Soviet war cemetery in Herleshausen

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Soviet war graves, in the background a Jewish cemetery

The Soviet war cemetery in Herleshausen is located near Herleshausen . 1593 dead Soviet prisoners of war , known by name, rest on it , who were called upon to build the Hersfeld-Berlin autobahn (now the A4 ) in 1944/45 and who died of illness and insufficient care.

camp

Facility

For the construction of the motorway, several barracks camps (Reichsautobahnlager) were built for the workers in 1938. The barracks camp on the road between Herleshausen and Frauenborn was set up by the Wehrmacht as a prisoner of war camp in 1940. First French and then Soviet prisoners were interned here.

Camp for the sick

The main camp IX B was set up at the end of 1942 as a camp for sick Soviet prisoners. Tuberculosis broke out in the Ramsborn camp near Eisenach at the end of 1942. Those able to work were relocated from the Herleshausen camp. Sick Soviet prisoners of war were transferred from Ramsborn and other camps to Herleshausen.

graveyard

The cemetery was created in the immediate vicinity of the Jewish cemetery . When the war cemetery had to be expanded due to the large number of deaths, part of the Jewish cemetery was leveled and used for the Russian dead. Some burials were carried out between still existing Jewish graves.

The enclosure and entrance area of ​​the cemetery are made of the red sandstone from which a motorway bridge was built near the camp. After renovation, it was inaugurated on September 26, 1959 and blessed by a Russian Orthodox priest in 1960.

Documentation of the fatalities

The mayor of Herleshausen at the time, Karl Fehr (1890–1973), insisted against resistance that the names, home addresses and life dates of the dead were documented in the death register of the registry office and that the dead were buried. He demanded a death certificate from the respective camp doctor according to the Prussian registry office law. The home address of over 1,000 dead was recorded in this way, and Soviet relatives were notified when the cemetery was inaugurated in 1959. Only five of those buried remain unknown.

Work for peace

The war cemetery has been cared for by young people from several countries in cooperation with Herleshausen youth groups since 1979, and since 1988 by young people from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The graves are also regularly tended by the Herleshausen reservist comradeship. Relatives from the former Soviet Union visit the graves of their loved ones. Soviet veterans from Tambov visited the war cemetery in May 1990.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Text of the community on the Herleshausen camp and war cemetery ( Memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2.75 MB), retrieved from the archive on November 21, 2019
  2. ↑ Fritz Kirchmeier: Inner Peace Found. Visit to the prisoner of war cemetery. In: Voice & Way 4/2012, pp. 10–11
  3. ↑ Herleshausen Soviet War Cemetery volksbund.de
  4. ↑ Maike Bartsch: The carers from the province. In: Frieden, 01/2019, pp. 10–11.

Coordinates: 51 ° 0 ′ 47.5 "  N , 10 ° 9 ′ 51.2"  E