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Remembered Today:

WW1 memorials during WW2


Sandie Hayes

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"I'm surprised the Germans didn't destroy Thiepval, the Menin Gate and other memorials during WW2. Do you know why they didn't blow them up?"

I was asked this question earlier today but I don't know the answer. Was it an act of respect? Were they hit and repaired later? Was it just good luck?

Opinions please.

Sandie

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I can't cite cases as I don't have notes to hand, but the Germans were not completely circumspect and I believe some memorials (especially French ones) were destroyed and some others were used as target practice, as in pot shots taken. Of course, the most signal act of destruction was the railway carriage at Compiegne.

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The bronze plaques on the Nieuport Memorial show evidence of ww2 damage, although not a result of a deliberate act but caused I believe during the retreat to Dunkirk.

Spud

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The railway carriage's destruction isn't surprising being as it was, an unpleasant reminder to Hitler of Germany's defeat.

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But the Germans didn't destroy it because it had bad memories. Hitler personally accepted the French surrender in the same carriage in June, 1940 and it was then taken back to Germany to be exhibited as a trophy. They destroyed it to stop it being recaptured by the allies when they began to close in on Germany.

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The railway carriage was not seen as a memorial by Hitler but significant and humiliating defeat to Germany in the Great war. It was high up on his list of objects to parade in the media on the fall of France.

Therpivil has small arms damage somewhere.

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I think Hitler, with his love of propaganda and his use of war dead to legitimise his cause, would have been Ill-advised to embark on any wilful destruction of such monuments. Far better for him to be able to use them for his own ends.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/04/05/3925529-sun.html?utm_source=addThis

Must agree with this ,there is a very powerfull photograph of the victory parade in 1940 past the French memorial in the centre of the town of Verdun , German infantry goose stepping past the stairs ,must have really hurt the French to have seen that?
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Here is an "interesting" bit of German WW2 vandalism to a British WW1 memorial. Assuming its still there (I was shown it several years ago) I suspect that it hadn't been removed because so few people would ever see it. (My own feeling is that its a bit of history which should be left as-is).

post-108-0-48664700-1384038922_thumb.jpg

The 2nd Australian Division memorial at St Quentin is one of the memorials which the Germans completely destroyed.

post-108-0-15884200-1384038947_thumb.jpg

Tom

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Hitler was aware that the allies had buried German dead in their cemeteries and as a result said that the WW! cemeteries were not to be damaged.

Ever so grateful to the German buried in Ancre cemetery.

Doug

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Hitler regarded the headstones as those of comrades in arms.

There were a couple of memorials destroyed by Nazis, such as that shown above. I suppose one can understand them not being impressed with a memorial showing a Canadian bayonetting a German eagle, or a French memorial referring to the Germans as Huns and barbarians.

There is damage on the Menin Gate. Bullet holes facing into town are German and date from 1940, whilst those facing the opposite direction are Polish from 1944.

If I remember correctly, the headstones at Terlincthun CWGC may also have been used for target practice, but, by and large, the cemeteries and memorials of both sides were respected during WW2.

Bruce

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In the US film series Why We Fight ,the film for the Red Ball Express shows the Germans blowing up the US Negro Divs memorial , which is a bit off , but and not a excuse the memorial did show a negro solider strangling a German Eagle!

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I still wonder about the thoughts that would have gone through the minds of soldiers of WW2 as they passed by the cemeteries containing the remains of their WWI comrades.

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I have heard a story (probably apocryphal) that a German soldier was caught urinating against the Menin Gate. He was shot for desecrating the memorial.

Nigel

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Like the Australian divisional memorial above, the main Zeebrugge Memorial was also deliberately destroyed by the Germans in WW2 and its bronze depiction of St.George slaying the dragon was scrapped. The reason for most such acts seems to have been that by word or image they denigrated the Germans/Germany, as opposed to just honouring the dead.

At Villers-Bretonneux the Australian memorial is still peppered with gunshots, as are many of the gravestones in the adjacent cemetery.

Clive

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hitler often organised visits for WWI British veterans to visit him to talk about the days in the war. He respected all those who fought in the First World War. Many of the senior officers in WW2 had fought in WWI too. Hitler also ensured that Jewish graves were not destroyed in German cemeteries. To the best of my knowledge he did not use any of it for propaganda purposes as suggested above.

