War graves week cwgc - Germany

https://www.cwgc.org/war-graves-week/

Wonder around the cwgc cemeteries of ww1 and ww2 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome to Beater Battlefield. This week, the 16th to the 24th of May 2026, Marks War Graves Week. This is a very special week in the life of the Commonwealth Wargraves Commission. All over the world, there are three events tasking and showing the different types of work that the Commonwealth War Graves do. Formerly, the Imperial War Graves Commission, it was created in 1917 for something that was completely new in the history of warfare. Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, there had been no fought for the dead, but with the mass numbers of men dying during the First World War, it was seen fit that these men needed to be remembered. And all those years later, we're still doing a great job. So, in this series of episodes, I've picked some of my favourite cemeteries to go to, but we're going to do some of the different countries. The Commonwealth War Graves looks after 1.7 million graves around the world in over 150 countries at 2,500 purpose-built cemeteries, and in the UK alone, there's 170,000 Commonwealth War Graves that you can find in every little churchyard and major cemetery. So I hope you enjoy. Hello, and in this episode, we're going to cover Commonwealth War Graves in Germany. Of course, over the two conflicts there would be a large number of prisoners taken back to Germany, but also we need to remember that the borders changed several times throughout that century. Especially in Poland. As for us, Remembrance Day is the 11th of November. For the Poles, the 11th of November is their Liberation Day. They would fight against the Germans after the armistice to try and gain their independence. But Germany, prior to the outbreak of the First World War, was made up of different districts and boroughs. And what would eventually happen is Germany would be cut up into different sections, and the war dead from all the different prisoner of war camps and all those minute burials from air crew who d who fell all over Germany will be amalgamated into larger cemeteries throughout Germany. There are 32,000 Commonwealth war graves in Germany, of which six and a half thousand are First World War, mostly prisoners of war from that period, and some in the British Army of Occupation in 1919. But there's twenty-five and a half thousand Commonwealth War graves from the Second World War, the largest of which is the Reichwald Forest, which in those final fighting days across the Rhine would cause severe casualties from the Christmas up until May 1945. There's also the Berlin War Cemetery, which contains mainly air crew who died in that s that eastern part of Germany. And it's a wonderful cemetery to go to. It's hard to say when you say wonderful cemeteries to go to. But for there, for me, I found some quite perfect peace there. And each row has its own story to tell. And if you are interested in Bomber Command during the Second World War, please look up the International Bomber Command Centre up in Lincoln. Their website is absolutely amazing. And if you are researching air crew, you can pinpoint what action where they were flying to at the time. And I always find it really interesting when I take groups to uh Berlin War Cemetery to stand there, and you can actually give a face behind the Portland stone. And it's something that I do in any country I go to, just trying to tell an individual story of someone who's there. I have covered several German cemeteries, and it's um which if you want to go in the back catalogue, you can get a bit more of a finite way of looking at these. But wherever you go, all over Germany, um, you will find these large concentrated areas. But what you need to remember is when you come to these cemeteries, these are very similar to the concentration cemeteries that we know in uh on the Western Front. In the post-war period, obviously the Commonwealth War Graves have a large task to do. They've got 1.7 million graves to look out look after all over the world, so it was seen fit after the Second World War to amalgamate these graves into one and also after the first world war, so it'd be easier for them to tend to. And also with the pilgrims, I'm pretty sure there would still have been um mothers and fathers who'd want to go and see their sons' graves, even though they were in the former area of the war, that they'd want to go to a central spot, and obviously, all the blokes want to be buried amongst their mates. When you go to Berlin, it's quite interesting because obviously after the Second World War, Germany and Berlin itself would be cut up into all those different sectors. So there are two cemeteries, Commonwealth Wargrave Cemeteries, located in Berlin. The uh the 1939-45 War Cemetery, which is located not too far from the Olympic Stadium, and between Berlin and Spandau, there's the South Western Cemetery, which is all First World War. However, that would find itself under the Iron Curtain in the post-war period, but the Commonwealth War Graves were still allowed to go and tend to that land, which I find really, really interesting. And that particular cemetery, I was there a couple of months ago, and it's just in a clearing in some woods, which I thought, well, why on earth is this here? You know, if they've just given us a duffed bit of land, but it's actually attached to a other German cemetery, which once you start walking through these pine forests, you start to see the headstones appearing in the areas. And in Germany, many of the um many of those larger cemeteries are uh are more or less national parks. And when I was trying to do some some TikToks in the the British First World War cemetery, just doing a bit of actual face-to-the-camera stuff, something that I don't normally do, I found that quite a lot of the locals use the Commonwealth Wargrave Cemetery as a little stop-off on their hikes, as it's probably the only place in the area that's got a decent bench. And that might sound a little bit disrespectful, but when the Commonwealth Wargrave cemeteries were designed, and every single one of them had a certain designer, and when you go to these cemeteries, no two are the same, they've all got their own little bits, and