Historical Information (Source: Volksbund)

1.314 German war dead First World War

The German military cemetery Achiet-le-Petit was created as a collective cemetery by the German military administration in autumn 1914. After the war of movement had come to a standstill, the fallen soldiers from the fighting in the course of the first weeks of the war, who were scattered in the area and buried at the point of their death, were brought here. Further burials took place in the period up to March 1917 - at which time the area was cleared by the Germans - and again from the end of March to August 1918, when the area around Achiet-le-Petit had fallen back into German hands. In 1924, the French military authorities salvaged more than 300 German dead from 12 surrounding communities and buried them again here.

The vast majority of those killed fell victim to the "Battle of the Somme", which began at the gates of Albert on July 1, 1916 and literally suffocated in the mud of the battlefield at the end of November. During this time, with terrible losses on both sides, the Allies were only able to fight each other up to 12 kilometers with an attack width of 40 kilometers in the extreme case.

The troops resting here today belonged to troops from West Prussia, Upper Silesia, Saxony, Thuringia, Anhalt, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Westphalia, Baden, Bavaria, Alsace-Lorraine and the Rhineland. Some belonged to Prussian guards regiments and marine infantry regiments.