Reimsbach, Ehrenfriedhof

A total of 314 victims of the Second World War from various nations were laid to rest at this war cemetery, the youngest was 17 and the oldest 55 years old. 290 German 7 former Soviet 17 unknown The Reimsbach Cemetery of Honor is a military cemetery located at the foothills of the Hunsrücker Hochwald in Saarland. It was established as a forest cemetery in the spring of 1940 by the 95th Infantry Division of the German Wehrmacht, which was deployed to secure the border and the Siegfried Line, and is the final resting place of 314 war victims of various nationalities from the Second World War. In the run-up to the Siegfried Line campaign in 1939, there were 5 casualties that were only buried in later years. The majority of the members of the 95th ID, around 126, fell during the attack on the Maginot Line on May 13, 1940 and the following days between Beckingen/Saar and Merzig/Saar on the other side of the border on French soil. In the winter of 1944/45, 183 soldiers of various IDs were also buried here who lost their lives during the Allied offensive on the Orscholz-Riegel and the Westwall. In the mid-fifties, additional burials and reburials took place, which were completed at the end of the fifties. During the war, the Reimsbach families took care of the graves. After the end of the war, the Saarland Ministry of the Interior transferred the care of the cemetery to the then independent municipality of Reimsbach. The state government later took over the care of the site again. The cemetery was given its current structural form in 1950. A cemetery and a forecourt, which are spatially separated from each other, are located on a plot of around 6800 m². In the forecourt is a bronze statue by the Saarland sculptor Oswald Hiery from Wallerfangen-Ihn, which was unveiled in 1977 by the then Saarland Minister of the Interior. In a realistic depiction, his work shows two men dragging a fatally wounded man as a symbol of the helplessness of man in the face of violent death. The helmet worn by one of the three naked men is a classic symbol of war, indicating battle and destruction, victory and defeat. There are 19 rows of graves in alphabetical order to the left and right along the main path in the cemetery. The individual graves are marked by bronze crosses with names. The central point of the cemetery is at the end of the main path, a sandstone altar with a sandstone high cross and memorial plaque with the memorial inscription HEIMATERDE BIRGT EUCH IHR TOTEN IN DER WEITE DES OSTENS RUHEN EURE BRÜDER GOTTES ERDE IST ÜBERALL Annual memorial services since 1941 have been a tradition of the Reimsbach community to this day and take place after the war on the Day of Prayer and Repentance to commemorate and honor all fallen soldiers. Photographs: Siegfried Kräker