Dun-sur-Meuse

Département Meuse, 1,664 German war dead from the First World War, including two fallen from the Austro-Hungarian army. The German military cemetery at Dun-sur-Meuse was established by their own troops in December 1914 and occupied until the end of September 1918. As early as September 1914, a war hospital with extensive facilities was established in Dun. In the period from September 25 to November 30, 1914, more than 12,000 wounded and sick soldiers who were involved in the battles around the Meuse crossings and in the Argonne forest were treated here. The seriously wounded who succumbed to their injuries in the military hospital were the first to be buried in the cemetery. With the start of the German offensive against Verdun on February 21, 1916 and the expansion of the battle in March 1916 to the areas to the left of the Meuse, including Heights 304 and "Toter Mann", the number of wounded and thus the number of those who died in the military hospital increased considerably. Among them was the commander of an Inf.Div., Gen.d.Inf. von Wartenburg. More than half of those resting here lost their lives between February and the end of 1916. The number of deaths rose again in August 1917 as a result of the French counter-offensive and in October 1918 due to the French-American attacks, as a result of which the area around Dun had to be evacuated by the German troops. Numerous French soldiers who died in military hospitals also found their final resting place in special sections of the cemetery. Those resting here belonged to units whose home garrisons were in Mecklenburg, Baden, Bavaria, Württemberg, Hesse, Saxony, Alsace, Lorraine and almost all the Prussian provinces. Restoration work between the wars Initial work to improve the condition of the cemetery was carried out by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. on the basis of an agreement reached with the French military authorities in 1926. This included the planting of additional trees and hedges as well as the first greening of the graves. However, the problem of permanently marking the graves remained unresolved due to a lack of foreign currency and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Final design Following the conclusion of the Franco-German War Graves Agreement on July 19, 1966, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. - with financial support from the German government - was able to undertake the final design of the German military cemeteries of the First World War in France. Young volunteers from the War Graves Commission had already begun the preliminary gardening work. in 1971, a fundamental landscaping overhaul of the entire site followed with additional planting of trees and hedges as well as the design of the entrance with a forged gate between wing walls. A steel high cross forms the central mark. In the same year, work began on replacing the previous temporary wooden grave markers with metal crosses bearing the names and dates of those buried here. The cross foundations, which weighed 35 kilograms and were transported by the German Armed Forces, were again moved by young volunteers from the Volksbund. 1,664 of the fallen rest in individual graves; 26 of them remain unnamed. For religious reasons, the three graves of the fallen of the Jewish faith were marked with a natural stone grave stele instead of a cross, with the following Hebrew inscription: 1 (top) "Here rests buried ... ." 2. (below) "May his soul be bound into the circle of the living."