German War Graves

Discussion in 'Axis Units' started by Shörner, Nov 29, 2006.

  1. Joe Potter

    Joe Potter Junior Member

    Perhaps the saddest burial in the German War Cemetery at Cannock Chase is that belonging to John Reginald Ortner, aged ONE, he was the son of an internee who died on the Isle of Man, 16.12.1941, why he was exhumed from his original grave beggar's belief.
    Joe
     
  2. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    I seem to recall there's a few more Internee kids there, Joe.
    Pretty sure my Dad & I were briefly puzzled by 'em on our last visit.
     
  3. Ivor

    Ivor Junior Member

    I've only just come across this thread. Most, if not all, German internees who had been buried in the Isle of Man were re-interred at Cannock Chase in the early 1960s. I believe this was at the request of the German government.
     
  4. martinW88

    martinW88 Member

    This photo is of a German cemetery, taken by my father whilst serving in the RAF in North Africa in 1943, and this forum seems an appropriate place to post this picture. On the rear the photo simply states "German cemetery, Sousse, Tunisia - June 1943". I have no other details and can only assume the description is accurate.
     

    Attached Files:

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  5. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    In both world wars,the Germans laid down battlefield cemteries and others such in the Channel Islands as if they were staying permanently in occupied territoritories.After the war in Western Europe these cemeteries were de-established and casualties were removed to concentrated cemeteries, a task which was only completed in the late 1960s.

    In the East,particularly Russia,German graves tended to be desecrated and lost and it was not until successful negotiations took place between a unified Germany and the Soviet Union in 1989 and later, with the Russian Federation that the VDK could make a start on recovering their dead in Russia.

    As for German war dead in the UK,there is the example of the two crews with a ground crew "joyrider" left undisturbed at the CWGC plot at Scampton and other German aircrew, brought down at North Coates,still .lie in their wartime resting place in a nearby churchyard....an exemption to the policy of consolidation to Cannock Chase.

    Visited Cannnock Chase.in September 2007,if I recollect......and found the grave I was interested in, quite quickly....a very interesting story associated with it.
     
  6. jccalvin

    jccalvin Junior Member

    Hi:

    On my FTP server you will find two NARA microfilm rolls on Wehmacht cemeteries. It is in German. Look under Microfilm Rolls, then OKW, then Cemetery Data. This is the login information for FTP software.

    Host: jccalvin.ddns.net
    Login ID: FTP-User-1
    Password: SKNVr8du

    Regards,

    John Calvin
     
  7. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

    Spotted this update on Volksbund activity; with:
    the scale of the task is immense:
    Note, no 2021 photo shown, it is a 2015 photo.

    The link via Twitter is for the full story, which hopefully will work here:Hitler’s last soldiers reburied near Berlin | World | The Times
     
  8. hucks216

    hucks216 Member

    The same story covered in The Daily Mail with photos taken at the burial ceremony at Lietzen:
    Remains of 120 German soldiers who died fighting Red Army as it advanced on Berlin are laid to rest | Daily Mail Online
    42158858-9506845-image-a-14_1619258731133.jpg
     
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  9. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Hitchin cemetery
    Interestingly the German airmen are still buried in the cemetery.

    Oberfeldwebel Georg Anthony

    FRIDAY 30TH AUGUST 1940
    Aircraft:
    Messerschmitt Bf 110 C. M8+MM 4./ZG 76
    Werke Nummer of 3615
    Location:
    Kimpton, Hertfordshire
    Date/Time:
    16.30 hours, 30th August 1940
    Crew
    Oberfeldwebel Georg Anthony (27) (Pilot) killed
    Unteroffizier Heinrich Nordmeier (Bordfunker)
    severely injured.
    Shot down by Flying Officer Ludwik Paszkiewicz of No.303 Squadron
    and Pilot Officer B J Wicks of No.56 Squadron


    upload_2022-6-30_21-48-37.jpeg upload_2022-6-30_21-48-37.jpeg
     
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  10. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Buried Hitchin Cemetery Hertfordshire

    Gefreiter Wolfgang Euerl
    Mission: Attack on Coventry, England.

    Date: 8th April 1941

    Time: 10.12.p.m.

