Carvin

Département Pas-de-Calais 6,113 German war dead 3 Russian war dead First World War The Carvin German military cemetery was established by the German troops in the late fall of 1914. The first burials took place during the fierce fighting in the course of the so-called "Race to the Sea". Further heavy losses were caused by the battles between Arras and Armentières in the spring and autumn of 1915 and 1917, the major German attack in March/April 1918 and the Allied counter-offensive in the summer and autumn of 1918. In the last year of the war alone, over 2,000 casualties were buried here. After the end of the war, the French military authorities enlarged the cemetery by adding beds from temporary gravesites in seven surrounding communities. Today, the dead whose home garrisons were located in all countries and provinces of the former German Empire rest here. Repair work between the wars The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. (German War Graves Commission) carried out the first planting work in 1927 on the basis of an agreement reached with the responsible French military authorities in 1926. Trees, shrubs, rose plants and a bordering hedge were planted over the following years. However, the problem of permanently marking the graves remained unresolved due to a lack of foreign currency and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Final design Following the conclusion of the Franco-German War Graves Agreement of July 19, 1966, the German War Graves Commission was able to undertake the final design of the German military cemeteries of the First World War in France, with financial support from the German government. In addition to a fundamental landscaping overhaul of the entire site, the cemetery was given a new entrance with wing walls. In 1978, the previous temporary wooden grave markers were replaced with Belgian granite crosses engraved with the names and dates of those buried here. The 6,113 fallen rest in individual graves. Of these, 26 remain unknown. The three Russian war dead are prisoners of war. For religious reasons, the 23 graves of the fallen of Jewish faith were given a gravestone made of natural stone instead of a cross. The Hebrew characters read: 1. (above) "Here rests buried .... ." 2. (below) "May his soul be interwoven into the circle of the living."