This War Cemetery is a German military cemetery on the northeastern edge of Weeze. It contains the graves of 2,016 war dead from World War Two. On 10 September 1950, Weeze War Cemetery was inaugurated by the first Federal President of Germany Theodor Heuss and formally handed over to the municipality.
The battle for Weeze
After the invasion of Normandy on June 6th 1944 and the advance through France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, the Western Allies had come to the doorstep of Germany. The ground war moved to German soil and the regions of the Lower Rhine and the Eifel became the scene of fierce fighting. Although forced in retreat, the German Army was not about to surrender.
In February and March 1945 the Allies launched Operation Veritable and the fighting on the Lower Rhine reached its peak. Towns and villages changed hands several times. In Weeze, bitter house-to-house fighting took place between 28 February to 2 March 1945, after which the German troops withdrew eastward. During the battle eighty percent of the town had been destroyed.
Although the Allied burial units interred the fallen soldiers they found, hundreds remained unburied in forests, fields, meadows, and beneath the rubble of destroyed houses. When the people of Weeze returned to the town in august, they took care of the recovery of the dead and the maintenance of their graves. The municipality of Weeze had all existing graves recorded.
The Sandberg
For the establishment of a permanent war cemetery, the Von Loë family of the nearby Schloss Wissen, generously donated a two-hectare area known locally as the “Sandberg.” During the war, the “Sandberg” was heavily contested and changed hands several times.
Visit
Today, the cemetery is maintained by the German War Graves Commission (Ger: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge). The grounds are opened to the public during the daytime.