    Unit: 9 Staffel/Kampfgeschwader 26

    Type: Heinkel He 111H-5

    Werke/Nr. 3628

    Code: 1H + ET (E Yellow)

    Start: Le Bourget, France.

    Location: Vickers Farm, Bendish, near Hitchin, Hertfordshire.

    Pilot: Leutnant Julius Tengler Badly wounded

    Observer: Gefreiter Wolfgang Euerl Killed

    Radio/Op: Unteroffizier Hubert Faber Badly wounded

    Radio/Op 2: Unteroffizier Hans Zender Unhurt

    Flt/Engineer: Gefreiter Franz Reitmayr Badly wounded

    REASON FOR LOSS:

    This aircraft was shot down by S/L A. T. D. Sanders and P/O Sutton in a Defiant of No.264 Squadron. Heinkel broke up in the air and crashed at Bendish, Hertfordshire.

    Started from Le Bourget to attack Coventry with one 500 kilo and Incendiary bombs. Before reaching Coventry, when flying at about 17,000 feet, this aircraft was attacked by a Night Fighter. The first attack damaged the port engine, which stopped, and the bombs were jettisoned. The second attack hit the starboard engine, and the aircraft caught fire. The crew baled out, the observer was killed in the wreckage, but the other four members of the crew, three of whom were badly wounded, landed safely. This crew took part in an operation on the previous night to Glasgow, but the operation was described as scrappy because of unfavourable weather conditions. (Source: A.I.1.(k) Report No. 129/1941)
    upload_2022-6-30_21-49-42.jpeg upload_2022-6-30_21-49-42.jpeg
     
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  11. Ramiles

    Ramiles Researching 9th Lancers, 24th L and SRY

    Would there happen to be a way to list names by a given date?

    Gräbersuche-Online | Volksbund.de

    Or browse names by cemetery.

    I think it seems to require you to know quite a few specific details, and then perhaps returns only that info, on that one person?

    I am currently more familiar with searches via the Commonwealth War Graves site which enables a lot of results by dates or units etc. So that you can see more or who died with whom, and where.
     
  12. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    Minimum Name + Surname + date of death
    The more information, the more precise the result.
    The spelling of the surname may differ (Mayer, Maier, Meyer, Meier), a little creative trial and error can often help.

    If you have problems, feel free to ask me about individual cases via PN: I know the pitfalls of the search mask quite well.
     
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  13. hucks216

    hucks216 Member

    You can try the German casualty cards on Ancestry. You can search by date of birth or death without knowing the names and you can search by location & unit but it all comes down to how it has been transcribed. One transcriber's unit designation might be entered differently from another. The entries tend to run dry after mid-1944..

    https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/61641/
     
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  14. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

    I posted this last January in another thread: Battlefields of Ukraine

    Now quite a few years ago I visited the Crimea, when it was part of the Ukraine, with Russian facilities at Sevastopol mainly by agreement.

    We visited one spot, near the destroyed Makim Gorky Battery and the German cemetery there had disappeared, except for one German style coloured post, which German members of our group laid a wreath. We asked our guide what would happen to the wreath, he / she explained it would be stolen or thrown away.

    Checking imagery online it appears that now there is a memorial at the spot. Quickly looking around it appears that Russia has spent £££ on new WW2 memorials. See: Where is Memorial German Fallen Crimea - Sevastopol - TracesOfWar.com

    On our travels we passed the entrance to a large formal entrance to a WW2 cemetery and our guide told us this was for the Italians, who had paid after the end of the USSR to restore the site. The memorial is to the Italians, who as Sardinia had fought in the Crimean War 1854 and in 2015 Putin and another visited. There is no photo easily found that I recognise. See: Category:Italian Cemetery in Sevastopol - Wikimedia Commons

    Hearing this explanation a German member later commented that the official German CWGC body had started to negotiate a similar deal to restore German cemeteries, but exited promptly when it became clear it was the local Mafia who were the other side negotiating.

    Publicly we met hostility only once in Feodosia, who shouted at us leaving a local museum and he was told off by others. Our group was mainly German and Swiss, with a handful of English-speakers. There were then direct flights from Germany for holidays @ Yalta.
     