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Hi Wilhelm

This photo at Langemark cemetery - I think probably shows the opposite.

Hardly a quiet private visit.

wp70bee58f_02.jpg

I recall reading about Fricourt German Cemetery, where during the war, the Jewish graves stones were removed by the Nazi's and replaced after the war.

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... the Jewish graves stones were removed by the Nazi's ...

Nazis - Germans, surely, or is there evidence to the contrary ?

Tom

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By and large, the Germans honoured WW1 "enemy" memorials in the territories they occupied in WW2. The only exceptions were either cases of individual vandalism, and - officially - those memorials which they saw as having a particularly pejorative anti-German nature, such as the Digger bayonetting a German eagle (image in post #9 above) and the original French/Belgian Cross at Steenstraat. This referred to the Germans as barbarians, and so they blew it up in 1942. It has been replaced with a "Cross of Reconciliation" and without any wording which may offend Fritz.

Whilst I can't quote sources just off the top of my head, I am aware that a German delegation (ambassador maybe ?) laid a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey in the mid-thirties; it was removed by a WW1 veteran and thrown into the Thames.

Similarly, a wreath laid at the Menin Gate by Germans in the mid thirties was defaced, it is believed by locals.

Hitler had no beef with the Brits in his early days, and one of his stories was that his life had been saved, or spared, by a British soldier who declined to shoot him (near Gheluvelt I think) in 1914.

Again, I recall Rose Coombs telling me - I think in 1976 - that an approach was made by German veterans to meet with Brits to shake hands at the Menin Gate on a 50th anniversary - it was the Brits who declined.

Funny old world.

All this from memory - as ever, others may be able to expand on the fine detail.

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Nazis - Germans, surely, or is there evidence to the contrary ?

Tom

Hi Tom

Yes I guess they were Germans.

but rather than say that, it seemed better to localise it down to a specific group - Nazi's - i.e. The bady Germans.

After all we are pretty friendly with the Germans now... :whistle:

Cheers Roger

As an aside:

We had enrolled our five year son in a weekend soccer club run by Wynton Ruffer. Anyway at one point it was obviously stated that he had played for the German Werder Bremen FC.

Well said son came home crying. On enquiry I learned that he was convinced that he was being taught by the badies and for all he knew, he therefore, was now one as well... it was a terrible dilemma for a five year old.

We went for a walk and I explained the finer workings of what his Great Grandfathers generation had faced and that now the Germans and us were pretty cool and we all got along fine.

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It all depended on the local commander. I have come across cemeteries (French) where the local commander gave the commune permission to keep up the cemeteries and supplied German soldiers to cut the grass!

Then there are others where SS turned up and ripped out Jewish headstones from the German cemeteries. Other commanders told the SS to...................... and the headstones survived.

And all points between.

I have never heard of any overall policy.

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... Yes I guess they were Germans. but rather than say that, it seemed better to localise it down to a specific group - Nazi's - i.e. The bady Germans. ...

Roger - during WW1 and WW2 Great Britain was at war with Germany (and others), not a political party. "The bady Germans" were ... the Germans. You cannot airbrush history.

It all depended on the local commander. I have come across cemeteries (French) where the local commander gave the commune permission to keep up the cemeteries and supplied German soldiers to cut the grass!

Then there are others where SS turned up and ripped out Jewish headstones from the German cemeteries. Other commanders told the SS to...................... and the headstones survived.

And all points between.

I have never heard of any overall policy.

Is there any evidence for any of that ? - The SS did "this" and the "good Germans" did "that" ?

Tom

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Hitler often organised visits for WWI British veterans to visit him to talk about the days in the war. He respected all those who fought in the First World War. Many of the senior officers in WW2 had fought in WWI too. Hitler also ensured that Jewish graves were not destroyed in German cemeteries. To the best of my knowledge he did not use any of it for propaganda purposes as suggested above.

'He respected all those who fought in the First World War'.

Sorry Wilhelm but this isn't true. Hitler was responsible for thousands of German Jewish WW1 veterans being 'exterminated' during the Holocaust.

Sandie

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