Abreschviller

Département Moselle 274 German war dead 455 French war dead First World War The Franco-German military cemetery in Abreschviller was established by the German troops for those killed in the so-called "Battle of Lorraine", which also severely affected Abreschviller itself and the surrounding area from August 20-23, 1914. In addition, there were the wounded who had died and, until 1918, other casualties from the battles about 15 km southwest of Abreschviller. During the course of the war, the local military services moved German and French casualties who had been provisionally buried in scattered field graves in five surrounding communal areas during the fighting at the beginning of the war in 1914 to Abreschviller. Those buried here belonged to units whose home garrisons were in Baden, Bavaria, Württemberg, Lorraine, Alsace and the Rhineland. Repair work between the wars The French military authorities expanded the cemetery after the end of the war by adding fallen soldiers from seven surrounding communes. They also built a joint entrance to the two cemeteries, erected a memorial and marked the French graves with concrete crosses with screwed-on name plaques. The first work on the German cemetery was carried out by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. on the basis of an agreement with the French military authorities on the treatment of joint cemeteries in 1928. They mainly concerned the planting of trees and the greening of the cemetery. The common grave was given a natural stone border. A wooden cross was erected to mark the cemetery. However, the problem of permanently marking the German graves initially remained unresolved due to a lack of foreign currency and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Final design Following the conclusion of the Franco-German War Graves Agreement on July 19, 1966, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. - with financial support from the German government - was able to begin the final design of the German military cemeteries in France from the First World War. The entire area of the German part of the cemetery was landscaped and the trees were supplemented or renewed. Volunteers from the Volksbund's youth camps were also involved in this work. in 1973, the previous temporary wooden grave markers were replaced with natural stone crosses engraved with the names and dates of those buried here. 70 fallen soldiers rest in individual graves and 204 in a common grave. The grave of a fallen of the Jewish faith was given a natural stone grave stele instead of a cross for religious reasons. The Hebrew characters read: 1. (above) "Here rests buried .... ." 2. (below) "May his soul be interwoven into the circle of the living".