How To Shoot Fighter Jets With Bavarian Dumplings And Win The War!

On February 3 of 1967, Helmut Winter, a graphic designer and small business owner in Pasing, a suburb of Munich, Germany, placed the following classified ad with a large local newspaper:

“Seeking anti-aircraft gun with sufficient ammunition to restore peace and order within Munich’s western air corridor.”

As the true story goes, up to 70 fighter jets thundered daily over Helmut’s formerly quiet neighborhood. “Starfighters” from nearby military bases had found a convenient shortcut, blasting at 500 ft. across idyllic suburbia. When another shock wave from a sound-barrier-breaking jet startled Mr. Winter into knocking the ink pot over his precious artwork, he cried out: “This is war – I’m going to shoot them down!” With “them” he faced Air Force, Luftwaffe, RAF, and the Canadians for good measure!

The classified ad was meant to attract attention. In no way did Helmut intend to buy a real cannon and shoot with real ammo! But here is how this powerful story begins…

The renowned German news magazine “Der Spiegel” discovered the ad and featured it in their curiosities column
On the same day, at 11:00 p.m., BBC representatives rang the Winters’ doorbell and were soon joined by American TV reporters
The phone never stopped ringing. Thousands of people commented and many of them offered their weapons for sale
The public did not recognize the humorous nature of Helmut’s classifieds notice and journalists from all over the world had only one question: “When are you going to start shooting?”
Local police and the German secret service began to hang out around Winter’s street…

With world-wide attention focused on his cause and with rising expectations for action, Mr. Winter had to get really creative. How was he going to “shoot down” the fighter jets without installing an actual cannon in his backyard?

Helmut remembered a Leonardo da Vinci drawing of a balliste, a catapult that would hurl objects at your enemy. Perfect! However, the question remained, what kind of “ammo” would be harmless to bystanders yet effective enough for the cause?

Mrs. Winter came to the rescue – she suggested Bavarian potato dumplings.

Helmut had the balliste made by a carpenter friend and Frau Winter engaged the neighbors’ help with rolling the “cannon balls”…hundreds of ‘em, with great ballistics, too. Properly cooked to a sticky firmness, the balls would fly easily for 70-75 yards!

The journalistic community went nuts! International film crews set up camp in the Winter’s backyard to shoot Helmut’s “war” against F-104 fly-overs, again and again.

Newspaper headlines from San Francisco to Sydney to even communist East Germany reported on “The Big Dumpling War” and Helmut Winter’s fight against the most powerful allied forces in the world.

Personal computers were still a thing of the future, Steve Jobs was still wetting his diapers, and the “web” was a term associated with spiders or ladies’ stockings at best…yet, a story had gone viral in the truest sense of the word.

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At one point, the Winters’ dachshund “Bazi” became a POW because he wouldn’t stop chasing after the dumplings and eating them all.

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The best part of the story is the end result: The Allied Forces couldn’t ignore Helmut’s complaints anymore. Generals invited him to their headquarters for friendly and non-political discussions of the problem at hand. Starfighter pilots visited the Winters’ home. Official letters to the Defense Secretaries were written and new policies were implemented within a few weeks. The Luftwaffe changed their flight path by the end of February, the US Air Force and other countries followed in March.

Helmut Winter received numerous awards from throughout the world, and many documentaries were recorded, filmed and written about Mr. Knödel (dumpling) from Pasing.