Roye-St.Gilles

Département Somme 6545 German war dead First World War The German military cemetery was established in 1920 by the French military authorities, who buried here the German dead who had previously been buried in field graves and temporary burial sites in no fewer than 49 communes or who were found during the clearing of the battlefield. Just over 2000 of the fallen died in the heavy fighting in autumn 1914 and spring 1915 as well as during the war of position until summer 1916. However, the majority of the dead were victims of the battles in spring and summer 1918. The fallen in the first years of the war belonged to units that had their home garrison in West and East Prussia, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Hesse, Westphalia, Württemberg, Bavaria, the Rhineland and the Hanseatic cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck. in 1918, troops from Posen, Silesia, the Mark Brandenburg, Anhalt and Baden were added. A total of 88 infantry and 28 artillery regiments are buried in the cemetery! Repair work between the wars The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. carried out the first work to improve the condition of the cemetery from 1927 onwards on the basis of an agreement with the responsible French military authorities. The cemetery was landscaped, a hedge, trees and bushes were planted and the old stock was thoroughly overhauled. A wall with a wrought-iron gate now bordered the cemetery towards the road. The monuments erected by the troops were repaired. One bears the inscription: "Erected by the Hessian troops July 1915", the inscription on the other reads: "THE NASSAU LAND TO THE FALLEN HEROES - DEPARTEMENT DU NASSAU AUX HEROS MORTS". The names of the fallen are engraved on the sides. 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 First World War. In 1972, the temporary wooden grave markers were replaced with permanent crosses made of Belgian granite, engraved with the names and dates of the dead. Of the 3755 people buried in individual graves, 126 remain unidentified. There are 2780 fallen soldiers buried in two common graves. 116 of them are known by name. The nine graves of fallen Jews were given a natural stone stele instead of a cross for religious reasons. The Hebrew characters read: 1. (above) "Here rests buried .... ." 2. (below) "May his soul be interwoven into the circle of the living." in 1974-75, the communal graves were given a new border made of natural stone. A high cross made of forged steel was erected as the central marker. The landscaping was completely redesigned and new trees and shrubs were planted. Maintenance: The cemetery is constantly maintained by the Volksbund's maintenance service.