Steenwerck

This war cemetery is home to 2,048 German war dead from the First World War. Département Nord The German military cemetery at Steenwerck was established by their own troops in April 1918 and continuously expanded until the retreat in August 1918. After the end of the war, the French military authorities buried more German dead from the surrounding communal areas. As late as 1969, 12 German war dead from the First World War were found during construction work and were also given their final resting place here. Those buried here were mainly victims of the German offensive battle in April 1918, the subsequent positional warfare and the defensive battles in August 1918. Only 31 of the dead had died as prisoners of war in earlier years. Those resting here belonged to units whose home bases were in Saxony-Silesia, Thuringia, Pomerania, Hesse, Bavaria, Westphalia, West Prussia, the Rhineland, Alsace and Lorraine. Repair work between the wars The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. (German War Graves Commission) carried out the first work to improve the condition of the cemetery in 1930 on the basis of an agreement reached with the responsible French military authorities in 1926. Trees, rose bushes and hedges were planted, an entrance gate erected and lawns sown. Finally, a natural stone pillar was erected as a central marker in a wall made of red Vosges sandstone. However, the problem of permanently marking the graves 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. - financially supported by the German government - 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 fundamental landscaping overhaul, the previous temporary wooden crosses were replaced in 1979 with metal crosses bearing the names and dates of those buried here in relief. Volunteers from the Volksbund's youth camps moved the cross foundations, which weighed 35 kilograms and were transported by the German Armed Forces, thus impressively supporting the Volksbund in fulfilling its tasks, as did the soldiers of the German Armed Forces. All 2,048 fallen soldiers rest in individual graves; three of them remain unnamed. For religious reasons, the two graves of the fallen of Jewish faith were marked with 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.