This tomb has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since September 2023.
Occupancy
The French offensive at Chemin-des-Dames in mid-April 1917 was the reason why the German troops established this cemetery. Until the retreat at the beginning of October 1918, fallen soldiers and those who died in military hospitals were buried here. 1.in the end, 704 were buried here.
The background: the French attack collapsed - with heavy losses on both sides. Some of the attacking troops were so demoralized that they mutinied. It was not until mid-October 1917 that the French army was capable of further attacks. In May 1918, the Germans attacked and in some cases advanced as far as the Marne. The Allies launched a counter-offensive, which forced the Germans to retreat in mid-October - again with heavy losses on both sides.
All 1,704 fallen soldiers rest in individual graves - six of them without names. The graves of six Jewish soldiers were given a grave stele instead of a cross for religious reasons. The soldiers buried here belonged to units whose home garrisons were in the Rhineland, Lower Saxony and Brunswick, Bavaria, Baden, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, West Prussia and Württemberg.
History
The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (German War Graves Commission) undertook the initial work of maintaining the cemetery on the basis of an agreement with the French military authorities in 1926. 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 - financially supported by the German government - began the final design of the German military cemeteries in France. Even before this, groups from the Volksbund youth camps had maintained the graves and trees in Veslud with special permission from the authorities. From 1979, the Volksbund replaced the wooden grave markers with crosses made of natural stone with engraved names and dates.
The cemetery is constantly looked after by the Volksbund's maintenance service in France.
Special feature
This cemetery was designed by a Brunswick horticultural inspector who was a member of the troops in 1917. Blasting was necessary in several places to create the terraces and steps on the rocky slope and to build retaining walls.
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. - Veslud is one of them.
