German war cemetery at Berneuil
Coordinates: 45 ° 40 ′ 44 ″ N , 0 ° 36 ′ 19 ″ W.
| graveyard | |
|---|---|
 German War Cemetery Berneuil (Cimetière militaire allemand de Berneuil) |
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| Country: | France |
| Department: | Charente-Maritime |
| Place: | Berneuil |
| Inauguration: | June 24, 1967 |
The German War Cemetery Berneuil (in French: Cimetière militaire allemand de Berneuil ) is a cemetery for the German war dead in southwest France and a memorial to the senselessness of the Second World War . It is located in the municipality of Berneuil about ten kilometers south of the city of Saintes in the Charente-Maritime department .
It is the counterpart to the French war cemetery Rétaud (in French: Nécropole nationale de Rétaud), which is a few kilometers further away, and on which the French and allied soldiers rest.
Emergence
The war cemetery was established in the parish of Berneuil after an agreement between the governments of France and Germany was signed in 1954. The cemetery was inaugurated on June 24, 1967 in the presence of numerous official representatives from both countries and nearly 600 German families.
It was built on the edge of National Road 137, the important road connecting the cities of Saintes and Pons . The cemetery is located on a hill above the flat alluvial landscape of the Charente River and near the Cognac vineyards .
It was set up as a collective cemetery and houses the remains of 8,342 soldiers (as of 2014) of the Wehrmacht who died in the 15 southwestern departments of France: ( Charente-Maritime , Charente , Gironde , Dordogne , Cantal , Corrèze , Creuse , Gers , Haute-Vienne , Landes , Lot , Pyrénées-Atlantiques , Hautes-Pyrénées , Tarn-et-Garonne and Lot-et-Garonne ).
layout
The war cemetery Berneuil is maintained and looked after by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (in French: Service d'entretien des sépultures militaires allemandes). Its motto is "Work for Peace - Reconciliation over the Graves".
A tree-lined path leads from the parking lot into a covered hall with a model of the grave fields of the cemetery and a visitor's book in which visitors can make their entries. A bronze plaque on the wall bears the following inscription: 8,295 German soldiers who died in the Second World War rest in this military cemetery. Of them, 353 remained unknown.
After a few meters, the path leads to a central open area, which is surmounted by an 11 meter high concrete cross. The flags of France, Germany and the flag of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge are waving nearby.
At the foot of the hill on which the high cross stands, there is a communal grave with the bones of eight identified German and three unknown soldiers.
Eight parcels are grouped around the central square. They are planted with lawn and surrounded by trees. Most of the graves are located in them. The graves are marked with slabs of gray stone and arranged in rows. The care is carried out regularly through youth camps with participants from both countries. This also gives the young people the opportunity to think about the past and a better future.
War dead
The remains were exhumed after the end of the hostilities (from 1962) and as soon as they were found, they were interred here. Most of the soldiers have been identified, but 353 remain unknown. As with most German war cemeteries, the soldiers were buried regardless of their rank, so that officers are buried side by side with soldiers of lower ranks.
The graves of four crew members of an airplane of the Condor Legion are also here, who died when their plane crashed on French soil in January 1939. (See the involvement of the Germans in the Spanish civil war on the side of Franco's nationalists from 1936). Soldiers who were killed by partisans are also buried here. The majority of the soldiers died fighting to liberate France from German occupation. In Charente-Maritime, even after the withdrawal of the German troops, fighting continued until the end of the war, in the nests of resistance (French: Poches) of Royan , the Pointe de Grave on the opposite bank of the Gironde and near La Rochelle . In Block 7 are the graves of the two commanders of the Royan pocket: Colonel Sonntag and Frigate Captain von Berger. At the end of 1945 hundreds of prisoners of war died in the prisoner-of - war camp in Saint-Médard-en-Jalles from a violent typhoid epidemic. In 1963, the corpse of SS-Sturmbannführer Helmut Kampf , previously buried anonymously in Breuilaufa , whose kidnapping triggered the Oradour massacre , was buried in the cemetery.
German-French friendship
Every ten years the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge organizes a commemorative event. The commemorative event on June 23, 2007 was in the spirit of Franco-German friendship , European unification and the knowledge of the suffering of the French families who were also affected. The relatives, French war veterans, a French military band, delegations from the air force base in Saintes and the Franco-German brigade, students from Berneuil, Saintes and Chaniers and other official representatives took part.
In the French war cemetery of Rétaud (Nécropole nationale de Rétaud), which is a few kilometers further in the municipality of Rétaud , a few hundred soldiers are remembered who died in the fights for the liberation of France in the pockets of Royan and Oléron in spring 1945.
Reservists from Potsdam and soldiers from the French Air Force jointly repaired the graves of the French war cemetery in Saintes in 2011. In the coming year they want to jointly look after the German war cemetery at Berneuil. Young people from several countries repair the graves during their holidays.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e in Cimetière militaire allemand de Berneuil , brochure du SESMA.
- ^ Website of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (work of the Volksbund and description of the war cemetery in Berneuil)
- ↑ a b in Le patrimoine des communes de la Charente-Maritime , éditions Flohic, page 242
- ↑ (fr) Gilbert Laval: 17 fusillés allemands reposent en paix. (In German: 17 shot Germans rest in peace.). In Liberation of November 19, 2003
- ↑ Christoph Koopmeiners: Visited the father's grave after 60 years. In: NWZ online from July 26, 2005
- ^ Website of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (work of the Volksbund and description of the war cemetery in Berneuil)
- ↑ Information about the grave on Oradour.info
- ^ Fritz Kirchmeier: Europe is our home. 40 years of the Berneuil war cemetery. In: Voice and Way, 4/2007, pp. 10–11.
- ↑ Reservists help in Saintes. In: Voice & Way 3/2011, p. 28.
- ↑ (fr) Sarah Bélisle: Cimetière militaire allemand de Berneuil (17): lettres d'outre tombe. (In German: German War Cemetery Berneuil: Repair of the graves.). En: Sudouest du 23 juillet 2010.
literature
- Le Patrimoine des Communes de la Charente-Maritime. Flohic Editions, Volume 1, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-84234-129-5 , p. 242.
- Fritz Kirchmeier: Europe is our home. 40 years of the Berneuil war cemetery. In: Voice and Way, 4/2007, pp. 10–11.
