Bensheim - Soldatenfriedhof

With almost 2,000 war dead, the Bensheim war cemetery is one of the largest in Hesse. 1,385 German and 576 foreign war dead rest here. The cemetery can be traced back to various cemeteries that the American armed forces had created to bury fallen soldiers of different nationalities from the combat zones of Würzburg, Nuremberg, Heilbronn and Ludwigshafen. In 1956/57, the cemetery was expanded by the Volksbund and extended by reburials. 385 Soviet soldiers were then buried in a mass grave in the northern part of the war cemetery. These were prisoners of war who died in the Heppenheim sanatorium and nursing home, which served as a military hospital. Other graves were transferred from municipal cemeteries in the surrounding area. The war cemetery was dedicated on September 29, 1957 by the then Hessian Minister of the Interior, Heinrich Schneider.