The dead of both world wars are buried in the Nagykanizsa town cemetery.
Description of the cemetery:
The names and dates of the buried are immortalized on the front and back of granite crosses. A high cross made of oak stands in the middle of the cemetery.
Burial
More than 400 German soldiers were buried in individual graves at the Nagykanizsa communal cemetery during the Second World War. Just a few years after the end of the war, the individual graves could hardly be located and the area appeared completely neglected. After an agreement on the maintenance of individual graves was concluded in 1964, at least some of the graves were restored and inscribed with the names of the dead.
In 1990, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (German War Graves Commission) received permission to create a new burial ground in the municipal cemetery. In July 1991, the Volksbund's reburial service exhumed the dead. Among the 459 recovered were 98 Hungarian soldiers and civilians as well as war dead of other nationalities. Their remains were reinterred in the new area at the rear of the cemetery. The number of war graves increased to more than 750 due to additional burials from surrounding villages.
History
Around 54,000 German soldiers lost their lives in Hungary during the Second World War. The names of 35,000 of these war dead are known. From the First World War, 617 deaths are recorded for Hungary. The graves of two thirds of the deceased are spread over 120 different locations.
The first negotiations with Hungary on the care of war graves began as early as 1963. In accordance with the 1965 resolution of the Red Cross societies, Hungary was the only Eastern European country to exchange war grave records with the Volksbund. Even before 1989, the Volksbund was able to repair individual war gravesites in Hungary. The German-Hungarian War Graves Agreement came into force on December 23, 1994.
The recovery and reburial of thousands of German war dead began. Many were subsequently identified. The Volksbund now looks after 16 war cemeteries in Hungary. Its official contact is the Ministry of Defense, Department of Military Tradition and War Graves Care.
The new German-Hungarian war cemetery in Nagykanizsa, inaugurated on October 1, 1993, is also a collective cemetery for Zala County.
Special feature
In addition to the German cemetery, there is one war cemetery each for Austro-Hungarian soldiers who lost their lives in the First World War and for members of the Red Army who died in the Second World War.
