Saarbrücken, Hauptfriedhof

In Saarbrücken, 3,316 soldiers, concentration camp and bomb victims as well as foreign war dead from the First and Second World Wars and 560 dead from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 rest in cemeteries in various parts of the city. After the heavy fighting around the Spicher Heights in August 1870, the Saarbrücken city council sought a burial site for the German and French soldiers who had fallen there and bought a three-acre plot of land - the Mockental - for 400 thalers. At the suggestion of the local population, this burial ground was named Ehrental. During the war years of 1870/71, it was not easy for the city authorities to provide for the burial of the dead and for their graves. They were supported by a citizens' committee and donations from the population. Just a few days after the Battle of Spichern, the town council began researching graves and answering inquiries from relatives, both from Germany and France. However, as the names and grave locations of the fallen were only recorded in exceptional cases at the time, it was not possible to determine the exact number of dead buried here; only a small number could be identified. Many of the graves bear grave markers erected by relatives.