German war graves

[Trenchrat]

Hi,

I believe someone mentioned a book on the French desecrating German war graves on the Somme. Could someone tell me the books title and author? The book sounds both sad and interesting.

[egbert]

T'was me! But it is written in German language :Die franzoesischen Graeberschaendungen an der Somme, Tatsachen, Eindruecke, Dokumente from Joachim Kuehn, Berlin 1919

I am just reading it, lots of images of deliberately destroyed memorials to the dead and graves. most destruction (not due to direct war impacts, but human destruction behind the front) in Chauny, Peronne, Flavy-le-Mertel, Pargny, Croix-moligneaux, Solente, Ognolles, Languevoisin, Mesnil-St.Nicaise, Amy, Bethencourt, Campagne, Esmery-Hallon, Hombleux, Freniches, Punchy, Beauchies, Oestres, Fonches, specially devastated in Roye, Bapaume and Nesle. The actions can be traced back to a French proclamation for desecration of German memorials and war graves by infamous government backed journalist "Lavedan" that was published in all French papers. The book shows a lot of beautiful big and small coy-, Bn- and Birigade memorials as well as mass graves and single graves smashed by the adrenalized public.

[Trenchrat]

Hi Egbert,

Thanks for the reply. That's so sad isn't? It reminds me of stories I read in The Sun newspaper some years back, of the French desecrating English war graves. That made me so angry and I'm not even English! You go over there to help them out and this is the thanks you get. It made me wonder if the French did the same to American war graves. Do you know if the graves were ever restored or were the remains sent back home to Germany?

[egbert]

Do you know if the graves were ever restored or were the remains sent back home to Germany?

A definite NO!

In France the work of burying/finding isolated graves/reburials etc was done under the authority of the French "Etat Civile". I have a primary source in my hands here "Das Unsichtbare Denkmal" =Eng.: The Invisible Memorial, authors Maxim Ziese and Herman Ziese-Beringer, page 59 and following:

They say that the Etat Civile per official regulation forbid the relocation/reburial of Germans to Germany for a period of 5 years after the war. It is said that France counted with diminishing demands of NOK to relocate sons and fathers to Germany because they did not want to reserve trains/wagons for relocation, as -amongst other reasons -transport capacity in France was so limited. The French authorities counted on the fact that after 5 years the German relatives would rather let their NOK rest in France. So it was per regulation not even not desired -no it was forbidden. In this book the authors tell some events where German NOK bribed the Etat Civil in order to bring back their NOK in private cars -but that was certainly only for the wealthy and were isolated cases.

Just finished reading the book about the organized desecration of German memorials and war graves. Pretty annoying pictures depicted. Henri Lavedan , the originator of the movement to destroy the German single graves, mass graves and memorials to the dead, erected by German occupant forces in France, announced that "it is the duty of the French military and each single soldier to destroy the German graves" , he called it the battle beyond death and his essays were dropped by air leaflets and were published in military and public papers nation wide. He said also" the sole generosity of the French nation towards the dead of the enemy is shown by the fact that the German dead only may rest in French soil as a fertilizer, nothing more!"

I did not know these facts and I think I understand today the absence of all the German memorials to the dead which are so often mentioned and shown in pictures in the regimental histories.

[SiegeGunner]

It reminds me of stories I read in The Sun newspaper some years back, of the French desecrating English war graves.

Isolated incidents of vandals or extremists damaging war graves/memorials in France do not amount to 'the French desecrating English war graves'.

Regarding the destruction of German graves and memorials immediately after the War, it is perhaps understandable that 'the French' should have wanted to remove German memorials (especially if inscribed in heroic or triumphal terms) from prominent locations in their liberated areas, but sad that some should have been so embittered as to seek to avenge themselves on the individual graves of the German war dead. Historically, when such things are done, they are usually done by people other than the soldiers who actually fought against the defeated enemy.

I would be surprised if immediately post-war accounts of these events were entirely accurate and completely objective, but the disappearance of memorials known to have existed, and the intense concentration of German burials do tell their own story.

Egbert — do you have any of these sources in a form you could e-mail to me? If so, I'd be grateful for a copy — or, if not, perhaps a pointer to more recent material on these events. Thanks in advance.

Mick

[egbert]

Mick, both referenced books are available through public libraries. Nowadays they are interlinked with each other and you may obtain the books from Germany via your local library. Both books are referenced one here in this thread, the other is "Das Unsichtbare Denkmal" (=Eng.: The Invisible Memorial), authors Maxim Ziese and Herman Ziese-Beringer

Sorry no electronic copies.

