This tomb has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since September 2023.
Burial
393 German dead from the First World War are buried in Assevent. In addition, 556 Frenchmen rest here in individual graves and 487 in a common grave, 7 British and 51 Russians in individual graves and an unknown number of Russian soldiers also in a common grave.
German troops had laid out the cemetery in August 1914 during the siege of the Maubeuge fortress and later expanded it. The central memorial was also built at this time, as was the massive entrance with its wrought-iron gate. The graves were provided with steles bearing the names and dates of the dead. Most of them died in the siege battles. Later on, members of the stage services were also buried - especially during the retreat battles in October and November 1918.
Those who died in 1914 belonged to units based in the Lower Rhine, Westphalia and Brandenburg. The dead of 1918 came from garrisons in Hesse, Baden and Alsace-Lorraine.
After the end of the war, the French military authorities transferred further dead - including 120 Germans - from 22 communities within a radius of up to 70 kilometers to the cemetery. Of the 393 German dead, 359 rest in individual graves. Ten of them remain unknown. Of the 34 victims in two common graves, 21 remain unnamed.
History
The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. (German War Graves Commission) took over the repair and expansion of the cemetery on the basis of an agreement with the French military authorities in 1926. Here too, the problem of permanently marking the graves of those who were later buried there remained unresolved - first due to a lack of foreign currency, then because of the Second World War.
After the conclusion of the Franco-German War Graves Agreement of July 19, 1966, the Volksbund - financially supported by the German government - began the final design of the German military cemeteries in France. in 1970, together with the responsible French ministry, it developed a plan for the expansion of the Assevent cemetery.
The graves of those buried there were given grave steles with engraved names and dates - corresponding to the steles used in the First World War. The grave of a Jewish casualty was given a special stele for religious reasons. The Hebrew characters read: "Here rests buried ..." and "May his soul be bound into the circle of the living".
Special feature
A special feature of the Franco-German complex is a temple of honor with a statue at the end of a wide path. To the left is the German burial ground, to the right the French burial ground. The temple and statue were renovated in 2014.
In September 2023, UNESCO declared 139 First World War cemeteries as World Heritage Sites. 24 German cemeteries are in the care of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. - Assevent is one of them.
Photographs: Fritz Braun
