277 war dead from the Second World War rest on this war cemetery. 148 German 129 other A total of 1,852 dead rest on nine war cemeteries in Paderborn. 277 dead from the Second World War have found their final resting place here in the East Cemetery: 148 Germans and 129 foreigners. 148 German civilian victims of the bombing campaign are buried on the field of honor in front of the cemetery chapel, most of them in a collective grave. Forced laborers from the Soviet Union and Poland lie in the originally remote so-called "Russian cemetery": men, women and children who either also died in the bombing raid or through hunger, illness and inhumane treatment in the camps in the city area. During the war, thousands of foreign forced labourers lived in the city - the exact number is not known - who mainly worked in facilities and factories important to the war effort, but were generally deployed wherever there was a shortage of labour. The bombing raids initially targeted the airbase, the main railway station and the railroad repair works, but in the last year of the war, bombing carpets covered the entire city - for the first time on 17 January 1945. This day, as well as 22 March, when air mines fell on the city center and killed numerous worshippers, including many young people attending an evening service in the cathedral, and the last major attack on 27 March 1945 remain horrifying dates in Paderborn's history
- the Russian forced laborer who took her own life in the Borchener Straße camp on 10 June 1944 (field 20, grave no. 48)
- the parents who were buried and suffocated with their three-year-old son and thirteen-year-old daughter on March 27, 1945; (field of honor, common grave)
- to six-month-old Ryszard, a child of Polish forced laborers, and eight-month-old Ulrike from Paderborn, who were killed by a bomb in the Ostermann bunker (Driburger Straße) on the same day; (Field 20, grave no. 1, Ehrenfeld individual graves on the right, 4th grave from the top)
- to the soldier who was on leave and died together with his wife in a cellar during the last air raid on Paderborn; (Ehrenfeld common grave)
- to the fifteen-year-old schoolboy who died by a bomb in the Schwarze air raid shelter (Libori-Eck) on his way to a mission as an anti-aircraft helper; (Ehrenfeld, communal grave)
- to the Vincentian nun who died as a city nurse in the Schwarze air raid shelter; (Field 3, grave site of the Vincentian nuns)
- to the Russian girl Anna, who died of "gastrointestinal catarrh" on July 27, 1943 at the age of four months. She had lived with her parents in the Grüner Weg camp, the former labor camp for young Jews who had been deported to Auschwitz shortly before Anna's birth. (Field 20, 2nd row from the bottom, 2nd child's grave on the left)
Other war cemeteries:
- 775 victims of both world wars (288 from the First World War and 487 from the Second World War) rest in two cemeteries in the West Cemetery: Soldiers and civilian citizens, Germans and foreigners, men, women and children. The war cemetery was established in 1914.
- The foreigners' cemetery in Schloss Neuhaus-Sennelager, in the area of the Senne military training area, was established in 1914 for deceased foreign prisoners of war. Today, over 660 dead rest here; there is no exact number. Many died in the military hospitals that were attached to two prison camps during the First World War. After many of the dead had been reburied, 205 remained: 172 Russians, 26 Belgians and 7 Romanians. 130-140 unknown dead were added during and after the Second World War. Finally, all foreign war dead from the administrative district of Detmold were transferred here, 270 in total. They were mainly forced laborers and their families. They mostly came from Poland, but also from Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Belgium, France and even China and India. Among the dead are also foreign soldiers who had fought in Wehrmacht units.
- War graves can also be found at the Schloss Neuhaus forest cemetery (114 German and unknown dead from both world wars) and the municipal cemeteries in the districts of Elsen, Sande, Benhausen, Neuenbeken and Dahl.
The text was compiled by Dr. Antje Telgenbüscher, Paderborn.
