At the end of the Second World War, the fighting also reached the Vosges. The German war cemetery in Niederbronn-les-Bains was established in the winter of 1944/45.
Cemetery description
The spa and thermal bath town of Niederbronn-les-Bains is nestled in the picturesque hilly landscape of the Vosges. The small town with just over 4,000 inhabitants belongs to the Département Bas-Rhin in the Grand Est region, formerly Alsace. The German war cemetery is located on the eastern edge of the town on the five-hectare Eyler-Hügel plateau. In the visitor room of the entrance building there are name books with details of the dead buried in Niederbronn-les-Bains. The cemetery is divided into 46 blocks. The grave crosses of the individual graves bear the names of two deceased persons on either side. Horizontal name plaques mark the location of a group grave with more than two dead.
A high cross stands in the middle of the war cemetery. Seven equally spaced stone blocks bear the names of the communities from which the fallen were transferred to Niederbronn-les-Bains. At the end of the main path is the "memorial": a round building made of red Vosges sandstone. In the middle is the comrades' grave. A stele was erected in the hall in memory of Hungarian soldiers who died in France.
Burial
The war cemetery is home to 15,458 dead from the Second World War. More than 400 of them were buried after the site was inaugurated on October 1, 1966. Among the buried soldiers are members of the SS and some convicted war criminals. Civilians and supporters of the German armed forces from 13 nations were also buried in Niederbronn-les-Bains.
History
Both Americans and Germans have been burying their dead at Niederbronn-les-Bains since 1944/45. This led to the creation of a German-American cemetery, which remained in existence until the end of the 1950s. In the departments of Bas-Rhin and Moselle, the graves of many thousands of German casualties were scattered across 774 communes in fields and meadows, roadsides and forests. In the 1960s, the decision was made to transfer the American fallen to the Saint-Avold war cemetery in Lorraine and to rebury the German fallen at Niederbronn-les-Bains.
Special feature
The Albert Schweitzer International Youth Meeting and Education Center (IJBS) is located right next to the war cemetery. The facility, where you can also stay overnight and hold conferences, offers various educational programs on historical, social and political topics. Opened in 1994, it is one of four facilities run by the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.), along with Ysselsteyn (Netherlands), Lommel (Belgium) and Golm (Germany).
