The war cemetery and memorial on Lake Constance is located amidst vineyards on the Höhenweg - also known as the Panoramaweg - between Meersburg and Hagnau. German dead of the First World War rest there.
Cemetery description
The cemetery is surrounded by a natural stone wall. A plaque in the entrance area provides information about the history of the site. The path to the burial and memorial site, which is bordered by a limestone wall, is covered with slabs of iron tuff. Steps lead down to a two-winged bronze gate. The "Field of Life" is depicted on the left wing, symbolized by furrows. The "Field of Death" can be seen on the right-hand wing of the gate, symbolized by a battlefield covered with crosses. The cemetery covered with stone slabs is located in the middle of the memorial. Grave slabs arranged in seven rows are marked in relief with a cross and the names and dates of those buried here. From the burial ground, the view falls on the eleven-meter-high high cross, to which steps lead up.
The bronze sculpture "Crown of Thorns" stands on a stone pedestal in the middle of the steps. The shell limestone walls surrounding the cemetery bear a bronze frieze with the names of the 77 countries in which German soldiers lost their lives in the world wars or where they are missing.
Occupancy
in 1937/38, work began on the Lerchenberg to build a burial ground for 69 German soldiers who had died in the First World War during the exchange of prisoners of war and the severely disabled during transportation through Switzerland and were buried there. However, the right of rest for war dead stipulated in the Versailles peace treaties expired in neutral Switzerland after 20 years. The remains were therefore exhumed, transferred to the Lerchenberg in December 1938 and buried in the still unfinished Totenburg.
History
in 1942, construction work on the monument had to be stopped due to a lack of funds - what remained was a ruined building. When work was resumed in 1962, the relics from the National Socialist era disappeared and the site took on its current appearance. Local architects and artists were responsible for the planning and design. On September 20, 1964, the Volksbund inaugurated the war graves and memorial site, which is maintained by the Baden-Württemberg state association.
The history of the Lerchenberg reflects the fundamental change in the commemoration of the war dead over the past 100 years: from hero worship up to 1945 to a cautionary commemoration in a liberal democracy.
Special feature
The Meersburg-Lerchenberg war cemetery was also dedicated in 1964 to the two million missing from the two world wars and to all those war dead whose graves remained inaccessible worldwide in the decades that followed.
