German military cemetery in Lommel
The military cemetery in Lommel ( Belgium ) is the largest German military cemetery of the Second World War in Western Europe. On a total area of 16 hectares (427 × 350 m) there are 542 fallen from the First World War and 38,560 fallen from the Second World War. The cemetery is divided into 63 fields with up to 28 rows and 640 graves. A cross was placed for every two dead. In some cases, up to six soldiers lie in a grave. Your dates are engraved on metal plates that have been placed on either side of the cross.
history
The cemetery was officially inaugurated on September 6, 1959. Previously, the fallen of World War II had been buried by the American burial service in five collective cemeteries in the region. From 1946 the reburial of the fallen from the collective cemeteries to Lommel began. As a result, not only the former, provisional collective cemeteries Henri-Chapelle , Fosse , Overrepen and Neuville-en-Condroz , but also the German military cemetery from the First World War in Leopoldsburg with 542 dead were closed. Of the 13,000 unknown soldiers, 7,000 were subsequently identified. Over 30,000 people visit the cemetery every year. According to the Flemish organization “Sint-Maartensfonds, SMF”, an association of former Flemish SS members, 46 fallen SS “Eastern Front fighters” are buried in this cemetery.
crypt
Access to the cemetery is through the crypt . There is a crucifixion group on the crypt . The individual figures of the group, Maria and Johannes, are 3.30 m tall and each weigh seven tons. Inside the crypt there is a symbolic statue of a soldier on which wreaths are regularly laid by foreign state representatives.
Others
Since 1953, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge has taken care of the cemetery. He maintains a large information center at the cemetery and also a youth meeting place. About 25 to 30,000 people visit this cemetery every year. In May 1995 a ginkgo tree was planted as a symbol of hope and memory of the war and the first use of nuclear weapons on August 6, 1945 over Hiroshima . A memorial plaque reads in 3 languages: “As a sign of the hope of peace. Planted on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the war ” . There is also a memorial column in the center of the cemetery that originally stood in the Brussels-Evere cemetery .
See also
literature
- Lommel: German military cemetery . Volksbund Deutscher Kriegsgräberfürsorge, Kassel October 1980 (information brochure in German, Dutch and French).
Web links
- Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. on the Lommel military cemetery
- International youth meeting place Lommel
- archived website WWIIsopfer.de, especially with those who fell at the Lommel cemetery
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christoph Blase: What war means ... 50 years of war cemetery in Belgium. In: Voice & Way. Vol. 86, No. 1, January 2010, ISSN 0944-2766 , pp. 4–5, ( digital version (PDF; 4.47 MB) ).
Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 20 ″ N , 5 ° 18 ′ 22 ″ E