Hohrod-Bärenstall German cemetery, April 2016 - a few snaps

[Dragon]

April 27th, 2016. Just as one hundred years earlier, the Vosges were under snow. so it was this day in 2016. We were able to get up to the German cemetery Hohrod-Bärenstall on the 1915 battlefield of le Linge. Those of you with whom I'm friends on FB have seen these photos but I don't think I have shared them on the GWF before. Getting around was a bit of a challenge because I was on crutches with a torn meniscus, but I was determined I was going there.

Le Linge is a battlefield in challenging mountain terrain at just under 1000 m in the Vosges, about 25 km west of Colmar. The ferocious battle at le Linge raged from July to September, 1915, across three summits: Linge, Schratmännle and Barrenkopf. The Hohrod-Bärenstall cemetery contains burials from that conflict and relocations from nearly cemeteries. The original cemetery was constructed for mainly Bavarian casualties on the slopes of Schratzmännle, but early on after the war, work began to create a permanent cemetery which is pictured in the photographs. Field graves had to be promptly cleared and relocated, including burials from 23 neighbouring communities, and the initial work of the Volksbund was completed by about 1926. Since then, there have been some changes in layout and walls, but the site was broadly established. 2460 German war dead from the Great War lie there.

The cemetery is maintained by the Volksbund Deutsche Kreigsgraberfursorge (VDK). After signing of the Franco-German War Graves Agreement in 1966, the VDK concluded the final design of the German military cemeteries of the First World War in France and youth groups from Germany undertook much work, which included the exchange of wooden grave markers for metal crosses.

Some may have seen this photo in the 2019 WFA calendar. (It was published in colour but I prefer monochrome myself.) I've borrowed my own text which accompanied the photo on the calendar.

Gwyn

 

(The forum software insists on merging the photos so I think there needs to be a time lapse between posting image files.)

 

 

 

 

Edited 27 April , 2023 by Dragon
Removing a photo

[Dragon]

Some more to follow.

[Dragon]

Hohrod-Bärenstall

 

Edited 27 April , 2023 by Dragon

[Dragon]

Hohrod-Bärenstall, bunker

[Michelle Young]

I’ve only ever seen it in the summer with the road gently steaming after a shower of rain. Fabulous photos. 

[Dragon]

More.

La neige du coucou...

https://www.mightygwyn.eu/p426785581

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Thank you, Michelle. I can perfectly imagine the steaming road. 

[Dragon]

Cimetière Wettstein - French casualties

[Michelle Young]

Not at all in your league, but here is a photo of the road by Hohrod-Bärenstall. 

[Fattyowls]

Gwyn, change the title of the thread, they are not snaps. Just the thought of climbing on crutches to take them makes them special.

Pete.

[Dragon]

On 28/04/2023 at 09:35, Michelle Young said:

Not at all in your league, but here is a photo of the road by Hohrod-Bärenstall. 

 

I love the misty effect of the damp air.

 

Unfortunately undated. The cemetery now in is present position.

 

 

[Dragon]

On 28/04/2023 at 10:37, Fattyowls said:

Gwyn, change the title of the thread, they are not snaps. Just the thought of climbing on crutches to take them makes them special.

Pete.

Thank you.  Sometimes photos taken quite quickly (because of adverse weather or in this case, adverse leg) work out better than carefully planned ones. 

[mebu]

Some great pics there.

Does give me an impetus to get there sometime.

Peter

[Dragon]

Thank you, Peter.

The landscape, end of April 2016. This was taken from the road leading down from Wettstein to Soultzeren in the vallée de Munster.

Edited 1 May , 2023 by Dragon