German War Memorial Sedan

Saint-Charles General Cemetery contains a special German monument. In France this monument is called 'un monument témoin de la grande guerre'.
(a monument witnessing the great war)

The battles for the capture of Sedan and the crossing of the Meuse took place on 25 and 26 August 1914. From then on, the city was occupied by the German army for the entire duration of the war, as part of Belgium and then ten French departments. Due to the large number of deaths during these two days, it is mandatory
the Germans to bury the soldiers in mass graves. One of these was dug in September 1914 in the cemetery of the commune of Saint-Charles, located on the heights of Sedan, which dominates the city and allows it to embrace the surrounding landscape.

In the spring of 1915, the German army decided to expand this first funeral home by creating a German military plot in the middle of the French cemetery. Indeed, it has made Sedan a true "hospital city" due to the high demand for care for its patients and injured. As a result, many German soldiers will die in this city far from the front. Hence the need to provide cemeteries with field of honor to bury them.

A large wall separates the German plot from the rest of the cemetery to create harmony within a closed environment. This longing for isolation
compared to the French tombs, it also shows in the choice to retouch the postcards by erasing everything that is outside the walls.

The building looks like an old monument with its eight Doric columns, a formal affinity with the Brandenburg Gate, built in 1791 in Berlin. Indeed, it has served on several occasions as the setting for Sedan-day ceremonies, a patriotic festival celebrating the 1870 victory in Sedan. She is therefore probably still associated with the French city in the minds of the Germans of the time. The Sedan Monument, with its transparency effects coupled with columns and side entrances, evokes a doorway to heaven for the souls of heroes.

At the top of the monument is the following:

Kämpfend für Kaiser und Reich, nahm Gott uns die irdische Sonne;
Jetzt von der Irdischen frei, strahlt uns sein ewiges Licht.
Holy die Stätte, who habt ihr durch blutige Opfer geweiht!
Dreimal holy for uns durch das Offering of thanks.

(Fighting for emperor and empire, God took the earthly sun from us;
Now free from the earthly, his eternal light shines upon us.
Sanctify the place you have consecrated with bloody sacrifices!
Thrice holy to us through the sacrifice of thanksgiving.)

The monument was renovated and inaugurated on November 19, 2018. (see plaque)

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Source

• Text: Dick de Bruijne
• Photos: Dick de Bruijne