The German war cemetery with remains from the First and Second World Wars is part of Sofia's central cemetery. It is the largest in the Bulgarian capital and is located in the Orlandovtsi district.
Description of the cemetery
The German war cemetery is located near the entrance at the streetcar stop "KV. Orlandovtsi" tram stop. From there, it is less than 100 meters to the German cemetery - right next to the Commonwealth graves.
A path divides the cemetery and leads to the memorial square, in the center of which a memorial has been erected: a memorial stone with a stone cross and the inscription "To the memory of his fallen sons. They fought, they died, they live. The grateful German fatherland". In front of it, stone pedestals bear metal plaques with the names and dates of around 1,400 German soldiers who lost their lives in Bulgaria during the Second World War. Gravestones with gravestones in front of them are scattered around the gravesite.
Occupancy
An estimated 1,800 German soldiers lost their lives in Bulgaria during the Second World War, and the names of more than 1,200 are known. There is no reliable information for the First World War.
There are German war cemeteries with more than 50 dead in six Bulgarian municipalities. Two thirds of all soldiers who lost their lives rest on these gravesites.
More than 300 war dead are buried at the German war cemetery in Sofia, around 250 lost their lives in the First World War and more than 60 in the Second World War.
History
There is no war graves agreement between Germany and Bulgaria and there have been no negotiations to date. in 1979, during a visit by the then German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the Bulgarian President agreed to talks with the Volksbund on the restoration of German war graves.
in 1987, the Bulgarian Red Cross reviewed casualty reports and grave location information from the Volksbund, and in 1988 Bulgaria approved the first work on the German burial ground at the central cemetery in Sofia. The individual graves laid out there during the First and Second World Wars are no longer visible today.
An important aspect of the Volksbund's negotiations with the Bulgarian Red Cross was the German wish for a centralized tribute to all German soldiers who died in Bulgaria during the Second World War. The memorial site was to be the surviving German military cemetery of the First World War in Sofia. The metal plaques were finally installed there in the summer of 1989. The cemetery is looked after by the German Embassy in Sofia, which organizes a commemoration ceremony there every year on Remembrance Day.
Special feature
There are war cemeteries of several nations at Sofia Central Cemetery. These include a joint cemetery for the Italian and French dead of the First World War, which is not open to the public. There are also public cemeteries of honor for Serbian, Romanian and Russian war dead as well as a mausoleum for Bulgarian soldiers from the First World War.
