The statue of mourning soldiers at Langemarck First World War German cemetery in Belgium by Professor Emil Krieger
The statue of mourning soldiers at Langemarck German cemetery in Belgium by Professor Emil Krieger was inspired by a photograph of soldiers from the Reserve Infantry Regiment 238, mourning at the grave of a comrade in 1918. The cemetery started as a small group of graves in 1915. Burials were increased here by the German military directorate in Gent during 1916 to 1918. In the mid 1920s, when the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge and the Official German Burial Service in Belgium began to renovate the cemeteries in Flanders, the cemetery was renamed Langemarck-North. With the setting up of a register of German military cemeteries in Flanders in 1930 the cemetery was renamed as German Military Cemetery Number 123. It was officially inaugurated on 10 July 1932. During the 1930s approximately 10,000 soldiers were brought here from 18 German burial sites around the region of Langemarck and the total number of burials in the cemetery reached about 14,000. About 3,000 of the graves were those of the Student Volunteers who died in the battle of Langemark in October and November 1914 and as a result of this the cemetery became known as the Student Cemetery - Der Studentenfriedhof. Eight soldiers were buried in each plot and they are marked by a flat stone inscribed with their names, where known. After the Second World War and following the agreement in 1954 to establish three major German collecting cemeteries for First World War dead, Langemark underwent major redevelopment in the late 1950s: groups of basalt-lava crosses were placed in the grounds a basalt-lava cross was erected near the old bunker a Kameraden Grab (Comrades Grave) was made for the unidentified dead the lifesize bronze statue of four mourning soldiers, was placed at the upper end of it. Exhumations from Westroosbeke, Passchendaele, Moorslede, Zonnebeke, Poelkapelle and Zillebeke were carried out and reburials at Langemark brought the total of soldiers buried or commemorated there to 44,234
Size: 4715px × 3772px
Location: Langemarck Cemetery, Belgium
Photo credit: © Niall Ferguson / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: bronze, cemetery, emil, flanders, german, graves, great, krieger, langemarck, military, remembrance, sculpture, silhouettes, statue, war, world
