German military cemetery

[Lord Snooty]

During my solo meanderings around Normandy I came across this German military cemetery. This is the first I have come across so I thought I'd take a look and pay my respects. It is well maintained, in fact as I arrived there was a local guy just leaving who was obviously the gardener/caretaker. Obvious differences are the lack of pristine white headstones, many of the grey headstones show more than one occupant. The cemetery is large and stretches out into the distance and unlike the Allied cemeteries there is a distinct lack of visitors, just myself and two other people whilst I was there. The one consistent factor with all military cemeteries is the young age of the occupants, teenagers, early 20s, all sent to their deaths by ruthless ambition and megalomania.

In many respects these young men were also victims of a vile tyrant who caused the deaths of so many millions of people across Europe. I left a heartfelt note in the visitors book.

 

[wessie]

if you are ever in Alsace there is WW1 German Cemetery north of Munster
https://maps.app.goo.gl/krVUdvgJXNro9rng7

Nearby is the Linge Memorial with museum https://maps.app.goo.gl/nWpiU9o1HaZB2M5r6
https://linge1915.eu/

"The Battle of Linge was a brutal mountain battle of the First World War, fought in Alsace from July to October 1915. Known for its high casualty rate and the well-preserved trenches, the site is now a memorial and museum, the Mémorial du Linge, offering a vivid experience of the conflict."

20,000 killed in 4 months for little gain when the French troops sent in to take the German position on top of the ridge were ultimately unsuccessful.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataille_du_Linge in French but translates well in most browsers.

Very good hotel, Le Panorama just down the hill in Hohrod. https://www.hotel-panorama-alsace.com/en/accueil/

 

[Mallard]

On my travels one year, I visited St Symphorien Military Cemetery, Belgium. I thought this picture sums it all up.

 

[FERRET]

There is also a German Military Cemetry on Cannock Chase, Staffs. Next to a CWGC site.

 

[JohnnyBoxer]

Over the years I have stopped at a few Germany Military cemeteries in Mosel areas and Black Forest plus Alsace etc
Usually they are small and very matter of fact, you can almost always miss them, tucked away
As you say headstones are either black or grey stone and usually the flowers are nearly always deep crimson roses (almost blood red)
They can be quite poignant places and have a different air about them, it may seem and not often visited as you say

 

[Flappytabs]

There is also a German Military Cemetry on Cannock Chase, Staffs. Next to a CWGC site.

Nice place for a ride out in the Midlands.

 

[Wapping]

Most of the German military cemeteries are double and sometimes triple stacked, often because they have been relocated and reburied.

Yes, you can see the ages change, the dead often becoming very young or pretty much old. The reason being that come 1944 and into 1945, Germany was literally scraping the barrel, press ganging ‘Dad’s Army’ and moving often young boys from roles like anti-aircraft gunnery into infantry, for which none of them were trained specifically. Everyone else? All but wiped out in Russia. In short, Germany was raising battalions which, on paper, looked powerful but were in fact well under muster strength and definitely under trained. Towards the very end, their personal weaponry had been reduced to all but simple anti-tank Bazooka type weapons. It was madness.

German cemeteries, unlike our own, always use dark stone. There was no overtly ‘political’ reason behind this. It was just the style adopted. Yes, they too are most often nicely tended, too. History does not judge them absolutely, at least not in the West. It is not so in the East, where millions of Germans fell or subsequently died as PoW’s in their multiple thousands and have no grave at all.

 

[Wapping]

See perhaps:

Post in thread 'The German Motorcycle Route - 2026'
https://www.ukgser.com/community/threads/the-german-motorcycle-route-2026.492807/post-5913548

 

[grantmac]

if you are ever in Alsace there is WW1 German Cemetery north of Munster
https://maps.app.goo.gl/krVUdvgJXNro9rng7

Nearby is the Linge Memorial with museum https://maps.app.goo.gl/nWpiU9o1HaZB2M5r6
https://linge1915.eu/

"The Battle of Linge was a brutal mountain battle of the First World War, fought in Alsace from July to October 1915. Known for its high casualty rate and the well-preserved trenches, the site is now a memorial and museum, the Mémorial du Linge, offering a vivid experience of the conflict."

20,000 killed in 4 months for little gain when the French troops sent in to take the German position on top of the ridge were ultimately unsuccessful.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataille_du_Linge in French but translates well in most browsers.

