The German military cemetery in Galati is located on the grounds of the "Eternitatea" civilian cemetery.
Cemetery Description
The two burial plots, laid out as lawns, were marked in 1991 with concrete crosses bearing metal plaques inscribed with the names, dates, and ranks of the deceased. The names of those who were buried in the “Osuar” (ossuary)—which was later leveled—or whose graves were covered by new burials are engraved in alphabetical order on metal plaques and assigned to the tall cross on the cemetery wall. The register of names is available at the cemetery administration office (building at the front right).
Burial Information
In Galati, 98 German soldiers who died in World War I found their final resting place in an “osuar” (ossuary). During World War II, an additional 1,664 German soldiers were buried in individual graves and also in the “osuar.” The ossuary was leveled.
History
As early as 1966, youth organizations began maintaining soldiers’ graves at various locations in Romania through work assignments that continued for years. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Volksbund negotiated with Romanian government agencies and various municipal authorities and succeeded in obtaining permission to restore cemeteries or establish new ones in several locations. This was followed by the reburial of the fallen from both world wars.
In Galati, during expansion work in 1986, German soldiers who fell in World War II were reinterred in a burial plot that had been approved for reinterment. This prevented further burial over the graves by civilian graves, which had already begun in some sections.
On December 10, 1997, the German-Romanian War Graves Agreement entered into force. The contractual partner of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. is the Romanian “National Office for the Cult of Heroes” (“Oficiul Național pentru Cultul Eroilor”) in Bucharest.
Soon after the fall of the Iron Curtain—beginning in 1999 – the number of work camps for young people organized by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. in Romania, as well as work assignments for German soldiers who volunteered to carry out restoration and maintenance work at war cemeteries, began to increase. The Romanian Ministry of Defense, as well as central and local authorities, supported these activities. The Romanian military participated in the maintenance work, housed the groups at its bases, and provided them with meals there.
Special Feature
The cemetery also contains a communal ossuary where Romanian and German soldiers who fell in World War I are buried, a small burial plot for French soldiers from World War I, and two additional burial plots for Romanian and Soviet soldiers who fell in World War II.
For information on visiting the cemetery, please contact the War Graves Department (inquiries to info@volksbund.de).
