With more than 33,000 dead, the Andilly war cemetery is the largest German site of the Second World War in France. The cemetery was inaugurated on September 29, 1962.
Cemetery description
The Andilly German war cemetery is located around twelve kilometers north of the city of Toul in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department. A rampart planted with shrubs forms the enclosure. Scattered groups of trees and a dense ring of trees around the cemetery give the grounds the character of a light grove. To the left of the entrance building is the "Hall of Honor", whose niche wall shows a mosaic of three mourning soldiers. There is also a cross that used to stand at the German war cemetery in Pouxeux. German prisoners of war had carved it for their dead comrades. On the right-hand side, in a small room, the name books of those buried here are displayed in a shrine.
Occupancy
With more than 33,000 graves, Andilly is the largest German war cemetery of the Second World War in France.
History
The site was created from a provisional US military cemetery. As early as September 12, 1944, the American burial service began burying its own and German casualties in the small village of Andilly. These were initially the dead who had fallen in the area west of Metz. This is how the US Temporary Cemetery Andilly was created for 3,400 American and 5,000 German soldiers. In 1945/46, the American burial service established a permanent cemetery for its fallen soldiers in St. Avold, around 100 kilometers away, and transferred all those buried in temporary facilities there. In return, 575 German casualties from St. Avold and 4,891 from Epinal-Dinoze were buried in Andilly. This brought the number of soldiers buried in Andilly to 11,000.
After the conclusion of the Franco-German war graves agreement in 1954, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge was commissioned to bury the German dead of the Second World War from the entire region in Andilly. in 1957, reburials began from the departments of Nievre, Saône-et-Loire, Côte d'Or, Haute-Marne, Jura, Doubs, Haute-Saône, Vosges, Belfort, Meuse and Meurthe-et-Moselle. During planned searches of the entire site, almost 2,000 German dead, mainly in the Vosges, were found, the location of which was previously unknown. The cemetery was consecrated on September 29, 1962.
Special feature
A ginkgo tree was planted in Andilly in 1995 as a sign of hope and peace.
