This tomb has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since September 2023.
Occupancy
The Thiescourt military cemetery (Département Oise) was established in January 1920 as a Franco-German war cemetery by the French military authorities. 1.095 Germans and 1,739 Frenchmen are buried there in two cemeteries. The site was chosen after a common grave with 50 German and French soldiers was found there, which had been created by German troops.
The French authorities buried more dead from provisional graves in 16 surrounding districts. A few had died in the fighting between Roye and Noyon in mid-September 1914. Others had died during the fighting in the spring of 1915 and during the war of position from 1915 to the beginning of 1918. By far the largest number lost their lives in 1918, particularly during the Battle of Noyon in June and the defensive battles on the Matz in August.
Of the 1,095 German casualties, 707 rest in individual graves - four of them without names. Of the 388 dead in the two common graves, 90 are known by name. For religious reasons, the six graves of Jewish soldiers were given a natural stone headstone instead of a cross.
The home garrisons of the dead from 1914/1915 were mostly in Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, Bavaria, East Prussia, Brandenburg and Berlin. Those who died in 1918 came from garrisons in Silesia, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia, Württemberg and Bavaria.
History
The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (German War Graves Commission) undertook the first work to maintain the cemetery in 1928 on the basis of an agreement with the French military authorities in 1926. It planted trees and hedges and landscaped the graves. A new entrance with a wrought-iron gate was built. The communal grave was given a natural stone border and a memorial stone in the middle. However, the problem of permanently marking the graves remained unresolved - first due to a lack of foreign currency and later because of the Second World War.
After the conclusion of the Franco-German War Graves Agreement of July 19, 1966, the Volksbund - with financial support from the German government - began the final design of the German military cemeteries in France. The area was completely renovated and landscaped. From 1976, the Volksbund replaced the temporary wooden grave markers with natural stone crosses bearing names and dates. As a sign of reconciliation, the hedge between the German and French graves disappeared.
The cemetery is constantly looked after by the Volksbund's maintenance service in France.
Special feature
In September 2016, the Regional Directorate for Cultural Affairs in Nord-Pas-de-Calais Picardie - Office for Cultural Heritage and Architecture, Regional Protection Agency for Nature and Historic Monuments - added the French necropolis and the German war cemetery in Thiescourt to the list of Historic Monuments.
In September 2023, UNESCO declared 139 First World War cemeteries as World Heritage Sites. 24 German cemeteries are in the care of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. - Thiescourt is one of them.
