Quesnoy-sur-Deûle

This war cemetery is home to 1,964 German war dead from World War I. Département Nord The German military cemetery in Quesnoy-sur-Deûle was established in November 1914 by the German troops, who buried their dead here until the end of November 1916. In 1920 and 1925, the French military authorities made further burials here, including some from Comines. A field cemetery of the II. bayer. The 308 dead were given a common grave in Quesnoy. A large number of those buried here fell during the heavy fighting on Belgian soil south of Ypres in October and November 1914 (1st Battle of Flanders) and in December at Armentières. The war of position in 1915 and 1916 resulted in further heavy losses, but in 1918 only two German dead were buried here. The dead belonged to units whose home garrisons were mainly in Saxony and Bavaria, but also in Württemberg, Hesse, Mecklenburg, Silesia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, Alsace and Lorraine. At the time, the troops erected a central marker, while a memorial stone was placed on the common grave. Repair work between the warsThe first work to improve the condition of the cemetery was carried out by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. (German War Graves Commission) on the basis of an agreement reached with the responsible French military authorities in 1926.However, the problem of permanently marking the graves remained unresolved due to a lack of foreign currency and the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Final landscapingAfter the conclusion of the Franco-German War Graves Agreement on July 19, 1966, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V. - with financial support from the German government - was able to undertake the final landscaping of the German military cemeteries in France from the First World War. In addition to a thorough landscaping overhaul, the temporary wooden grave markers were replaced in 1977 with crosses made of Belgian granite engraved with the names and dates of those buried here. Of the 1,964 fallen, 1,656 rest in individual graves; 28 remain nameless. In the common grave with the 308 dead from Comines, one victim remained unnamed. The grave of a fallen of Jewish faith was given a stele made of the same material instead of a cross for religious reasons. The Hebrew characters read:1 (above) "Here rests buried.... . "2 (below) "May his soul be integrated into the circle of the living." Maintenance: The cemetery is constantly maintained by the Volksbund's maintenance service.