Novgorod, Veliky Novgorod since 1999, is located more than 150 kilometers south-southeast of St. Petersburg on the Volkhov River. The city is the administrative center of the Novgorod Oblast. The Novgorod war cemetery, southwest of the city near Shimsk, can be reached via a pedestrian bridge specially built by the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V.). More than 11,400 war dead have been buried at the cemetery, which was opened on September 21, 1996.
Description of the cemetery
In December 1991, a delegation from the Volksbund found the site of the former field cemetery of the 1st Luftwaffe Field Division "Wehrmacht". The cemetery grounds and parts of the central memorial were still recognizable, but the approximately 680 German soldiers' graves had been levelled. The Volksbund's reburial service inspected the graves there for the first time in June 1992. In November 1992, the Volksbund received permission from the Novgorod Regional Commission to restore the cemetery and expand it to an area of three hectares. The restoration of the circular paths of the original site and the erection of symbolic crosses in the individual segments of the cemetery are just as much a part of the work carried out as the erection of a high cross in a central location. At the foot of the high cross, the inscriptions on three granite steles immortalize the names of 500 soldiers. The mortal remains of 8,041 war dead were transferred from the local cemeteries in the Novgorod region to the new burial blocks. The names of the identified dead and those whose grave location is unknown are listed on 19 steles next to the burial blocks ten, eleven and twelve. Over 11,400 dead soldiers have been buried in the cemetery and more will follow from the Novgorod region. The war cemetery was dedicated on September 21, 1996.
History
In the course of the attack on the Soviet Union, German troops laid siege to the city of Leningrad (St. Petersburg). During the blockade, which lasted 900 days, more than 800,000 inhabitants lost their lives. The Soviet Army's attempts to liberate the city began in the spring of 1942, but it was not until the Winter Battle, known as the Leningrad-Novgorod Operation, which lasted from January 14 to March 1, 1944, that the blockade of Leningrad was ended. The combat operations of the Winter Battle also extended to the region around Novgorod.
Special feature
More than 1,900 dead of Spanish origin have found their final resting place in a block of the Novgorod collective cemetery. They took part in the war against the Soviet Union as volunteers under the leadership of the German Wehrmacht.