you'll quite often find what everyone refers to as the bus stop, bus shelter, when you come to these cemeteries, which is all part of the design because when the pilgrims were going over to go and see these cemeteries, they needed a place to sit, and obviously in later years the veterans were getting older, so you do find quite a few with disabled access. And obviously, for those who are injured in war wanting to see their comrades, they don't have enough places for them to sit and ponder. And it just comes back to the old ways of what cemeteries were actually built for. You know, it wasn't uncommon during the Victorian period for people to have picnics around the graves of a loved one, and it's interesting how all nations have different ways of representing their dead and remembering their dead. In Germany, if we go to, for example, Cologne War Cemetery, that is a that's a combination of First World War and Second World War. If you go to Hamburg, there are two different plots: there's the First World War plot and the Second World War plot. But in Cologne, what I found was particularly interesting is you've got this mass field of silent city of these white headstones side by side, and it's absolutely surrounded by war dead from the first and second world war of the German army. And if you go to one of the if you go to the First World War German plot, just next to Cologne British War Cemetery, you find three or four Indian soldiers. Now, as I said, after the war the graves were dug up and they were placed into that communal cemetery, but there are three Indians who were sat there with the German war dead. And for a little while you ponder why is this the way it is. But quite a lot of the uh quite a lot of th those from the Indian Army who were captured during the First World War, they did become oddities and local celebrities in their own right. Many of the Gurkhas, the Nepalese who were uh who were taken, they were they were interviewed by the Germans, and maybe perhaps one day we can find those recordings, because they they we have got talk of those recordings of those of those men. But they actually remain amongst the war dead there because the Germans respected that they want they needed to be cremated, so you couldn't actually physically bring up any human remains. So their Commonwealth War Graves sit there amongst their German counterparts, because as the German war dead were coming back from the Western Front, they would obviously be buried amongst those men there. When studying these cemeteries, a amazing tool, and this is what you'll find on the these talks, or I'm doing a talk every day this week as part of War Graves Week for the Commonwealth War Graves. I'm going to give you little tips on what to look out for in your research. So if you get a chance, download the Find a Grave app, and it is a a wealth of knowledge, and it's where families are adding their own personal stories, and we can find these personal stories of these men. And of course, if you do visit a Commonwealth War Graves cemetery, have a look at the app and see if anyone's put a request in. And when I've going across Germany, because some of these cemeteries are in the middle of nowhere and they aren't on a tourist route, as sad to say, I mean, when we use the term tourist route, there are many cemeteries on the Western Front which are on tourist routes, which everyone will go to, but I always try and make a point of going to those smaller cemeteries off the beaten path and try and remember these men because for some, someone may have never visited their grave. Though I will say, if you're visiting any cemetery in Germany, please do your pre-planning. When I got to Hamburg, and the cemetery isn't too far from the airport, but the cemetery is that massive that you need to get a bus to go around it, and the Commonwealth War Graves are based right at the back of the cemetery. So please have a look at your bus times and plan it to get yourself up to that particular cemetery. And that is a very vast cemetery, and you do find in many of these cemeteries out in Germany, you'll find the not private memorials, what do we call there, or special memorials where perhaps an air crew or there was a prisoner of war camp which they had the cemetery, but it's in since been lost, so these men will forever be remembered. I sadly couldn't get into the personal memorial at Cologne because it was locked up on that day. But very similar to you find on the Western Front, you'll find screen walls that remember those who sadly we haven't got their remains, but we know they're buried somewhere out in Germany. There were many prisoner of war camps during the First World War, and very sadly many men would die of their injuries or disease. If you're studying a soldier who was taken prisoner during the First World War, please look up the Red Cross World War I prisoners records. They are an absolute amazing wealth of information. Quite often, when I'm doing research for people, people have no clue of where their relative was captured, where they died, and these German records, as Germans do very, very well at records, they have um whereabouts they were actually captured, so you can find out the battle, what they're involved in, and then you can follow them through their time of work as part of those prisoner of war camps. And if they've perished, we can sometimes find out what they actually died of. But also look up the British newspaper archives because that comes with a huge wealth of information as letters were going back and forth, and you can tell the tales of those men who were taken as prisoners of war during the First World War. And of course, thousands upon thousands of men in the March of 1918 would be captured as part of the Kaiserslacht Operation Michael. And there are so many stories of those 18-year-olds in 1918 who had only been on the front for 24 hours before being captured and taken into Germany. So that's a really interesting part. If you are studying it, you do want to have a bit of if you want to have any background knowledge, please just chuck us an email, chuck us a message. You can text message me through here, but I can't get your name and number. But if you do want to research soldiers of the First World War who taken prisoners of war, it's always