Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The German military cemetery in Saint Quentin was established in 1914 by the German High Command at the site of a temporary military hospital. Originally conceived as a mixed burial place (German, French, British), it became a symbol after the visit of Emperor William II in October 1915, which inaugurated a monument to the dead and paid tribute to the soldiers of the three nations. The violent fighting of 1914 and the German offensive of March 1918 concentrated thousands of burials there, including those of the Prussian guard, the emperor's elite unit.

After the Armistice of 1918, the French authorities gathered in this cemetery the remains of German soldiers scattered in 98 nearby necropolises, while the French and British soldiers were transferred to nearby national cemeteries. Between the two wars, a work of beautification (plantations, aisles) was undertaken, but the lack of funds and the Second World War delayed the laying of definitive steles. It was only in 1971, following the Franco-German agreement of 1966, that bronze crosses replaced the wooden crosses.

The central monument, designed by architect Wilhelm Wandschneider in 1915, is inspired by a Doric Greek temple with a carved frieze (sword and oak crown) and inscription Requiring in pace mortui hic pro patria 1914-1918. Damaged during the war, it was restored to historical monuments in 2000. Today, the cemetery houses 6,294 individual graves (including 6 anonymous and 22 steles for Jewish soldiers) and a mass grave of 1,935 bodies. Since 2023, it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The necropolis is maintained by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, a German organisation dedicated to the preservation of war graves. The site, located on Rue de la Chaussée-Romane in Saint-Quentin (Aisne), remains a memorial to the battles of the First World War, illustrating both the violence of the conflicts and the efforts of Franco-German reconciliation.

External links