The site in Tatura is part of the municipal cemetery. German war dead from both world wars are buried there.
Description of the cemetery
A stone high cross more than three meters high and a simple memorial are characteristic features. The bronze plaque on this memorial lists the names of 22 German war dead from the First World War and five deceased from the Second World War who are still buried elsewhere in Australian soil. The plaque also commemorates 129 Catholic and 45 Protestant German missionaries who were buried far from home.
Occupancy
During both world wars, many Germans were interned in Australia and New Zealand or - if they belonged to the military - imprisoned as prisoners of war. This was particularly the case at the outbreak of the First World War, when Allied troops occupied the German protectorates in the Pacific Ocean. The war dead were often buried near their places of detention.
There were seven internment camps in Tatura and the surrounding area. There were also 318 surviving members of the crew of the German auxiliary cruiser "Kormoran" held as prisoners of war. This sank the Australian cruiser "Sydney" in November 1941, but then had to be abandoned due to heavy damage.
At the end of the 1950s, the British Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) established a central cemetery in Tatura for German dead from the First and Second World Wars who had died in captivity or in internment camps. Originally, they were buried in 25 different cemeteries.
in 1958, the CWGC had the remains of 60 World War II dead from twelve cemeteries in the states of Victoria, South West Australia, New South Wales and Queensland reinterred in Tatura. On behalf of the Foreign Office and in agreement with the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (German War Graves Commission), a dignified war cemetery was created, which was dedicated on Remembrance Day 1958.
191 Germans who had lost their lives as prisoners of war during the First World War - soldiers, members of the German merchant navy and civilian internees - were subsequently transferred to Tatura.
History
These additional burials made it necessary to expand the cemetery and redesign the cemetery. The expanded Tatura war cemetery was dedicated on Remembrance Day in 1961. The costs for the reburial of the war dead and all the work to expand the cemetery as well as for the gardening and structural design of the site were borne by the federal government.
Special feature
The Tatura "Irrigation & Wartime Camps Museum" illustrates the history of the internment camps for civilian and military personnel in the city and its surroundings with the help of many exhibits.
