Bitola is the third largest city in North Macedonia and the seat of the Opština (administrative unit) of the same name. The German war cemetery there has existed since 1936. 3,400 soldiers who lost their lives in the First World War are buried there. The cemetery is located northwest of the town on a hill on the E-65 road.
Description of the cemetery
The Volksbund began building the Bitola war cemetery in 1932. The site is a hill over which the front line ran during a battle in 1916. German soldiers who died during the fighting in Macedonia between 1915 and 1918 are buried in Bitola. The cemetery is surrounded by a strong circular wall made of granite blocks. The entrance hall, built in the shape of a tower, is also made of the same material. The burial area is circular and surrounded by a slightly higher walkway. The high wall borders this area. The construction work took almost five years, partly because the heavy granite blocks required had to be transported over a long distance. On October 25, 1936, the war cemetery was dedicated and 3,400 dead were laid to rest there. A local company repaired the building in 1969. Over time, some granite blocks and large parts of the mosaic laid in the roof of the hall had become loose. The granite blocks could be rejoined or replaced. However, the mosaic depicting an eagle could not be saved. As a replacement, the German artists Franz Grau and Josef Eberl created a sgraffito that still exists today. Since the 1970s, a road tunnel has crossed the hill on which the Bitola war cemetery is located.
History
The Salonikifront or Macedonian Front was a secondary theater of war in the years 1915 to 1918. The front ran mainly in today's Republic of North Macedonia and in the Greek region of Macedonia. A Serbian-French offensive led to the collapse of the Bulgarian army fighting on the side of the Central Powers Germany and Austria-Hungary in the fall of 1918.
In the early 1930s, the official German Graves Service built several cemeteries in Macedonia, including Skopje and Prilep, both of which were inaugurated in 1933. The war cemetery in Bitola followed.
German soldiers also fought and died in Macedonia during the Second World War. Around 1,800 war dead were buried at various locations. A German-Macedonian war graves agreement has been in place since 2012, which enables the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V.) to take care of the preservation and maintenance of the gravesites.
Special feature
The German war cemetery in Bitola was designed by Robert Tischler, who worked as chief architect of the Volksbund from 1926 to 1959. He designed a number of military cemeteries and developed the concept of the so-called castles of the dead, which were mostly built on hilltops and are strongly reminiscent of fortifications due to their design. The site in Bitola is another such "castle of the dead". Tischler's war cemeteries have recently come under increasing criticism. The mortuary castles in particular are the subject of controversial debate, as they are an expression of the nationalistic, overpowering architecture that characterizes Tischler's thinking and his buildings.
