Soldiers of the Great War
The soldiers named at Fricourt German Cemetery died on the Somme battlefields over the four years of the Great War, from late September 1914, when the German Second Army established a defensive front line in this sector, to the spring and summer Battles of the Somme in 1918.
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 Somme offensive of 1 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, called the “Kaiserschlacht” by the German Army, from 21 March 1918 and in the battles which followed it up to October 1918.
History of the cemetery
The cemetery was established by the French military authorities in 1920 and concentrates burials from "some 79 communes in the regions around Bapaume, Albert, Combles, the Ancre valley and Villers-Bretonneux". About 5,000 of the burials are mostly in shared double graves; the remainder lie in four communal graves.
Among those buried there at one time was the famous German fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, who was killed on 21 April 1918 in aerial combat and buried with military honours by the British. Later his remains were transferred first to Fricourt, then to the Invalidenfriedhof Cemetery in Berlin, and finally to a family plot in Wiesbaden.
The German War Graves Commission started landscaping the cemetery from 1929, at the time working on the German military grave registration service.
At this time the cemetery received a new entrance with stairs and wrought-iron gate and trees and bushes were planted. The community graves got a verge made of natural stone and a planting with game roses. A wooden high cross served as central mark; however the problem remained of a durable marking for the graves due to foreign exchange shortage. In 1939 the start of the Second World War saw a suspension of the work.
After the conclusion of the French-German war grave agreement from 19 July 1966 the German War Graves Commission could begin German military grave registration service with the final organisation of the German military cemeteries in France from the time of the First World War.
Starting from 1977 the provisional wood grave markers were exchanged with those made of metal with raised names and dates, where possible. The German Federal Armed Forces took over the construction of the concrete foundations necessary for setting up the metal crosses, which were shifted mostly by participants in youth camps.
Some 5,057 are buried in single graves, with 114 remaining unknown. Four communal graves contain 11,970 burials. There are also 14 graves for Jewish soldiers, marked with a headstone instead of a cross. The Hebrew characters mean "XXX rests buried" and "their soul may be enwoven into the circle of the living persons."
In the late 1960s and early 1970s a fundamental change in the landscaping took place, which extended to the renewal of the hedge and the bricked edge of the community graves. New trees and shrubs were planted and the wooden high cross was replaced with one of forged steel.
Location
Fricourt German Cemetery is located on the east side of the D147 road to Contalmaison, just north of the village of Fricourt.
