German war cemetery Motta Sant'Anastasia
| graveyard | |
|---|---|
| Country: | Italy |
| Region: | Metropolitan City of Catania |
| Place: | Motta Sant'Anastasia |
| Inauguration: | September 25, 1967/29. April 2011 |
The German war cemetery Motta Sant'Anastasia ( Italian Cimitero militare Germanico di Motta Sant'Anastasia ) is located in Motta Sant'Anastasia in the metropolitan city of Catania . The cemetery is at the foot of Mount Etna , on the edge of the Strada provinciale SP13 connecting road from Motta Sant'Anastasia to Misterbianco . Of the 4,561 dead, 451 remained unknown.
War events
The buried soldiers were wounded from North Africa who died in hospitals in Sicily as well as those who died during and after the fighting during the Allied landings in Sicily in July 1943 . In the Museo Storico dello Sbarco in Sicilia in Catania , the war events of the landing of the Allies in Sicily from July 10 to August 17, 1943 are presented.
Creation of the cemetery
In 1954 , an agreement was made between the German and Italian governments to transfer all Germans who died in Sicily during the Second World War to a collective cemetery. The cemetery was inaugurated on September 25, 1965 . After a thorough restoration from the end of 2009 to the beginning of 2011 by working on the foundations, ceilings, reinforced concrete structures, columns and ring beams, it was inaugurated again on April 29, 2011.
Design of the cemetery
Next to the car park is a building in which the administration rooms and a reception hall for visitors are located. A list of names of the fallen and information sheets are laid out there.
The war cemetery originally had a rectangular structure and measured 43 × 32 meters. This structure changed quickly and took on roughly a semi-rectangular shape over the years. The crypt is in the basement. It is walled up and inaccessible. The German fallen soldiers of World War II are buried in sarcophagi here. The reburial work was carried out by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge , which also maintains the war cemetery.
The entrance consists of a forecourt paved with travertine . Here is a stele with the inscription:
"4561 GERMAN FALLEN
BY THEM 451 UNKNOWN
1939 - 1945
IN QUESTO MAUSOLEO RIPOSANO 4561 CADUTI GERMANICI
451 SONO RIMASTI SCONOSCIUTI"
A staircase leads to the higher comrades' grave in a courtyard. In the center there is a plaque with the names of 28 known and three unknown soldiers who are buried here. The names of 128 German soldiers who fell during their deployment in Sicily from 1941 to 1943 are written on eight other stone slabs. In the center of this courtyard is a bronze statue on a pedestal depicting a dying youth.
Another four self-contained courtyards can be reached from this courtyard. The walls of the courtyards are made of Roman brickwork. The names of those who died and were buried in the basement were recorded on natural stone slabs.
A natural stone wall in three terraced steps was erected in 2018 with the help of soldiers from the Bundeswehr to prevent the steep slope of the cemetery from sliding off.
The German war cemetery Motta Sant'Anastasia
The dead
The fallen are buried in the four outgoing courtyards, sorted by province. The names of the known war dead are documented on a total of 52 name plates made of natural stone in the five courtyards:
- Palermo court: here those who died in the Province of Palermo , Province of Trapani and Province of Agrigento are buried.
- Caltanissetta Court: here are buried those who fell in the Province of Caltanissetta , Province of Ragusa , Province of Catania and Province of Syracuse .
- Messina court: here those who died in the province of Messina and the province of Enna are buried. Particularly mentioned here is the community of Caronia , from whose local cemetery 700 German soldiers were reburied.
- Catania court: 1,514 people who died in Sicily and were reburied in the municipal cemetery of the city of Catania are buried here.
Known dead
- Luz Long : Athlete who won the Olympic silver medal in the long jump at the Summer Olympics in Berlin and was friends with Jesse Owens .
See also
literature
- (it) Sacrari militari della seconda guerra mondiale , a cura del Commissariato generale onoranze caduti di guerra, 1975.
- Otto Gärtner, Anja Schliebitz, Achim Bourmer: Sicily . Mairdumont, Ostfildern, 2010. ISBN 3-8297-1047-X .
Movies
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information letter from the German War Graves Commission of 7 June 2011, TFNL11CW.
- ↑ Maurice Bonkat: Wall orange groves. Bundeswehr works in Motta Sant'Anastasia. In: Frieden, 02.2018, pp. 20-21.
- ^ Information letter from the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge from February 25, 2011 and November 26, 2014.
- ↑ a b Website of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (work of the Volksbund and description of the war cemetery in Motta Sant'Anastasia)
- ↑ Illustration of the dying youth at the German military cemetery Motta St. Anastasia Sicily Catania
- ↑ Maurice Bonkat: Wall orange groves. Bundeswehr works in Motta Sant'Anastasia. In: Frieden, 02.2018, pp. 20-21.
- ↑ How Luz Long died ( Così morì il campione Long ). In the Italian newspaper Espresso. (ital.)
Coordinates: 37 ° 31 ′ 28.1 ″ N , 14 ° 59 ′ 25.6 ″ E