Frasnoy

Département Nord 4,477 German war dead 2 fallen of the Austro-Hungarian Army Austro-Hungarian Army 5 Russian war dead First World War The Frasnoy German military cemetery was only established after the end of the war as a collective cemetery by the French military authorities, who laid all the German war dead from 81 communal areas within a radius of up to 20 kilometers together here. Almost half of the dead came from Valenciennes, where the military cemetery established by the German troops in the fall of 1914 and used for burials until October 1918 had been closed. This landscape was only directly affected by the war in August/September 1914 and in the fall of 1918, when the German troops slowly withdrew under constant pressure from the Allied forces. From the end of 1914 to the late fall of 1918, Valenciennes and the surrounding villages were the main German supply point for the entire right wing of the Western Front. The number of military hospitals in the area was correspondingly high, with many seriously wounded succumbing to their injuries. Accidents, illnesses and air raids also claimed numerous victims among the staging services. The soldiers resting here belonged to units whose home garrisons were located in almost every country of the former German Reich. Repair work between the wars Initial work to improve the condition of the cemetery was carried out by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. from 1927 onwards on the basis of an agreement with the responsible French military authorities. However, the problem of permanently marking the graves initially 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 Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. was able to begin the final design of the German military cemeteries in France from the First World War. In addition to a thorough landscaping overhaul, including the planting of trees, shrubs and hedges, the temporary wooden grave markers were replaced with permanent metal crosses with the names and dates of the dead cast into them from 1970 onwards. Young volunteers from the Volksbund's youth camps helped to move the 35-kilogram concrete foundations for the crosses at the graves, which had been transported by the German army. The 14 graves of fallen Jews were given a natural stone stele instead of a cross for religious reasons. The Hebrew characters read: 1. (above) "Here rests buried .... ." 2. (below) "May his soul be interwoven into the circle of the living." Furthermore, the entire burial area and paths were landscaped, the communal grave was given a natural stone border and the entrance a forged gate between two wing walls. The memorial, which was created by the troops during the First World War, has also been repaired.