Gasselstiege Cemetery of Honor
The Ehrenfriedhof Gasselstiege is a small cemetery on Gasselstiege in Münster , at Steinfurter Straße 128b. There are ten graves of young Wehrmacht soldiers on it . Since January 6, 1993, the grave has been registered as a cemetery of honor in the monuments list of the city of Münster .
history
Towards the end of the Second World War , soldiers of the British Army and the United States Army advanced into the Münsterland in March 1945 . The US associations moved from Mecklenbeck via Roxel towards Nienberge . On April 1, 1945, Nienberge and Hiltrup were under their control. During the advance on the city center of Münster on April 2, 1945, the approaching Allied tanks were shot at by soldiers who were lying in trenches near the Grosse-Jüdefeld farm and were led by a captain. Ten of these soldiers - including a 17-year-old and two 18-year-olds - died in the course of the battle. On the evening of Easter Monday, April 2, 1945, the American and British troops entered Münster. Theodor Holtmann and a neighbor found the fallen and wrapped them in tarpaulin. After Pastor P. Franz Rensing SJ (born November 12, 1874 in Warendorf, † December 1, 1952 in Münster) had blessed the floor of the Trinity Church , the remains of the soldiers were buried in the shadow of the court cross. The property on which the cemetery is located was donated to the city of Münster in 1961. Since 1963 the area has been in the care of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge .
Web links
- "Cemetery on the Gasselstiege: They fell in the last days of the war" , Westfälische Nachrichten of October 13, 2015
- List of the dead in the online project Fallen Memorials
Coordinates: 51 ° 58 ′ 58.1 ″ N , 7 ° 36 ′ 0.6 ″ E