The war cemetery is located in the city cemetery of Brno (German: Brünn) in the Bohunice district. It was inaugurated on October 23, 1993.
Description of the cemetery
The German cemeteries in the Brno cemetery dating back to the Second World War have been preserved in their original form. The expansion of the German military cemetery began in 1967/68 with the first additional burials. In 1992/93, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (German War Graves Commission) developed the cemetery areas adjacent to the cemetery, which had previously been used as a landfill, for the creation of a collective cemetery and assigned them to the existing military cemetery. This created additional burial areas for a further 6,500 dead, so that a total of around 9,000 war dead can be laid to rest in Brno.
At the end of 2015, 7,889 German soldiers were buried here. The original grave slabs were replaced by granite crosses, which document the names, dates and ranks of those buried. As part of the extension work, an altan, an open cemetery hut, was built with information boards. A small memorial square opposite the altan on the cemetery wall can be reached via connecting paths made of granite cobblestones. A slender metal high cross stands there.
In the cemetery, irrigation and drainage pipes have been laid, a gatehouse with toilets has been built and an avenue of lime trees has been planted along the main cemetery path. Further burials are being carried out on an ongoing basis and the graves of the deceased are gradually being marked. A table with two metal name books was set up outside the grounds in 2018. These immortalize the approximately 4,000 names of the war dead who could not be recovered.
History
The Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938 stipulated the cession of the Sudeten region to the German Reich without including the Czechoslovak government. In return, England and France guaranteed the continued existence of the remaining Czechoslovakian state. On March 15, 1939, the Wehrmacht occupied the country under the pretext of having to protect the Germans in the Czech Republic. One day after this de facto annexation, the new rulers proclaimed the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia". It remained under forced German rule until liberation by the Soviet army in early 1945. As in all territories occupied by Germany, Czechoslovakia was also the scene of deportations and acts of violence against the civilian population by the occupying authorities and German troops. The expulsions of Germans from the so-called "eastern territories", which took place after the end of the war and remain a historical burden to this day, should be seen in the context of the German policy of conquest and the subsequent tyranny.
As a result of the changed political situation in Eastern Europe, the Volksbund has been able to become active in what is now the Czech Republic since the early 1990s. Since then, it has been working on finding graves and transferring the buried to central cemeteries. The evaluation of the grave reports for today's Czech Republic revealed that 18,368 graves of German war dead from the Second World War existed in 1,635 municipalities. In fact, the number is probably much higher. The basis of the Volksbund's work is Article 30 of the treaty concluded between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Czech and Slovak Federal Republics on March 4, 1992, which contains the declaration of intent of both governments to protect the war graves and to enable their registration and care, the so-called "Treaty on Good Neighborliness". A war graves agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Czech Republic does not yet exist.
Special feature
The Brno Central Cemetery (Ústøední høbitov) is the largest and most important cemetery in the Czech city. It was built in 1883 according to the plans of architect Alois Prastorfer and has been extended several times. The ceremonial hall designed by architect Bohuslav Fuchs was built on the cemetery grounds between 1924 and 1926 and Arnošt Wiesner built the Brno crematorium between 1925 and 1930. A memorial was created in the cemetery in 1945/1946. There are graves of resistance fighters against National Socialism as well as a Soviet and a Romanian military cemetery. The cemetery of honor was declared a national cultural monument in 1989.
