According to the information available to us, the following war dead rest on this war cemetery Total war dead: 775 War dead 1st WW: 288 War dead 2nd WW: 487 Of these from ... - Germany: 591 - Former Soviet Union: 46 - Poland: 115 - Belgium: 9 - France: 2 - Netherlands: 3 - Italy: 1 - Others: 8 A total of 1,852 dead rest on nine war cemeteries in Paderborn. Here, in the West Cemetery, 775 victims of both world wars (288 from the First World War and 487 from the Second World War) rest in two cemeteries: Soldiers and civilian citizens, Germans and foreigners, men, women and children. The war cemetery was established in 1914. The dead of the First World War were mostly wounded soldiers who died in the town's military hospitals. There are also 26 Russian prisoners of war resting among them. The cemetery of the Second World War contains 487 dead, 329 Germans and 158 foreigners (115 Poles, 20 Soviets, 9 Belgians, 3 Dutch, 2 French, 1 Italian, 1 Turk, 1 Hungarian and 6 dead of unknown nationality). They died in the battle for Paderborn, in the hail of bombs or as prisoners of war or forced laborers from the labor camps in the city area, where many of them fell victim to hunger, disease and inhumane treatment. Representative of all these victims at the Westfriedhof cemetery is the fateful memory of
- of the young mother who died with her three small sons and the year-old girl on
17. January 1945 in the southern part of Paderborn; (Ehrenfeld, 1st row from the top, 3rd grave on the left in the middle) - to the Polish prisoner of war who died at the airfield on the same day; (Field M, grave no. 30)
- to the young Dutchman who was deported to Germany shortly before the end of the war to perform forced labor on the Altenbeken viaduct and died in the Theodorschule camp on February 11, 1945; (Ehrenfeld, 5th row, grave on the right in the middle)
- to the grandmother who burned to death in a cellar with her three daughters, two grandchildren and her brother-in-law on March 27, 1945; (Ehrenfeld, 10th row, 6th grave left of center)
- to the young French woman who was killed by artillery fire on April 1, 1945; (Ehrenfeld, last row, 1st grave left of center)
- to the tuberculosis-stricken mother from the Ukraine who died of pneumonia on May 4, 1945 after giving birth to her child. (Field M, grave no. 30)
Other war cemeteries:
- 277 dead from the Second World War have found their final resting place in the East Cemetery: 148 Germans and 129 foreigners.
- The foreigners' cemetery in Schloss Neuhaus-Sennelager, in the area of the Senne military training area, was established in 1914 for deceased foreign prisoners of war. Today, over 660 dead rest here; there is no exact number. Many died in the military hospitals that were attached to two prison camps during the First World War. After many of the dead had been reburied, 205 remained: 172 Russians, 26 Belgians and 7 Romanians. During and after the Second World War, 130 - 140 unknown bodies were added. Finally, all foreign war dead from the administrative district of Detmold were transferred here, 270 in total. They were mainly forced laborers and their families. They mostly came from Poland, but also from Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Belgium, France and even China and India. Many of them were very young children. The dead also include foreign soldiers who had fought in Wehrmacht units.
- War graves can also be found at the Schloss Neuhaus forest cemetery (114 German and unknown dead from both world wars) and the municipal cemeteries in the districts of Elsen, Sande, Benhausen, Neuenbeken and Dahl.
The text was compiled by Dr. Antje Telgenbüscher, Paderborn City Archives.
