This cemetery has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since September 2023.
The Metz military cemetery on the Moselle island of Chambière is a collective cemetery with a German burial ground.
Occupancy
It was established after the capture of the fortress by German troops in 1870. The first cemetery was laid out for French soldiers who fell or died of illness during the siege of the city. The cemetery has officially existed since 1872.
With the incorporation of part of Lorraine into the German Empire, the fortress of Metz became one of the largest German garrisons. The site became a garrison cemetery for the soldiers and members of the military administration and their families who were stationed there until it was returned to France in 1918.
At the beginning of the First World War, Metz became the main supply base and central location of many military hospitals. German and French soldiers who died of wounds and soldiers from foreign armies who died as prisoners of war in Metz and the surrounding area also found their final resting place there. During the Battle of Verdun from February 1916 to November 1917, numerous severely wounded soldiers were also transported to Metz, where they died in the military hospital.
From 1920 to 1929, many of the dead from Metz and the surrounding area were reburied in this cemetery. The same applies to the period after the Second World War, when the remains of Soviet prisoners of war from the Forbach and Woippy camps were transferred to the Chambière cemetery.
in 1965, soldiers and civilians who had died in peacetime and were buried in the garrison cemetery were reburied in the neighboring civilian cemetery by mutual agreement, as these dead have no permanent right of rest under international law. However, four military governors who died in Metz were - at the express wish of the French authorities - reburied in the German section of the military cemetery.
The French military authorities then redesigned the site. in 1966, a further 990 German soldiers from the First World War were transferred from external cemeteries to Metz.
Today, 7,815 dead from the 1870/71 war, 3,995 from the First World War and 1,200 from the Second World War are buried in this collective cemetery. Of the 13,010 buried here, 7,999 are unknown. 2.059 are German soldiers - three from the War of 1870/71 and 2,056 from the First World War.
History
The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (German War Graves Commission) undertook the initial work of maintaining the graves on the basis of an agreement with the French military authorities in 1926. In 1969, it replaced the temporary wooden grave markers with crosses made of natural stone with engraved names and dates. A high cross - also made of natural stone - forms the center of the complex. The French side had the dividing hedges removed so that today visitors can see all the cemeteries from several points.
Special feature
The Volksbund is responsible for the German cemetery at Metz-Chambière cemetery. It has entrusted the maintenance to the French burial service ONACVG (Office national des anciens combattants et victimes de guerre).
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. - Metz-Chambière is one of them.
