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The German military cemetery at Fricourt is the resting place for 17,027 German soldiers. They died on the Somme battlefields over the four years of the Great War, from late September 1914, when the 2nd German Army established a defensive front line in this sector, to the 1918 Battles of the Somme.

Approximately 1,000 of the soldiers lying here were killed during the early weeks of the war from late August to the late autumn of 1914, and during the trench warfare from that time through 1915 and up to June 1916.

From the beginning of the British and French Allied offensive of 1st July 1916 to the close of the battle in mid November 1916 approximately 10,000 German soldiers lost their lives on the Somme battlefields.

A further 6,000 German soldiers were killed during the large-scale German offensive - the Kaiserschlacht - of 21st March 1918 and in the battles which followed it up to October 1918.

Origins of the Cemetery

The cemetery was begun in 1920 by the French authorities. The battlefields north of the Somme river were gradually cleared of debris and dead soldiers. The bodies of German soldiers were brought to Fricourt from some 79 communes in the regions around Bapaume, Albert, Combles, the Ancre valley and Villers-Bretonneux.

It was not until 1929, with the co-operation of the French government, that the German War Graves Agency, the Volksbund Deutscher Gräberfürsorge e.V. (VDK), was able to begin work on the cemetery's landscaping and permanent architectural features. Work was stopped in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War. It was almost 30 years later, following the Franco-German Agreement of 19th July 1966, that the VKD returned to France and again to Fricourt to finish building and landscaping this First World War cemetery.

Identified Graves

Of the 17,000 burials at Fricourt only 5,057 have an individual grave. Of these 114 soldiers are unidentified. These soldiers are generally buried in a double grave at the foot of each cross. The bodies of soldiers were brought together into this cemetery from the surrounding areas and they are not buried in any sequence of time. The grave on the left at the forefront of the photograph at (1), for example, names Friedrich Wewer who died on 24th March 1916 and Otto Bluhm, who died almost exactly two years later on 27th March 1918.

The famous German pilot Baron Manfred von Richthofen, who was shot down on 21st April 1918, was first buried in Bertangles cemetery. He was moved to Fricourt German Military Cemetery but again in 1925 he was exhumed and his body was taken for reburial in Berlin.

'Gemeinschaftsgräber' - Communal Graves

The remains of 11,970 soldiers lie in four communal graves (Gemeinschaftsgräber). Of these the names of 6,477 remain unknown.

The names of those who are known to be buried in the communal graves are inscribed on metal tablets at the rear of the cemetery. The stone crosses reflect the motif of 5 crosses of the VDK. This is based on the design of the First World War cemetery - the Vier Grenadier-Grab (Four Grenadiers Grave) - built in Poland by the founder of the VDK, Dr. Siegfried Emmo Eulen.

Jewish Graves

14 graves of German soldiers of the Jewish faith are marked with a stone marker instead of the cross.

Location

The cemetery is located on the east side of the D147 road from Fricourt to Contalmaison, approximately 1 kilometre north of Fricourt village.

German War Graves

German Military graves are looked after by the German War Graves Agency Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (VDK).

Acknowledgements

Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (VDK)

Photographs

(1) © www.greatwar.co.uk 2002

(2) © www.greatwar.co.uk 2002

(3) © www.greatwar.co.uk 2002

(4) © www.greatwar.co.uk 2002

Copyright Joanna Legg & Graham Parker © 2004 All rights reserved