Vermandovillers German War Cemetery

The cemetery was created in 1920 by the French Army as a collective cemetery for German soldiers who died on the battle fields of the Somme. Apart from a few casualties from the fighting in the summer and autumn of 1914, those buried here were mainly killed in the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the Battle of Amiens, and the 1918 German spring offensive. Further remains were recovered in the first years after the war, while cleaning up the battlefields. Even to this day, when major earth movements reveal World War I-era bodies, the dead are re-interred here. The army units of those who rest in Vermandovillers derive from all countries and provinces of the former German Empire.

Of the 9,455 individual graves in this cemetery, those of 379 at rest remain unknown, while an additional 13,200 dead are interred in 15 mass graves. A famous literary figure rests in one of the mass graves; the Roman Catholic convert, war poet and Expressionist playwright Reinhard Johannes Sorge
In lieu of crosses, the graves of the 32 German Jewish soldiers were given stone markers whose Hebrew inscription reads in translation: "Here lies buried XXX. May his soul be woven into the circle of the living." The German Expressionist writer Alfred Lichtenstein, who fell fighting for the Kaiser in 1914, is by far the most famous of the 32 Jewish soldiers known to be buried at Vermandovilliers.

The mass graves are marked with heavy stone crosses and metal plaques affixed on the outer walls bearing the names of those who are known. A high forged-steel cross stands in the centre of the cemetery.

The pictures shown here were taken on 11 July 2023 using a Sony A7R IV camera body and Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM and FE16-35mm GM lenses.

The music is Josef Rheinberger’s Abendlied recorded by Voces8.