“The soldiers’ graves are the greatest preachers of peace.”
(Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Peace Prize laureate).
This cemetery was first laid out by German soldiers in 1914 for those killed in the battle of the Yser. In 1914 Flanders became a battlefield and it was here that fighting began for every inch of soil, and was so unyielding in its ferocity.
The Grieving Parents by Käthe Kollwitz
It is the last resting place of Peter Kollwitz, a young student volunteer who was just 17 years old when he was killed near Esen in October 1914. Deeply affected by her son’s death, Käthe Kollwitz created her world-famous sculpture ‘The Grieving Parents’. The sculpture was many years in the making and was only displayed for the first time in 1932 at the Roggeveld military cemetery at Esen.
The grave marker in front of the sculpture group bore the following inscription: ‘Peter Kollwitz Musketier + 23.10.14.’ The parents gaze focuses on the grave stone where Peter is buried. This cemetery and the statue group were moved to their current site in 1957. The burials were brought in from all over Belgium and Vladslo is now one of the four great German concentration cemeteries with 25,644 German soldiers buried here.
The grave marker of Peter Kollwitz and his comrades
Käthe Kollwitz was a famous Expressionist artist from Berlin. In 1933 she was removed from the Prussian Academy of Art by the Nazis. Her work was considered to be an example of Entartete Kunst (perverted art) by the Nazis and was removed from most museums and public buildings. Her grandson Peter was killed on the Eastern Front in 1942. Surprisingly, the sculpture survived the Nazi occupation of Belgium during the Second World War.
Vladso German Cemetery
Today, the German War Graves Commission looks after the sites on behalf of the German government. When the Great War ended in 1918, the war dead in Belgian numbered 134,000 on the German side alone with about 16,500 of those the young volunteers killed in the first autumn battles of 1914. Some soldiers simply disappeared into the fields of Flanders and the Volksbund believes that some 90,000 soldiers are still unidentified or ‘missing’ and believed to be buried in Flanders. This brings the total of German military dead in Flanders to around 210,000.
German cemeteries are not as landscaped or manicured as Commonwealth cemeteries nor do they have flowers like French cemeteries. German cemeteries have a more rugged and natural setting. Nor do they have a regular headstone like Commonwealth graves Portland stone. Some German cemeteries have grave tablets on the ground, some have stone white headstones and some have black iron crosses. It is usual for Germans to be buried in multiple graves.
In Vladslo each grave has the bodies of 8 soldiers and the sense of sorrow and loss is keenly felt. “The soldiers’ graves are the greatest preachers of peace.” (Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Peace Prize laureate). The German War Graves Commission or “Volksbund” have young people throughout Europe attending international youth camps, where they help maintain the sites as well as build bridges of understanding.
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