Monthois

This war cemetery is home to 3339 German war dead from the First World War. Département Ardennes The German military cemetery Monthois was established by the German troops in March 1915, when the fighting around the Argonne Forest and the chain of hills in the so-called "White Champagne" reached its first climax. This was followed by major French attacks in 1915, 1917 and 1918, until the Germans had to evacuate the area in October 1918. At first it was the wounded who died in the military hospitals in Monthois. The losses were particularly high during the defensive and retreat battles in the fall of 1918. Sculptors and stonemasons serving in the troops created the memorial for their fallen comrades. The French military authorities expanded the cemetery considerably after the end of the war by adding numerous German casualties from temporary graves in 14 municipalities or districts, mostly located on the western edge of the Argonne. The soldiers buried here belonged to units whose home garrisons were located in almost all countries and provinces 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 time of the First World War. In addition to a thorough landscaping overhaul, in which volunteers from the Volksbund's youth camps actively participated, planting work was carried out from 1973 and the temporary wooden grave markers were replaced with permanent metal crosses with the names and dates of the dead cast into them in 1980. Young helpers were also involved in this work. They moved the 35-kilogram cross foundations for the crosses at the graves, which had been transported by the German army. Of the 3,339 fallen, 2,348 rest in individual graves; two remain nameless. In the common grave with 991 victims, only 72 are known by name. For religious reasons, the six graves of fallen Jews were given a natural stone stele 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." Maintenance: The cemetery is constantly maintained by the Volksbund's maintenance service.