GERMAN WWII CEMETERY
RECOGNE BELGIUM
Soldaten Graves Recogne/Bastogne
It
was the dead of winter in 1944 the German Wehrmacht began its last
desperate adventure to cut
through
the allied lines from Luxembourg to
Antwerp. From the German side it was the “Ardennes Offensive”.
From the Allied side it was the “Battle of the Bulge”. German
soldiers who fought for their country and died in the failed campaign
in the forests and fields of Belgium and Luxembourg remain buried in
the farm fields of eastern Belgium.
Three
miles north of Bastogne along the road to Noville, where one of the
more famous actions of
the campaign
took place, in the little village
of Recogne, the German Military Cemetery (Deutsche Kriegsgräberstätte/Cimetiere
Miltaire Allemand) 6,807 German war dead lie buried. About half of them
were killed in the battles around Bastogne, others were
from battles in Luxembourg, the German border area and some from 1940
and the occupation of Belgium. The cemetery is within sight of the town
of Foy where the 101st Airborne held the German assault from foxholes
in the Ardennes woods, still to be seen today. The German cemetery site
once had American dead buried virtually across the road from the German,
but the Americans were moved to the Cemetery at Henri Chapelle (see Battle
of the Bulge War Sites).
An
agreement was reached between the Kingdom of Belgium and the German
Federal Republic that an Association
of Maintenance of German War Graves
(Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsoge) would care for the
upkeep of the German soldiers graves. Unlike allied graves with a marker
for each soldier, the German cemetery has one marker for multiple soldiers.
The earliest have up to six, the others up to 3 solders names on the
low, thick gray lime-stone markers laid out in neat rows among the trees.
The cemetery is separated from the road by a low red limestone wall and
a chapel with a bell tower guards the north-west corner. Inside the chapel
are etched the names of all the dead and their location in the cemetery.
There is a custodian for the society who lives on the grounds and can
answer visitor questions.
Visiting German War Cemetery Recogne
As usual, there is no charge to visit a war cemetery, but unlike U.S. military cemeteries, the maintenance association for German WWII war graves is a private organization partly relying on donations and there is a box for contributions. No matter which side of a conflict one feels a kinship, war cemeteries remain a reminder of the terrible price of war for any side. The grave site at Recogne is only one of the German war cemeteries. The Volksbund site has a search function to locate a particular soldier's grave. © Bargain Travel Europe
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SEE ALSO:
AMERICAN MILITARY CEMETARIES IN FRANCE
WWI BATTLEFIELDS OF THE SOMME - ALBERT-PROZIERS
IN
FLANDERS FIELDS - WWI TRENCH MUSEUMS