Very good hotel, Le Panorama just down the hill in Hohrod. https://www.hotel-panorama-alsace.com/en/accueil/

Was there in june

 

[Wicker]

War memorials in rural German towns, like those in the UK and France, list the dead from WW1 and WW2. The list of German dead or (vermisst) missing from WW2 tends to be far larger than for WW1. The Ost (Rastern) Front was truly horrific in terms of the numbers killed or injured, or simply missing
- WW1, Germany had approx 2m military deaths vs Britains approx 900k..
- WW2, Germany approx 5.5m military deaths plus 2 to 3 million civilians vs approx 880k military dead for Britain.

 

[snelly]

During my solo meanderings around Normandy I came across this German military cemetery. This is the first I have come across so I thought I'd take a look and pay my respects. It is well maintained, in fact as I arrived there was a local guy just leaving who was obviously the gardener/caretaker. Obvious differences are the lack of pristine white headstones, many of the grey headstones show more than one occupant. The cemetery is large and stretches out into the distance and unlike the Allied cemeteries there is a distinct lack of visitors, just myself and two other people whilst I was there. The one consistent factor with all military cemeteries is the young age of the occupants, teenagers, early 20s, all sent to their deaths by ruthless ambition and megalomania.

In many respects these young men were also victims of a vile tyrant who caused the deaths of so many millions of people across Europe. I left a heartfelt note in the visitors book.

I have only been to one German cemetery and that was on the Futa pass ss65; it was very neat and well kept and i seam to remember graves in plots of 4; whilst i was there a coach party turned up to pay their respects and have a wander around;; our campsite was more or less right next to it; and the Muggelo circuit which was one of the reasons for being in that area was also not too far away.

 

[Toshack10]

There’s one in Chavignon, not far from Laon I’ve visited. The relative lack of German cemeteries from both conflicts (particularly the first one) does sort of emphasise who writes the history

Fort-de-Malmaison German Military Cemetery

Fort-de-Malmaison German Military Cemetery contains 11,841 German War Dead X

www.ww2cemeteries.com

 

[Wapping]

The relative lack of German cemeteries from both conflicts (particularly the first one)

There is no lack of German war cemeteries in Western Europe per-se. They crop up all over the place, most people simply ignoring or not seeing the standard (usually black on white) sign to them:



What you are maybe seeing is a distortion caused by the American practice of not burying their own war dead on ‘foreign enemy soil’. Inevitably, this leads to larger US cemeteries, dominating some areas, as bodies are repatriated to lie outside of Germany, for example. The British / Commonwealth cemeteries are different, too. Yes, we gather them up into some huge sites. But we also leave some, often small, in some corner of a foreign field. There is no right nor wrong to it all.

The real gap lies in East Europe, though German war cemeteries are not entirely unknown there.

 

[siddo]

There's one by Delville Wood memorial that had the Red Barons remains. We stumbled across it years ago.

 

[Wapping]

There's one by Delville Wood memorial that had the Red Barons remains. We stumbled across it years ago.

There’s 80,000 Germans buried in Normandy alone, with twenty one thousand (out of the eighty thousand) in La Cambe cemetery on its own. That, I admit is a long way in time and distance from Delville Wood and the Red Barron.

 

[Boxerboy55]

Last year I was on 4 wheels visiting the Essen car show and popped in to the huge Overloon WW2 museum and discovered a German cemetery not far away just outside a wee town called Ysselsteyn.

Nice visitor centre. A tree in the wide landscape of crosses signifies a body that was repatriated to his home town.

​

 

[Rasher]

Thanks, I planned to stop at the Ling Memorial last week, but it was really pissing down so I just pressed on to our Hotel ASAP, the following morning it was still raining and we did not fancy an out of the way detour, hoping to go back next year as I have been to Ardennes / Lux / Eifel / Alps many times and only ever skipped across the Vosges on the way to / from somewhere else....

...Did visit the Natzwiler concentration camp last time I was in the area, well worth a stop.

 

[grantmac]

Did visit the Natzwiler concentration camp last time I was in the area, well worth a stop

Went a few years ago on the way to the Black Forest. Indeed well worth a visit

 

[Hatcho]

There's a German cemetery in Glencree just outside of Dublin. Buried there are airmen who crashed while flying over Ireland. Over a 100 graves onsite with many not identified. My grandfather, who was himself German, was involved in the dedication of the site in 1961.