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Remembered Today:

Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery


Terry Denham

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Does anyone live near Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery in Staffordshire?

I would like a digital photo of a specific grave and I shall not be in that area for some time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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  • 7 months later...

Terry,

A German civilian internee who died at Southend on Sea was reburied in Cannock Chase (Thanks to Andy [stiletto] for his help.)

This one I think:CANNOCK CHASE GERMAN MILITARY CEMETERY

From CWGC page:

the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgraberfursorge) made arrangements to transfer the graves of German servicemen and civilian internees of both wars from scattered burial grounds to the new cemetery established at Cannock Chase.

No names are given.

How can one find out where a pow was buried, would he have a headstone?

Would details be on a German WGC site?

FOUND:http://www.volksbund.de/

Kath.

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From CWGC page:

the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgraberfursorge) made arrangements to transfer the graves of German servicemen and civilian internees of both wars from scattered burial grounds to the new cemetery established at Cannock Chase.

No names are given.

As a statement of fact this is not true. German war graves can be found in other parts of the country which, for some reason, were not concentrated into Cannock. For example there is a big Luftwaffe plot in Thornaby Cemetery near Stockton-on-Tees. I presume that they were air crews KIA in operations over NE England

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Hedley/Kath

The above statement is true - but not the whole truth.

The German graves were so concentrated - but not all of them as you rightly point out. There are still many all over the UK that were not moved for a variety of reasons.

Kath

I have the CWGC details for all Foreign war graves in CWGC Care. If you give me the name, I will post the details you want.

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Kath

Thanks for sending me the name.

Here are all the details held in CWGC's database...

Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery, Staffs

WIESE, Civilian, PAUL, German Civilian. 9th March 1915.

Block 17, Grave 278.

For Foreign Nationals, CWGC hold very little in their database - even less for Foreign civilians. For military graves, it does not usually include unit or service number or rank - just name, date of death, grave number plus 'German Army' etc. However, on a few occasions (usually WW2) there will be a service number, unit or age.

There are about 40,000 Foreign Nationals in CWGC Care worldwide.

If anyone wants details of a specific grave, just ask.

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The German graves were so concentrated - but not all of them as you rightly point out. There are still many all over the UK that were not moved for a variety of reasons.

From the Cannock Chase Website

http://www.cannockchasedc.gov.uk/cannockchase/wargraves.htm

"German servicemen from both wars, sailors buried at seaports round the coast of Britain, airmen shot down inland and soldiers, most of them prisoners of war buried in Churchyards throughout the county, were transferred from their burial places to the Chase Military Cemetery between 1964 and 1966. German servicemen buried in British Military Cemeteries and in war grave plots in civilian cemeteries churchyards were not moved."

My underlining.

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German servicemen buried in British Military Cemeteries and in war grave plots in civilian cemeteries churchyards were not moved."

Hedley

This is yet another statement about this cemetery which is not quite the whole story.

There are also individual isolated German war graves which have never been in military or war plots and which were not concentrated to Cannock. There were occasions when such sole graves in local churchyards were not moved - allegedly because of local objections to the proposed move.

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Terry;

So the concentration policy was to move to Cannock Chase all those German military personnel :

1. who were not in British Military cemeteries;

2. who were not in military plots in civilian cemeteries (that appears to be the case at Thornaby mentioned earlier; the Luftwaffe casualties share the plot with RAF personnel from the local station)

3. where there was no local objection - which begs the interesting question of what such objections could have been.

The concentration policy appears to heve been defined by negatives - I offer this as an observation not a criticism. The 'concentration' seems to have left considerable numbers precisely where they were, raising the question of just how 'concentrated' it really was.

Hedley

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Yes, Hedley, you are right. There are considerable numbers left around the UK.

However, 4963 from both world wars were concentrated at Cannock. I haven't got the figure to hand for those left 'unconcentrated' at the moment but I will check it to see what percentage this respresents.

I am informed that there were some parishes where the incumbent, the PCC or relatives objected to any exhumation and the point was not pressed. These odd graves remain today.

You may have noticed in the Turkish thread that two Germans on the Isle of Man were left as they were Jewish and the nok objected to removal.

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Hedley

Here are the figures..

There are 6345 German war graves in the UK and 4914 of these were concentrated at Cannock Chase German Military Cemetery - making 77.45% of the total.

Two of these were German airman from the cemetery in my village only yards from my house - shot down in 1940.

(edited to remove the figure for the Austro-Hungarian war graves also concentrated to Cannock)

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Terry,

The gentleman that Kath was enquiring about was one of four that I know of that were exhumed from Sutton Road Cemetery in Southend during the 60's. All came from the Royal Edward or Saxonia moored of Southend Pier.

Paul Wiese was a civilian internee on the Royal Edward, presumably civilians are included in the Cannock Chase Cemetery?.

Andy

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Andy

Yes, the civilian Germans were also concentrated to Cannock and are included in the above figures.

I don't know about the burial in unconsecrated ground though. It certainly wasn't the case with military foreign nationals. Maybe there was some reason that it was applicable to the Southend civilians. Is Weise a Jewish name?

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Terry,

I think that I had better go and look at the cemetery registers again as the Germans who died from the Saxonia would have been military as she was used for some of the first German prisoners to come to this country.

Kath did mention that she had traced one of the names i gave her from the Saxonia.

Andy

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