P.S. I suggest the latter the more interesting

[Trenchrat]

Hi Egbert,

Thanks for the reply. Mick you may not consider isolated incidents to be 'the French desecrating English war graves', but I do. The people doing these isolated incidents were French and they were damaging and or destroying English war graves,so as I said the French were desecrating English war graves and showing how ungrateful they were and are for the sacrifices made for them.

[SiegeGunner]

Mick you may not consider isolated incidents to be 'the French desecrating English war graves', but I do. The people doing these isolated incidents were French and they were damaging and or destroying English war graves,so as I said the French were desecrating English war graves and showing how ungrateful they were and are for the sacrifices made for them.

Trenchrat,

By the same token, 'the Americans' got a friend of mine's aunt pregnant in 1944.

The outrage you refer to was committed by a tiny number of people, possibly as few as one, 'in protest' at British support for US action in an unpopular military adventure of the time. Despite French ambivalence about the said 'adventure', the outrage was roundly condemned by French officialdom and evoked widespread public anger and revulsion.

Quite separately, 'the French' probably are ungrateful, but that is a different and more complex issue that is largely outside the scope of this Forum.

Mick

PS. Thanks, Egbert — I'll pose the challenge to my local library.

[Trenchrat]

Mick,

I'm sorry for your friends aunt,but what does that have to do with the French or anyone else damaging war graves? You're comparing apples to oranges.

[SiegeGunner]

You're comparing apples to oranges.

More likely cherries, actually, but my point is perfectly clear — the actions of a small number of people living in France, who may not even have been French citizens, cannot reasonably be attributed to 'the French'.

[egbert]

Sorry to interrupt both of you in your little feud. I want to clearly restate that the desecration of German war graves and war memorials was French government backed, systematic and wide scale! I have mentioned earlier the main sites destroyed (and captured in the book), in the cases of big memorials to the dead -this was only possible with the support of heavy machinery.... NO single isolated events!

[SiegeGunner]

Apologies, Egbert. The isolated incidents referred to were recent, and I was responding to Trenchrat's assertion that such acts could be attributed to 'the French' as a whole. I've made my point on that issue and do not intend to revisit it.

I am aware that after WW1 the French government pursued a very different policy towards German graves and memorials from that which it applied to those of its allies, and I intend to look further into the subject, starting with the sources you have kindly cited. I think you know that I am not someone whose instant reaction is 'What did the Germans expect — after all, they started it'. But I am interested in both sides of the story, and I will also try to find sources that put the French viewpoint. Ideally, I would also like to read an independent account, perhaps from someone associated with the IWGC who observed the events and recorded their thoughts.

If Terry Denham is following this thread, I wonder if he knows of any suitable sources?

Finally, for interest, what policy did the French government take towards German graves and memorials after WW2, and if it was different to that pursued after WW1, is it known why? Hopefully that question will not be deemed off-topic.

Mick

[egbert]

So with this explanation everybody who asked where the German memorials to the missing etc - (a la Menin Gate or Thiepval) - are located, knows the answer.

Here are some of the many pics from the book:

Destroyed:

[egbert]

destroyed:

[egbert]

destroyed:

[egbert]

remember, these memorials have not been destroyed due to war/battle effects

[egbert]

Example from Nesle. The German war grave section was hidden deliberately behind canvas and thus seperated from the French graves and - destroyed

Nesle

[egbert]

a macabre joke with the dead

[egbert]

Chauny Before:

Chauny After

[Northern Soul]

Egbert,

The caption on the lower photo in your last post says that it was a Daily Mail photograph from 1917 - this would make it retribution that occurred during the war rather than after it in this case - although I don't doubt what you say.

Did these larger memorials actually bear names or were they just memorials? Out of interest how many German war dead on the Western Front actually have identified graves and what percentage of the total killed on the Western Front is that i.e. how many are missing?

Best wishes.

Andy.

[egbert]

Andy 1917 is confirmed. Lavedans essays were published in May 1917, his most hatred was published in the renown papers "Illustration" on May 12th 1917. First destruction of graves occurred after the withdrawal of the Germans back to the Hindenburg line.

I have no answers on your other questions -sorry!

[SiegeGunner]

Chauny Before:

Chauny After

Egbert,

Did you check out the prior history of Chauny before you posted this pair of May 1917 pics?

The 'after', pic is captioned 'Dasselbe Monument nach der Besetzung von Chauny durch den Franzosen' = 'The same monument after the occupation of Chauny by the French'?

