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"Cemetery: HAIFA WAR CEMETERY
Location Information: Haifa War Cemetery lies 3 kilometres from the central railway station on the Tel-Aviv road. From the south on Highway 4, the cemetery is on the left hand side, just before shops and Haifa docks. 300 metres after the cemetery turn left into Dugit Street. Turn left at the traffic lights and the cemetery will now be on the right hand side, 300 metres after the lights.
[Anyone coming by train from the south (e.g. Tel Aviv or its airport, etc), may get off at the Bat Gallim Station (the stop before Haifa Central) and turn left along the main thoroughfare, Jaffa Road; the cemetery is then only a five minute walk instead of the 3 kilometres mentioned above]
Historical Information: Haifa was captured by the Mysore and Jodhpur Lancers on 23 September 1918 and the 33rd Combined Clearing Hospital was moved to the town on the 15 October. Haifa War Cemetery, which was originally part of the German cemetery, was used mainly for hospital burials, but some graves were brought in from the battlefields Haifa was of great strategic importance during the Second World War because of its deep water harbour and airfield. It was also the terminus of the railway line from Egypt and of the Kirkuk-Haifa oil pipeline. Haifa became one of the main supply bases and arms depots serving the Middle East forces and a large naval depot was established at Haifa Bay. The cemetery was again used during the early part of the war until the new war cemetery at Khayat Beach was opened. Haifa War Cemetery now contains 305 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 86 of them unidentified. Second World War burials number 36. No. of Identified Casualties: 257"
Thus we see that Haifa War Cemetery was developed out of the existing German Templer Cemetery. The latter was established in 1869 to serve the newly founded Templer colony in Haifa. This Christian sect [correctly the Tempelgesellschaft or Temple Society, a pietist group from Württemberg] had come to the Holy Land from Germany and built communities at Jaffa, Sarrona, Jerusalem and Haifa between 1869 and 1873. Other settlements such as Wilhelma were established later in the years up to 1908. From 1885 onwards the Haifa colony bought additional land on Mount Carmel and in 1887 they laid a road up the mountain from the bay. In 1890 they built a small neighbourhood there, calling their new community Karmelheim. The original idea was for it to provide a summertime retreat from the heat and humidity of the bay area. There the Hotel Pross was built in 1893 and Pastor Schneider established a large hospice.
These developments came as something of a surprise to the advancing allies during WWI [from "With our Army in Palestine" by Anthony Bluett, Late of 'A' Battery, HAC & Egyptian Camel Transport Corps]
"I wonder how many people are aware of the extent to which the Germans carried their policy of "peaceful penetration" in Palestine and Syria? Whenever in our wanderings we came across a neat, modern town or village, be sure that the inhabitants were mainly German.....The language of all was German, and their extraordinary thoroughness in devising means to overcome the climatic and other difficulties of the country was also German, with the result that they waxed fat and prosperous, while the people indigenous to the soil scraped a precarious living by tending the flocks and tilling the land of the interlopers. All through the country from Gaza, where there was actually a German school, to Haifa, of which the largest and wealthiest portion of the population was German, you will find these colonies occupying almost invariably the most commanding sites and situated in the midst of the most fertile tracts of land.
It was, I think, by contrast with these prosperous places that the ruins of Palestine and Syria took on an added desolation and loneliness: you could with difficulty visualise the past splendours of a crumbling mass of mighty pillars when on the hill opposite stood a town of bijou villas with modern appurtenances.
A mournful example of this was at Athlit, the remains of whose greatness lay half-buried almost at the foot of Mt. Carmel. For a brief moment you could capture the spirit of a bygone age; the massive walls seemed to ring again with the clash of arms and the shouts of that little band of Crusaders who were fighting their last fight in their last stronghold on holy soil. Then your eyes lit on the great barrack of a German hotel on the top of Carmel, and the great fortress dissolved into a crumbling, shapeless pile at your feet."
In this German aerial view of Haifa and the north-west part of Mount Carmel which was probably taken in 1918, north is at about 4 o'clock. The regular pattern of the fields of the Templer colony can be seen at the foot of Mount Carmel, towards the right hand side. The buildings of the Templer colony lie between those fields and the rest of Haifa which is in the lower left half of the picture. The small group of buildings seen on Mount Carmel at the left edge of the picture is Karmelheim.
