Idstein war cemetery
The Idstein war cemetery in the Idstein municipal cemetery , Hesse, was inaugurated on June 23, 1957. 250 victims of the World Wars (six of the First World War and 244 of the Second World War ) found their final resting place here. The names of 234 dead are known, 16 are unknown dead. Ten dead were civilians.
History until the end of the Second World War
During the Second World War there were two reserve hospitals in Idstein - one in the castle (reserve hospital I) and one in the Kalmenhof (reserve hospital II). While in the first years of the Second World War the dead were still transported from the Idstein hospitals to their homeland (or the Idstein dead back to Idstein), this was no longer the case towards the end of the war due to insufficient transport capacities of the Reichsbahn. Therefore, the dead in the hospitals were buried in the Idstein cemetery.
The first burial of a deceased who did not come from Idstein was recorded on May 1, 1944. From November 1944, all of the dead in Idstein's hospitals were buried in Idstein. The last burial took place over four years after the end of the war on December 6, 1949.
post war period
After the war, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge not only established large war graves but also sponsored smaller memorials in communal cemeteries. In many places soldiers died in combat and - especially in the last days of the war - were buried in the nearby cemeteries. In order to facilitate the maintenance of the graves, which have perpetual rights, and to secure the existence, the dead were reburied and central memorials set up.
In Idstein, too, the construction of a central war cemetery was an option, as many dead from the hospitals were buried here. The city of Idstein had already contacted the Volksbund in 1947 about the expansion of the honorary section in the city cemetery. The federal construction management had then drawn up a design plan in 1949, which was rejected by the city council.
The reason for the rejection by the city of Idstein was that the conclusion to the civil graves was not desired. "Since then there has been a lot of paperwork in the matter, and the city of Idstein has drawn up its own design plan in 1955, after the dead had been transferred to other places of honor twice." The memorial was to be given a separate entrance, a connection to the civil cemetery was not intended.
The construction of the "Ehrenfeld" - as it was called at the time - was estimated at 30,000 DM. The Federal Ministry of the Interior , which was responsible for the financing, cut 20,000 DM from it. Among other things, it wanted a reason why (initially) four dead from the First World War should be reburied in the Ehrenfeld. ORR Hofmann - the responsible department head in the Hessian Ministry of the Interior - called on 23 November 1955 in Bonn and protested against the deletion.
In the event that Hoffmann's protest would have had no effect, they wanted to involve MdB Gottfried Leonhard . The Pforzheim member of the Bundestag - a friend of Albert Hammans, who was buried in the Idstein war cemetery - was strongly committed to the construction of the field of honor.
All these circumstances delayed the creation of the field of honor.
Reburial work
In January 1956, the deceased finally began to be reburied. The last reburial to Idstein took place in 1959. A total of 25 dead from the Second World War and five dead from the First World War from the entire Untertaunus district (today part of the Rheingau-Taunus district ) were reburied to Idstein.
Memorial inscription
Unlike after the First World War, people did not feel like heroic words. So it was decided to use the words: “At the graves in our homeland we remember those who rest in strange earth.” The years 1914–1918 and 1939–1945 should make it clear that this is a memorial for the dead of the two world wars . The press explains about the inscription: “Because we cannot erect a place of honor for those who fell in the East, the Volksbund has decided to place a symbolic mark on all existing and still-to-be-built military cemeteries in Germany. An inscription is intended to keep the memory of those who fell in the east alive, but at the same time give the relatives of those who fell from the east the opportunity to quietly commemorate their dead there. The first inscription of this kind was made in Idstein. ”. The lettering is to the left of the Hochkreuz.
inauguration
The war cemetery in Idstein was inaugurated on June 23, 1957. Both the information sheet "Kriegsgräberfürsorge" of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (today "peace") and the Idsteiner Zeitung reported on it. More than two thousand people from "the federal territory, from Central Germany, from Switzerland and Austria" attended the inauguration.
In the following years, school classes took over the regular maintenance of the cemetery. In December 1964, the Volksbund wrote to a member of the family: “[...] that we will endeavor to find another school in Idstein for care in the coming year. It is not only important that schoolchildren bring flowers to the graves, but that after the flowers have wilted, the empty plug-in vases that the city has bought for this purpose are cleared away in the event that a flower-poor period occurs. "
Plaque
In 1987, a memorial plaque for the victims of the National Socialist euthanasia murders at the Kalmenhof was placed on a wall of the war cemetery .
Current
In 1998 the Idstein reservist comradeship took over the maintenance of the war cemetery. In 2006, local research into the history of the war cemetery and the people buried there began. As of 2020, there is contact with the relatives of 66 dead. The Idstein Tourist Info Office has been offering official tours of the burial ground since 2012.
See also
Web links
- Idstein war cemetery - history and stories
- Official website of the city of Idstein
- Internet presence of the Idstein Reserve Society
- German War Graves Commission
Individual evidence
- ^ Letter from the Volksbund dated November 21, 1955
- ^ Idsteiner Zeitung, November 16, 1956
- ↑ "War Graves" July 1957
- ^ Jörg Fried: Contacts to relatives. In: kriegsgraeberstaette-idstein.de. March 5, 2020, accessed March 5, 2020 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 12 ′ 36 ″ N , 8 ° 16 ′ 12 ″ E