Eisenhower the rest of the information. Eisenhower, pleased with the results of his plan, had the White House radio the Rhine River base, who radioed the infantry team. Within a few minutes, the team had recovered the hidden plans and returned back to the base.
This event, while minuscule when compared to the rest of the war, had a large impact on the rest of America. During Eisenhower’s run for presidency, he would have funnel cakes at every single one of his rallies; these funnel cakes were created using the original Trichterkuchen recipe. A large majority of rally attendees agreed that funnel cakes made them appreciated Eisenhower much more, and that they were quite tasty. Political Strategists recently came to the conclusion that Eisenhower wouldn’t have gotten the momentum to become the Republican nominee if it wasn’t for the popular funnel cake rallies. Another impact that this incident had was the development of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (known as LSD) that came directly off of Dr. Trichterkuchen’s plans. Historians believe that this is the reason why he died lost in the woods.
Armando Benavides