Walking home from work the other night thinking about Egbert's Father and Grandfather.
Wondered how the Germans remembered their War Dead. did a Google and found this of interest.
If you have anymore examples please post them here. Would be interesting to see some more.

click*German War Memorials*

As usual, there is a book out there about this sort of thing ... name escapes me, but it talks about the large German Burrial Monuments, etc.

If you think about it ... it takes a lot of time and respect to put up memorials for the losing side. America didn't do it till the "Lost Cause" was born and the Republicans decided business was more important than Freedmen ... Personally, I thought the Belgians were doing a lot for Langemark ... I wouldn't have done it ...

No matter how wonderful Egbert's Grandfather was as a person, his country invaded all the others and then lost. Do the Germans want to remember either the loss or the adventure ... I think you'll find most of the monuments are in German cemetaries, etc. and not exactly tourist attractions.

I don't think you'll find many monuments on Mainland China or anywhere in the Pacific for the Brave Japanese War dead ... We consider the German soldier as honorable (to a point) in WWI and I am not saying that the men in Feldgrau don't deserve their family's rememberence ... but a public monument would be intolerable. I mean can you imagine the Menin Gate ala The Imperial German Army down the road a bit?

Not trying to be flippent but it just doesn't happen.

I was on about the ones IN Germany.

But Langemark was built by, paid for and maintained by Germans. The land was (grudgingly) handed over (sold?) in the first place. The Belgians didn't exactly do a great deal for the cemetery unless they were paid. Nowadays, it's another "draw" for the tourists and so it, rightly, and at long last, gets the publicity it deserves.

Dave.

(PS. as for German monuments on foreign soil, you only have to take a look at the damage done to the German monuments from the 1870-71 War that exist in France. The majority have been shot at, chipped at or damaged in some other way, especially between 1872 and 1914 when the anti-german hatred was intense in some parts. Since the 1960's though, they've been more tolerated as "historical" monuments and don't recieve much abuse.)

Owen D, there is another great link with German memorials IN Germany here and also in a thread that I started some time ago here

I am glad you educated Andy that the memorial question is related to inside Germany. Andy, there is a great difference between memorial and war cemetery.


Andy there is no German memorial on foreign grounds glorifying the German invaders!!! There are cemeteries; for the salient, Langemarck is the only German one. And as our Belgium friend AOK4 (Jan) explained numerous times here, the Belgium government was extremely negligent concerning German war graves and better liked them rot into nirvana. There was no Belgium care taking until 1925. And after 1925 Langemarck was constructed, maintained and taken care of by the VdK! Now if you say the crimes of the defeated German Army does not allow for proper burial of my fallen countrymen than I can't help you -than it is an extreme personal view of hate -I can live with that!!!


I don't quite understand this sentence. Is this another outbreak of hate? The Germans want to remember their dead, it is a question of each civilization, it is respect for the ultimate sacrifice the soldiers gave. This has nothing, nothing to do with the question of guilt!!! And I don't know of any German cemetery that is a tourist magnet.


Don't be worried Andy, you will never find a public German memorial a la Menin Gate. But you cannot take our right for remembrance of the dead from WW1, WW2, all civilians killed, to include the holocaust victims = we do this each and every year in Germany at the grave of the German Unknown Soldier in Berlin "Neue Wache" as well as in every tiny community and big city at the occasion of Remembrance Day!

I remember being struck as a fairly young boy (11 or 12 years old) by the war memorial in St Goarhausen. I was on a school trip to the Rhineland & it was the first time I really appreciated the sacrifice a generation of Germans made as well. I recall the list of names being very long. Two other things about the moment stuck with me. As I stood there reading the names, an elderly lady who'd been tending a grave in the cemetery came & stood by me for a few minutes. Nothing was said & I don't suppose she even realised I was English, but she seemed pleased that someone as young as I was taking an interest. I've often wondered whether her father, brother or husband was listed on there. That memorial also made me realise that for many German families World War 2 didn't simply stop in May 1945. The dates against many of the names stretched into the late 1940's & early 1950's as well. These I assume were captives of the Soviets who never came home from the camps.

Some of the oddest german war memorials exist in places that used to be , but are no-longer Germany. One particularly stands out in my mind is the one in Malmedy where there is a list of the townsfolk who died fighting in the Kaiser's Army 1914-18 alongside those who fell with the Belgian Army of 1940-45. There are at least 2 cases of father/son names listed here where each fought and died for different armies in different wars.

I've taken quite a few photographs of such memorials from this region and Alsace/Lorraine which I'll post when I dig them out. they are usually of the Germanic style, but with added names from WW2.

Dave.

"And as our Belgium friend AOK4 (Jan) explained numerous times here, the Belgium government was extremely negligent concerning German war graves and better liked them rot into nirvana. There was no Belgium care taking until 1925. And after 1925 Langemarck was constructed, maintained and taken care of by the VdK! Now if you say the crimes of the defeated German Army does not allow for proper burial of my fallen countrymen than I can't help you -than it is an extreme personal view of hate -I can live with that!!!
I don't quite understand this sentence. Is this another outbreak of hate? The Germans want to remember their dead, it is a question of each civilization, it is respect for the ultimate sacrifice the soldiers gave. This has nothing, nothing to do with the question of guilt!!! And I don't know of any German cemetery that is a tourist magnet."

