German war cemetery La Cambe

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German war cemetery La Cambe

German war cemetery La Cambe (Cimetière militaire allemand de La Cambe)

Country: France
Region: Normandy
Place: La Cambe
Inauguration: September 1961, originally laid out in 1944

The La Cambe military cemetery (French: Cimetière militaire allemand de La Cambe ) is a German war cemetery in the Norman community of La Cambe near the city of Bayeux in France . More than 21,000 German soldiers who died in World War II rest there.

history

The plant was initially a military cemetery, which during the war by the recovery and identification service for fallen soldiers ( Graves Registration Service ) of the United States Army was built on the edge of the combat zone. American and German fallen soldiers of the naval and air forces were buried in two adjacent large grave fields.

After the end of the war, the devastation was cleared. At the same time, the remains of the fallen Americans were exhumed and transferred according to the wishes of their families. The Americans transferred two thirds of their dead from La Cambe to the USA from 1945 onwards. The others were transferred to the new perpetual American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer above the landing site in Omaha Beach and buried there.

Because of the American war's progress, the German war dead were buried scattered over a large area in Normandy. Many were buried in individual field graves or in small cemeteries on the edge of the war.

Reassignment

The German war cemetery of La Cambe

After the end of the war, the Volksbund German War Graves sought to build six large German war graves in Normandy. La Cambe was well suited to become one of the six central war cemeteries because German war dead were already resting there, additional beds had been made by the English and French burial services, and because it was already informally maintained by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge. With the Franco-German treaty of 1954 on war cemeteries, responsibility for La Cambe was officially transferred to the Volksbund in 1954. At this point in time there were already 8,000 dead German soldiers in the cemetery. In the following period the remains of 12,000 German soldiers from 1,400 burial sites in the French departments of Calvados and Orne were reburied. Later, more than 700 soldiers who were still found at the Normandy battlefields were transferred there.

layout

The redesign of the cemetery began immediately after the official handover of the war cemetery. In 1958, the cemetery was expanded to include an international youth camp and work was carried out to fill the six-meter-high tumulus. La Cambe was officially inaugurated on September 21, 1961 as a German war cemetery.

The tumulus is flanked by two statues and is marked by a large, dark basalt lava cross. There 207 unknown and 89 identified German soldiers are buried in a mass grave. Arranged around the tumulus there are 49 rectangular grave fields with up to 400 graves each, which are marked by grave slabs on a green lawn.

A plaque in front of the cemetery commemorates the fate of the American and German soldiers.

Grave of Michael Wittmann with the crew of the Tiger 007, La Cambe war cemetery, France - The emblem of the " Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler " that was seen and photographed on the grave (as recently as 2007) is noteworthy .

The dead soldiers

The majority of those buried in La Cambe fell between June 6 and August 20, 1944. They were between 16 and 72 years old and died during the Allied landings and in subsequent fighting. As of July 2008, 21,222 German navy and air force soldiers were buried in La Cambe. After 50 years, war dead are still being recovered in Normandy. Formal funerals are rare now.

Dead Waffen SS soldiers are also buried in the cemetery. Michael Wittmann , a commander of a Tiger tank popular in the Third Reich, and his crew were initially buried informally at a location that was not marked any further. The remains were not found until 1983 and then transferred to the La Cambe collective cemetery. Soldiers who were involved in the Oradour massacre are also buried here. B. Adolf Diekmann .

Information center

Since the mid-1990s there has been an information center at the cemetery to commemorate Operation Overlord , in which over 100,000 people died in the summer of 1944, Americans, British, Germans, French, Canadians, Poles and nationals. At least 14,000 French civilians were also killed. Human fates and reconciliation are in the foreground. There is a permanent exhibition for visitors about the Volksbund German War Graves. You can search for war graves in the graves database. In a peace park around the cemetery there are 1,200 maple trees from donations. The trees grow for peace.

Work camps

Unlike the American and Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge is dependent on donations. During the summer holidays, young people in work camps voluntarily tend the graves, visit American and German war cemeteries, memorials, the landing sites of the invasion and take part in the memorial service with veterans and the mayor of La Cambe.

Memorials in Normandy

The cemeteries of all the nations involved in the fighting in Normandy are described in the article Commemorating Operation Overlord . Near La Cambe are the Allied war cemeteries Colleville-sur-Mer (American), Bayeux (British), Cintheaux (Canadian) and Urville-Langannerie (Polish).

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (Ed.): Normandy. German war cemeteries. Kassel. P. 9–10 (brochure with brief information on the cemeteries)
  2. ↑ General plan of the German war cemetery La Cambe
  3. ↑ Eric Lefevre, R. Cooke (translator): Panzers in Normandy: Then and Now . After the Battle, 1983, ISBN 0-900913-29-0 .
  4. ↑ Stefan Dvorak: The burden of the past. About war dead in La Cambe. In “Frieden”, October 2014, pp. 30 to 31.
  5. ^ Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (Ed.): Normandy. German war cemeteries. Kassel. P. 10–11 (brochure with brief information on the cemeteries)
  6. ↑ Sophia Kühn, Pauline Schurund, Lisa Thuriam: A wonderful experience
  7. ↑ Maurice Bonkat: Request to the Federal Chancellor. In “Friede”, October 2014, pp. 28 to 29.

Web links

Commons : German War Cemetery La Cambe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 49 ° 20 ′ 31 ″  N , 1 ° 1 ′ 35 ″  W.