German prisoners of war from the Second World War rest on the war cemetery south of the outskirts of Ahtme.
Cemetery description
A wide strip of greenery separates the area of the war cemetery, which is surrounded by coniferous forest, from the country road. A stone stele with the symbol of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (German War Graves Commission) identifies it as a prisoner of war cemetery. On the central memorial square is a high metal cross with a bilingual inscription in front of it. Stone steles to the right and left of the path give the names and dates of those buried here. Stone symbolic crosses stand on the graves.
Occupancy
The Volksbund estimates that around 35,000 German war dead died in Estonia during the Second World War. In addition, there are the soldiers who lost their lives as prisoners of war - the German Red Cross estimates their number at around 10,000. The registration of the prisoner of war cemeteries has not yet been completed.
The Soviet army ran POW camp no. 135 near Ahtme, whose inmates had to mine oil shale, among other things. More than 900 German soldiers were buried in the cemetery on the camp grounds.
History
The Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Estonia concluded a war graves agreement on October 12, 1995, which came into force on October 26, 1996. The Ahtme POW cemetery had fallen into disrepair over time. in 1999, the Volksbund restored the gravesite and had the cemetery surrounded by a fence made of wooden posts and metal bars. Since the theft of all the metal poles in 2012, the fence now only consists of wooden posts.
Bundeswehr soldiers from Schleswig-Holstein and soldiers from the Estonian army erected the six name steles on both sides of the cemetery path during a joint work assignment in 2005.
For a long time, the Volksbund's partner was the State Monument Protection Office in Tallinn. In August 2022, the Estonian Ministry of Defense took over responsibility. It delegated responsibility to the Estonian War Museum in March 2023. There are close links with the Ministry of Culture and local authorities and institutions.
Special feature
in 1989, a town twinning was established between Kohtla-Järve and Norderstedt in Schleswig-Holstein. It has survived the municipal reorganizations associated with Estonia's independence in 1991. In Norderstedt, the association "Friends of Kohtla-Järve, Jõhvi and the surrounding area" was founded in response to the changed circumstances.