Egbert

You are right in putting forward that everyone has the right to remember it's dead, indifferent what their role in the war was.

From the viewpoint of 2006 it is surely inacceptable to let "them rot into Nirvana". But we are discussing the years in which this part of Flanders/ Belgium was completely ruined by the same Germans, and a lot of sons/ husbands/ fathers were killed in a war that no-one wanted. Understandable that there was not much interest in caring for the invaders cemeteries whilst the task of reconstructing the devastated landscape was immense.

The same with the decision for the concentration of the German cemeteries after the second war. Popularity of Germany was far below zero after a second invasion in 30 years. Indeed, the Belgian government wanted to concentrate them, but it has to be recognised also that Germany didn't object too much because it was much easier and cheaper to maintain only a few large cemeteries. So I think there was a kind of mutual interest, which could not be admitted off course, hence the efforts to blame the other side.

All this things are history now (although some older people haven't forgotten yet), but as with other discussions, these things should be seen in the context of the period in which they happend.


Erwin

This thread has got OFF TOPIC.
I wanted to see examples of MEMORIALS IN Germany and compare them to the ones we put up to our dead.
It isn't meant to be a discussion to slag off the Germans and discusss the why's and wherefores of CEMETERIES in Belgium.
If you're going to do that do it somewhere else not on this thread. Thank You.

I've visited La Cambe German cemetery in Normandy and Recogne near Bastogne. As for memorials in Germany, I saw this one in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria.





The German people are entitled to remember their war dead too. Not forgetting that in WWII alone, Germany lost an estimated 7,500,000 men, women and children.

Steve

OK then. I won't post the pictures of the German war memorials in Alsace , Lorraine and Belgium (bits that actually were parts of Germany until 1918) after all!

Dave.

Thanks Owen D. But I believe Dave should very well post them, because they must be seen in the context of genuine German memorials, in the same cultural context as those in today's Germany.
Also I'd like to clarify the link about German memorials, posted earlier here in this thread. If you click
here you are already on the memorial picture site for Germany . Just choose the state and voila are hundreds, if not thousands , of memorials inside Germany.

Wow! Excellent site, Egbert - thanks for the link.

Tom

Egbert
Thanks for the link

Regards Doug.

Egbert, Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier about that link to the site.I'd found that the other night and to get a good random selection I would enter the names of all my German friends and see what came up.
I also couldn't resist seeing how many Schumachers there were.

I'd love to see Dave's photos from the "old" bits of Germany.

Somewhat OT, I know, but New College in Oxford has a war memorial that commemorates ALL New College students killed in WW1, whatever their nationality. Though I must confess I've never seen it myself. It was erected on the orders of the Reverend Spooner, the college Warden. I rather suspect that he sympathised with the underdog, being an albino with a legendary speech impediment.

Adrian

First of all Egbert, I meant no disrespect, for I respect you a great deal. This is not an outbreak of hate, or it is not my intention, but, maybe a difference in vocabulary, etc.

I look at the German Carins (sp) and War cemetaries as something good. Langemark was moving and important for me to visit. Both Lauren and I have German ancesters. I think it very interesting that the little memorial to the Student battalions in the entrence to Langemark, was opened by who?

Germans, like the Japanese have a very fine line to try to follow here. Yes, Germany does deserve to publically mourn their war dead. But, both the war guilt and the idea that Germany lost is hard to publically proclaim in terms of "memorials." I really did mean it when I used the "Lost Cause" concept which made the Southern Memorials acceptable ... the idea that the cause was lost but one of valor and virtue was important to become generalized BEFORE the memorials would make sense. Also they were used as a focus point to hate Yankees - Much like NOT observiing the 4th of July in the south till 1900s ...

How would you construct ... not a list of names lost - which to me is both fitting and important ... but what image would you make on some monument?

I mean this sincerely ... humbly ... and with all due respect. There are WWII memorials thoughout the USA ... All sorts of public glorified images and proclamations ... How do you memorialize aggressive wars of conquest that you lost?

These men should not be forgotten - but how do you publically remember them wthout also remembering the crimes in which their gov't participated? Granted ... WWI is harder to pin down on this ... but WWII surely makes the issues clearer.

Again, I'm not trying to be nasty or hatemongering ... just trying to understand ...

Egbert,

Had a quick look at the German Memorial Project site (for which thanks) - unless I missed it, the Hamburg listings seem to be missing the main memorial (seen bottom left in attached view) at the Alster Fleet (near the Rathaus) plus another, largish, WW1 memorial in the Old Botanical Gardens, near the Congress Centre. I only saw that briefly at night. It had a freeze/bass-relief of German soldiers marching around its side.

Andy - the German memorials I have seen seem to have struck the right note. Just remembering their war dead without political overtone, and often in an 'out-of-the-way' spot. They don't trouble me.

As a comment, the memorials with soldier figures are mostly showing troops with the stahlhelm, rather than the pickelhaube. Easier to sculpt in stone?

Ian