The Cemetery at Langemarck
A group of German students, while on a trip to the area in 1928, noticed that the cemetery at Langemarck was in poor condition. They obtained permission to build a proper cemetery for the young heroes of the Battle of Langemarck, and the cemetery was completed in 1932. It was designed by Robert Tischler, the chief architect of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (the German war graves organization). It was opened in a ceremony in 1932 with the Nazi author Josef Magnus Wehner as the keynote speaker.
The entrance to the cemetery is through the structure seen above. Such structures were common in German cemeteries; they were known as Totenburgen, the fortresses of the dead. George Mosse, commenting on the Totenburgen, claims that "The Totenburg clearly displayed the dominance of the nation over the individual. The aggressive Germanic design was reminiscent of the medieval Trutzburgen: fortresses meant to be both a refuge and a jumping-off place to attack the enemy." Is he reading too much into this building? How does the fact that such Totenburgen were very popular with the National Socialists affect our interpretation of them?
Inside this Totenburg is a small chapel, the walls of which are covered by the names of the student dead of the Battle. Contrast this listing of names with that of the Menin Gate, which we will look at later. What can we learn from the fact that there was such a concern to list names (in previous wars, dead soldiers went quickly into oblivion, with few records, much less commemoration, of their deaths)?
"In this cemetery lie 44,061 German soldiers of the War 1914/18"
This piece of sculpture, named (I think) The Comrades, is located at the back of the cemetery. The faceless, featureless characters possibly represent the kinship of the front that carries over even into death.
The Cemetery at Langemarck - Page 2