The Neuville-St Vaast German War Cemetery is a

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

cemetery located near

Neuville-Saint-Vaast Neuville-Saint-Vaast is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France. It is located south of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial dedicated to the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The Memorial was built on Hill 145, t ...

, a small village, near

Arras Arras ( , ; pcd, Aro; historical nl, Atrecht ) is the prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais Departments of France, department, which forms part of the regions of France, region of Hauts-de-France; before the regions of France#Reform and mergers of ...

Pas-de-Calais Pas-de-Calais (, " strait of Calais"; pcd, Pas-Calés; also nl, Nauw van Kales) is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments ...

, in Northern France. It is the largest German cemetery in France, containing 44,833 burials, of which 8,040 were never identified.

Establishment

The cemetery was established by the French Government in 1919 as a collective facility for German Empire war dead whose battlefield graves and graveyards lay scattered directly to the north, east and south of the Arras region. It is now administered by the

German War Graves Commission The German War Graves Commission ( in German) is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of German war graves in Europe and North Africa. Its objectives are acquisition, maintenance and care of German war graves; tending to next of kin; youth ...

- ''Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge'' (V.D.K.).

Construction & Administration

Unlike the war cemeteries for Allied casualties, which generally lie with an open aspect, highly visible in the landscape about them, with imposing edifice memorials to mark their sites, the German cemetery near Neuville-St. Vaast is discreetly designed and more understated. Located amidst the farming fields of the rolling Artois landscape, it is screened from the outside by an earth embankment planted with tall hedges, which mostly obscures it from its surroundings. There is no central building, but a small chapel at the gateway which holds directories that list alphabetically the names of the soldiers' bodies that are interred within the cemetery, identifying the plot and section for each grave and providing a map showing their location. Between 1975 and 1983 the VDK completely reorganized the cemetery, replacing deteriorating wooden crosses that previously marked the graves with new ones made of metal with engraved specifics: Name, Rank and Date of Death. Each cross lists four individual names, since it is the location marker for four graves in the plot it stands over. Within the cemetery there are 129 stone grave markers, of a different design from the uniform metal grey cross, displaying the

Star of David The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the ''seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorative ...

for the graves of Jewish-German soldiers who fell in action fighting for Imperial Germany. A World War I battlefield stone war memorial, fashioned originally by the men of Hanoverian Infantry Regiment Nr.164, was relocated into the cemetery's grounds post-war. Several small dug-out fortifications still exist within the cemetery's perimeter, relics from the fighting that raged across the area in World War I.

Other war cemeteries around Neuville-Saint-Vaast

In the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais there are more than 700 war cemeteries of all participating nations in the world war. Around Neuville-Saint-Vaast these are:Photographie Cimetières militaires/62 - Neuville Saint Vaast
* Notre-Dame-de-Lorette * Nécropole nationale de la Targette * La Targette British Cemetery - Neuville-Saint-Vaast * Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery - Souchez * Cimetière tchécoslavaque/polonais - Neuville Saint Vaast * Two Canadian cemeteries at the nearby

Canadian National Vimy Memorial The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is a war memorial site in France dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers of the First ...

as well as numerous others in the surrounding countryside.

Sources

External links

{{Commons category, Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof Neuville-Saint-Vaast, Neuville-St Vaast German war cemetery
German war Cemetery at la Maison-Blanche-Neuville-Saint-Vaast.
* (de

* (de) ttp://www.mehrow.de/Aktuelles/2012/Soldatenfriedhof_Neuville.html Auf dem Soldatenfriedhof in Neuville-St. Vaast (1914-1918)
Photos of German war Cemetery Neuville-Saint-Vaast
World War I cemeteries in France German War Graves Commission Cemeteries in Pas-de-Calais World War I in the Pas-de-Calais 1919 establishments in France