  15. Quarterfinal

    Quarterfinal Well-Known Member

    I hadn't seen this particular thread before and had posted pictures similar to those previously offered by Capt Bill at:
    on Can you photograph your local war memorial? (UK)
    where I had also noted the nearby grave of Lt F Schulz RAMC:
    upload_2023-1-5_20-29-26.jpeg
    I wondered what his story was, partly because another F Schultz (different spelling, but born Stettin) had been a MN crewmate of a family member, when both perished at sea in 1917, partly because I wondered if any in the nearby German grave section had also originated in Southern Bohemia and partly because I wondered if F Schulz's parents Joseph and Elsa were still in České Budějovice, or Budweis as it may have been known as at that time and as perhaps suggested at:
    https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2402469/f-schulz/
    That being the case, I also wondered if, how and when they may have learnt of his death, whilst attached to 6th Bn MANCHESTERS.

    I am presuming that F Shulz is the same as gazetted at:
    https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/35433/supplement/440/data.pdf

    In the course of looking a couple of things up, I realized that I hadn't noticed before that the German custom at military funerals was - and is - for the bearer party to wear helmets/other headwear ... and for this protocol to be adopted accordingly:
    upload_2023-1-5_21-1-17.jpeg
    as a courtesy.

    I also noted a rather curious piece at:
    World War II in Color: The German Pilots of the Bombers Heinkel He-111 and Symbolic Funeral
    which others may be interested in and someone may be able to explain?
     
  16. Mr Jinks

    Mr Jinks Bit of a Cad

    Luftwaffe airmen Fw Erich WELS (Gunner), Uffz Werner LEHNHARDT (Radio Operator), Uffz Heinz PROCHNOW (Observer) and Uffz Heinrich EWALD (Pilot?), were the crew of a Junkers Ju 88A bomber, which crashed into Brown Clee Hill in thick fog, on 1 April 1941. Their bomb load, apparently intended for Birmingham, exploded on impact. ( Luftwaffe Junkers 88A of 8/KG1, number V4+BS)

    From the CWGC archives
    52774268_10156234818401094_9188969314454077440_n.jpg

    When this photograph was taken in June 1951 these four German Second World War graves still had their temporary Commission crosses.
    Then situated in Shawbury (St Mary the Virgin) Cemetery, Shropshire the four German airmen now lie in Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery, Staffordshire.
    This picture is held in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's archive

    Associated memory here:-
    BBC - WW2 People's War - THE “NOT SO QUIET” EVACUATION

    25532196_10155224382311094_5800501251792293218_o.jpg
    This photograph from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s archive shows the original communal grave, with wooden cross and planted border, for a German Air Force crew in Fogo Churchyard, Berwickshire, Scotland.
    Soon after this was taken in June 1959 the crew were exhumed and reburied in Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery.

    On the night of March 24, 1943, pilot Paul Rogge, 32, and his three crew members died when their Junkers plane crashed at Darlingfield during a mission to attack Edinburgh.
    His crew consisted of observer Ernst Glueck, 22; radio operator Karl Brinkmann, 21; and gunner Werner Walter, 20, whose body was never found.


    https://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/news/family-appeal-for-information-on-plane-crash-2076691


    24/25.03.1943 5./KG6 Junkers Ju 88A-14 Wnr.144550 Oblt. Rogge Location: 4 miles E of Earlston, Berwickshire, Scotland.
    Mission: Attack on Edinburgh, Scotland.
    Date: 24/25th March 1943
    Time: 00.30 hours
    Unit: 5 Staffel./Kampfgeschwader 6
    Type: Junkers Ju 88A-14
    Werke/Nr.144550
    Code: 3E + MN
    Location: 4 miles E of Earlston, SE of Lauder, Berwickshire, Scotland.
    Pilot: Oberleutnant. Paul Rogge. 73045/195 Killed. (Born 05.01.1911 in Loetzen).
    Observer: Unteroffizier. Ernst Glueck. 73045/190 Killed. (Born 20.07.1920 in Geislingen).
    Radio/Op: Unteroffizier. Karl Brinkmann. 73045/191 Killed. (Born 14.09.1921 in Holzhausen).
    Gunner: Gefreiter. Werner Walter. 73045/197 Killed. (Born 12.10.1922 in Rathenow).


    Kyle
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2023

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