a good way to start. And that's how I discovered most of it by researching these men who are buried mainly in Cologne and also those in Hamburg as well. What's also very interesting about Cologne Southern Cemetery is there are men from the British Army of Occupation which we can research, and going through the newspaper archives, we found cases where some soldiers have been accidentally killed, and there are actual ch cases where they've been deliberately murdered by the local populace. But it's where I want to bring you on to a little story of uh Private Charles Victor Chin. Now, sorry, sadly, he no, not sadly, he didn't uh he wasn't murdered by the Germans. Um but I want to tell you about a little project that a friend of mine's currently doing at the moment, uh Marie, who is a local to Cologne and uh has studied and started making a film about one of the young soldiers at uh Cologne Southern Cemetery. Private Charles Victor Chin was a member of the Royal West Kent Regiment, and he would die of wounds on the 3rd of October 1915, and he was only 17 years old, and she's currently making a little film as part of her school project about this young lad and thinking about him there. And it's these little crisscross paths of the Great War where you meet people who have the interest, and everyone's got their own independent interests about the Great War, but we all come together and we've all got our own little interests that we all uh all go and study and see. But Cologne Southern Cemetery is very vast, and I do I took my mum over there a little while ago, and it was a wet February weekend, and uh thank God she uh thankfully she does appreciate what I do, and she came and had a little wander around that cemetery there, and there are a couple of videos on there in TikTok, but I didn't get much of a chance to spend a good bit of time there. And sadly, when you are at the mercy of time, you haven't got time to study these cemeteries. But where I can, I'll try and do as much work as I can about these silent cities of the Great War. As for Second World War graves, there are many men. There are some isolated graves in Germany where prisoners of war were taken on the long walks, and they sadly perished on those walks, and they were buried by the local populace, and there are some isolated graves, but the majority of the graves we find are buried in independent in the sorry in the main concentration cemeteries. I did mention earlier about the Indian soldiers at uh Cologne Cemetery, however, there are quite a few independent German burial ground uh not German, so independent Indian burial grounds that you find all over the world, and it's obviously in respect to their culture and how they treat the dead that you find these isolated cemeteries here, there, and everywhere. Now, if anyone's researching air crew that died during the Second World War, just have this in your mind to remember. So Hanover and the Berlin War Cemetery have got a large amount of air crews, and you'll actually find air crews in all these major cemeteries. If you know you had a relative who died over Germany and you can't find their grave in Germany, then they'll be on the Running Mead Memorial to the Missing, not too far from Windsor, which covers all those air crew who perished during the first during the Second World War and have no known graves. Those who died over Europe and over the sea, they're remembered on the Running Mead Memorial to the Missing, so that's your next point of call if you can't find a grave for air crew. But also on that Running Mead Memorial are quite a few members of SOE, the Special Operations Executive, who um were the spies, Churchill's little private army, who came into occupied Europe and would try and see off the fascists, and sadly, many of them would be arrested, and several of them would be taken to prisoner of war camps and some to concentration camps. So when you visit uh Dachau, there's um Nor Kahn, she was murdered there. Uh Ravensbrook concentration camp. There were several members of SOE who were murdered there, and they're remembered on the Running Mead Memorials to the Missing, and also the Brookwood Memorial for those who are part of the army. And I will make a make a I have made a podcast about Brookwood, but I'm going to go there this week. And I'm actually going to go and do a parade uh do a go on a tour, gonna be a tourist for a day next Thursday to go and have a look around Brookwood, which I haven't been to for a couple of years. There are also several commandos who were uh who were murdered at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin, and they're remembered on various different memorials from there. So just remember if you're studying someone who died in Germany or anywhere in Europe and they have no known grave, they may be remembered back in the United Kingdom. There are also several graves of Commonwealth War Graves gardeners who have died in Germany, and in the fall of France in 1940, many of the, as it would have been then, the Imperial War Graves gardeners were arrested, as many of them were British citizens and they were put into internment camps at Lambsburg and several other sites, and those who died in those camps are buried in these cemeteries. There's 24 in Krakow, which we'll uh we'll cover in the Polish episode, but there is so much rich history to go to, and even though for most parts you're in deepest Germany, such as Berlin or Hamburg, places that weren't obviously Hamburg was liberated by the British in May 1945, but we wouldn't get to Berlin until after the war. So if you're ever in Berlin, just remember you've got two Commonwealth Wargraves cemeteries you can visit, and there is a third one quite a fair distance away, which was an Indian burial plot which was sadly destroyed by the Russians uh in the Cold War period, but it has since been rebuilt. I hope you enjoy these videos and sorry not videos, I hope you enjoy these podcasts, and please look up um Wargraves Week, which is this week, and look at any of the work the Commonwealth Wargraves do. And if you want to, for three pounds a month, you can join the Commonwealth Wargraves Foundation, which is the charity branch of the Commonwealth Wargraves, and you'll receive newsletters about the different events all over the world.