The Hürtgenwald-Hürtgen war cemetery is located 500 meters west-southwest of the village of Hürtgen on federal road 399 in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It was built in the middle of the Hürtgenwald for 3,001 war dead of the Second World War, including 2,960 Germans, 27 Soviet soldiers, 13 Poles and one Belgian, and was dedicated on August 17, 1952.
Cemetery description
Hürtgenwald-Hürtgen, north of the "Wilde Sau" forest area, is one of two war cemeteries in the Hürtgenwald. In the summer of 1950, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (German War Graves Commission) began laying out the cemetery in a destroyed, mined and rocky area, which was designed by garden architect Carl Ludwig Schreiber from Aachen. The construction work took two years. It was difficult and - due to the presence of mines - very dangerous. More than 100 men lost their lives in the process and were buried at the war cemetery. Of the initially more than 1,000 unknown war dead, 587 were identified during the reburial measures, while around 500 remained nameless. So-called comrade crosses - double crosses - made of shell limestone mark the graves. The empty spaces on some of the crosses were reserved for the names of soldiers to be identified later. As the material of the crosses can no longer be worked today without breaking, neither dates of life nor the designation "Unknown" can be engraved. The double rows of graves are aligned with the cemetery's central high cross. An information board in front of the steps leading up to the cemetery of honor provides information about the historical background of the site. On the occasion of the inauguration of the war cemetery on August 17, 1952, the then Federal President Theodor Heuss said: "They were people like us. But when we stand in silence at the crosses, we hear their voices, which have now become composed: You who are still alive, see to it that peace remains, peace to men, peace to nations".
History
In the area between Aachen, Düren and the High Fens, fierce battles took place from fall 1944 to spring 1945, including the "Battle of the Hürtgen Forest". The last major offensive of the German troops, the "Ardennes Offensive", also began south of the Hürtgen Forest in December 1944. The fighting in the Hürtgen Forest cost the lives of around 12,000 German and 55,000 American soldiers. Most of the American war dead were transferred to the USA, while the rest were buried in military cemeteries in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. The German dead were laid to rest in countless war cemeteries in the Eifel. At the end of the war, the Hürtgen Forest was largely burnt to the ground, surrounded by shot-up and abandoned villages, devastated fields and meadows.
Special feature
in 1994, on the 50th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy ("D-Day", June 6, 1944), veterans of the 4th US Infantry Division erected a stele in the entrance area of the Hürtgenwald-Hürtgen cemetery. It commemorates Lieutenant Friedrich Lengfeld, who tried to rescue an American casualty from a minefield near today's war cemetery. Lengfeld was seriously wounded and died on November 12, 1944. He is buried at the Düren-Rölsdorf war cemetery (grave no. 38).
