The town of Feltre (formerly known in German as Felters) lies between Bolzano and Venice. Its surroundings give the war cemetery a very special character.
Description
A wide valley lined with wooded slopes; corn fields, vineyards, country houses and farms on hills characterize the landscape. The limestone entrance building is situated on a low hill. The names of those buried here are inscribed in an adjoining stone arbor. Crosses made of reddish-brown porphyry - a volcanic rock - mark the grave locations on the lawn.
Occupancy
271 soldiers who lost their lives in the First World War are buried here. 68 of them came from Austria.
History
Before the First World War, Italy belonged to the "Triple Alliance" together with Austria-Hungary and the German Empire. However, instead of entering the war with the Central Powers Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914, it sided with the Entente Powers - Great Britain, France and Russia - in 1915. Germany sent the "Alpine Corps" to support Austria-Hungary. From August 1916, Germany was formally at war with Italy.
Feltre was an important place behind the front, where many military hospitals were located. At the end of 1917, a German-Austrian offensive came to a halt on the Piave River and in the area of the heavily contested Monte Grappa and Monte Tomba.
For the approximately 16,000 German soldiers who died in northern Italy during the First World War, the German War Graves Commission created seven war cemeteries and dedicated them in 1939 - Feltre is one of them. Following the conclusion of a German-Italian war graves agreement in 1937, the dead were buried together in these cemeteries by the Volksbund. Today, the Volksbund looks after 14 war cemeteries in Italy.
Special feature
Small military cemeteries and scattered graves in the surrounding area were later abandoned and the remains transferred to Quero. Only the small military cemetery in Feltre remained. It is nicknamed "San Paolo" after the nearby 16th century church of the same name.
