Sandweiler German war cemetery

View from the entrance to the memorial at the mass grave

Plan of the war cemetery

The German War Cemetery in Sandweiler is a war cemetery south-west of Sandweiler in Luxembourg for a German Wehrmacht soldier who died in the First World War and 10,913 in the Second World War , which was opened to the public on June 5, 1955. It is the first war cemetery that was established abroad after World War II.

history

The American burial service buried 5,599 German casualties there from the fighting in spring 1945 in several blocks of 300 graves. In accordance with the conclusion of the German-Luxembourg War Graves Agreement between the Grand Ducal Luxembourg Government and the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1952, the Volksbund also embed another 5,286 dead from 150 Luxembourg communities there. There are 4,829 in the comrades' grave, of which 4,014 could be assigned by name. Their names are recorded on the 41 bronze tablets.

The construction of the facility began in 1952. For this purpose, the fallen from the other communities were reburied in Sandweiler, some of them recovered from mass graves . The cemetery was inaugurated in 1955, with over 2,000 relatives and school delegations from the German federal states present. The population of Luxembourg and especially of Sandweiler also took part.

The plant is divided into 18 blocks. There are natural stone crosses on the graves, which are inscribed on both sides with up to six names.

The state association Schleswig-Holstein has taken over the sponsorship.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, a ginkgo tree was planted in the entrance area of ​​the burial ground .

In 2009 the cross in the entrance area was stolen and replaced on October 6, 2010 with a work by Kurt Tischler .

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  Access to the war cemetery

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  Plate on the mass grave

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  Anonymous crosses on the mass grave

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  Entrance area seen from the memorial

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  Group of soldiers who died together with triple inscription

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  The newly erected cross after the theft

supporting documents

• Sandweiler, Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V., reconciliation over the graves, work for peace
• Sandweiler war cemetery in the database of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge

Web links

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

• German war cemetery - Sandweiler near darkplaces

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Information board at the entrance to the war cemetery
2. ↑ Tree planting on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war
3. ↑ Kurt Tischler's new cross

Coordinates: 49 ° 36 ′ 32.6 ″  N , 6 ° 12 ′ 18.8 ″  E