On first reading, the use of the word 'Besetzung/occupation' to describe the liberation of a French town by French forces seems almost surreal. What it actually means, however, is 're-occupation', because the French were able to re-enter Chauny without a fight, following the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line. And if you google 'Chauny' and 'Hindenburg Line', you will readily find a large number of accounts in English and French, including some (in translation) by German journalists present at the time, describing the evacuation of the population and the dynamiting and systematic destruction of Chauny by German pioneers in March 1917 in advance of the German withdrawal.

I assume that the Germans did not blow up their own memorial, so, after the population of Chauny had been driven into the Le Brouage district and the rest of the town had been dynamited, their imposing memorial was left as one of the few structures still standing.

I have not yet started to seek out the sources you mentioned, but if any more of the 'desecrations' of monuments/memorials turn out to have a similar background, I am going to find it hard to muster a lot of sympathy — although, whatever, the circumstances, I shall continue to deeply regret the destruction of the graves of individual soldiers.

Mick

[egbert]

Mick if you really think I am trying to justify war crimes you are utterly wrong. War crimes unfortunately were a daily business at all fronts and cannot be justified.

And it is not beyond my imagination that the population of the occupied countries were not in favor of the enemy.

My purpose with this thread is strictly to show the disrespect to the dead, who cannot defend their right of resting in peace anymore. My purpose is to show why there might be so many missing and unknown German soldiers in France.

My intention here is to convey that death should be respected as such. Many soldiers have committed war crimes, many did not - let the lord sort them out when they knock at his door.

War grave desecration is not to be excused. Fight the enemy and let the dead R.I.P.

I suggest you read Lavetan's proclamations and tell us about your point of view with respect of desecration of German war graves. I know enough of German war crimes , but I did not know anything about the German war graves' desecration. And I do not like this subject to become a matter of "sympathy because of..." as you expressed yourself.

[SiegeGunner]

Egbert,

I agree entirely with your sentiments. I have said on more than one occasion in this thread that I am saddened by and deeply regret the desecration of war graves, whatever the motivation of the perpetrators. Likewise, I am well aware of your even-handed condemnation of war crimes.

You did, however, post 'before' and 'after' photos of the imposing German memorial at Chauny, purporting to be an example of gratuitous destruction/desecration by the French, without either the source author or yourself mentioning that the French action in May 1917, when they returned in the wake of the German retirement to the Hindeburg Line, followed the forced evacuation of the population and systematic destruction of Chauny in March 1917 by German engineers preparing for their withdrawal. leaving the German memorial standing intact amid the ruins of the town. In those circumstances, with the war still raging, it is not exactly surprising that the aggrieved French vented their anger on the German memorial — which, for the avoidance of doubt, was a monumental structure, not a war grave.

I prefer to think that you were unaware of these circumstances when you selected the example of Chauny — the alternative would be to believe that you had deliberately been 'economical with the verité', and I do not think you would consciously do such a thing.

Regarding the question of 'sympathy', I used that word in relation to the destruction of a monument (not graves) and the fact that I find it difficult to bring myself to condemn the French for damaging or destroying such a structure when faced with the wholesale demolition of an entire town.

The destruction/desecration of graves is a quite different issue. It is apparent from the present-day concentration of German burials in a comparatively small number of cemeteries, often in vast collective graves — compared with wartime photos of numerous German cemeteries with individual graves, often with grave 'furniture' of almost peacetime quality — that a draconian process of concentration was implemented, and not by the Germans themselves. Beyond that, I do not know the details, but intend to find them out.

I have in mind the fact that the British also concentrated their dead after the war, and that this sometimes involved the 'transplantation' of entire cemeteries and the replacement of wartime grave markers with standardised headstones. In some cases this no doubt involved the removal and disposal of quite elaborate grave 'furniture', but that was not characterised as 'desecration' because it was done by the countrymen of the dead.

I hope this clarifies my position. Despite my misgivings about the issue of the treatment of monuments, I intend to find out more about the treatment of German war graves in formerly occupied territory.

Without irony, and in the spirit of friendship, I am very glad that your own grandfather's grave is in the care of the CWGC.

Mick

[bmac]

For information, the small German cemetery at Achiet le Petit near Puisieux has been vandalised (the cross broken and the memorial register burnt) on at least two occasions over the years I have visited it. I reported the vandalism once but to no immediate effect as it was in the same condition a year later.

In my search for German casualties from 1.7.16 I did manage to photo every page of the register some time ago.

Although I deplore the damage done to this memorial, if someone is so offended by the presence of a German military cemetery on French soil in the year 2000 (or so) that they vandalise it, one can only imagine the reaction of the French to such memorials (clearly on a far grander scale than at Achiet) in 1917-1919. The desecration of individual graves is one thing, but I am not at all surprised that these large memorials were destroyed whatever the circumstances and whenever the timing.