Known Graves of Victims of Manfred von Richthofen.

Glad to see the graves of the war dead are still being tended well.
Hopefully that will continue for another hundred years.

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Let us hope Duke, let us hope.

Olham, thank you for sharing that.

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Yes, these graves will be preserved and tended well, boys.

After WW1 the German Kriegsgräberfürsorge (war graves commision) was founded,
like the CommonWealth had their own, and the French surely also.
First they cared only for the graves of soldiers from their own nation.

But nowadays there is a wide exchange and collaboration of young people from
all the countries that participated in the Great War and World War 2.
There are several work camps where these youngsters learn about the history
and historical research, about peace-works, and they care for keeping the
war graves intact and clean.
Young people from the once conflicting countries are doing this work together -
no matter if a grave was French, British, German, Austrian, Canadian, Australian
or American.
This gives me hope that there will be a better understanding in Europe,
and these graves will still be there in 100 years, as well-tended memorials
of a horrifying bloodshed; of a shameful waste.

WIKIPEDIA - Kriegsgräberfürsorge

Here is a German site which looks half peacful, half spooky to me.
Among the Christian crosses there is one Jewish gravestone.
Another reminder of another tragedy. Many Jewish people fought as German soldiers or aviators in the Great War.
But the Nazis tried to wipe that memory out.

Well said Olham

That looks like a well intentioned group, this Kriegsgräberfürsorge.

Hey, the link in the first post won't work for me.

Thank you, Max!



Okay, try this one.

Victims MvR with a known Grave

If this one also won't work, it could be that you need to register at THE AERODROME to have access?

Thanks, works fine.

This reminds me of a post I put out years ago while flying for Tangmere Pilots in IL246.

I was driving home from holidays. We had crossed the Netherlands/German border and I decided to avoid the autobahn on my way home to Köln. It was a beautiful day and I was free from stress and able to look around while driving. I can't remember where, but all of a sudden in the middle of no where, stood a war cemetery in magnificent condition. I made a mental note and decided to come back on the weekend. Man, what a humbling experience it was too.

It was a cemetery for allied pilots shot down over Germany. It seems that even in war time the Hun tried to keep records and such and thus were able to move and berry the dead during and after the war.

I went walking through the rows of clean white grave stones, all well kept by the way, and started reading the names. And then I noticed their age's and was blown away. Squadron commander, flight leaders, pilots, crews. Some were older even a few over 30, but by in large most were 18-19...still kids with so much to offer and with so much left to discover. I couldn't believe that these kids signed up and lost their lives so young...for us all.

Well, the "Hun" wasn't less cultivated than the "Tommies" I guess.
But if the cemetary was built AFTER the war, it could have been built by the British army of occupation.
White gravestones are afaik no German tradition, but you see them on British cemetaries in Flanders too.

Still though, the cemetary would nowadays be maintained by Germans, I guess - or by the young people
from the International War Graves Commissions.


Yes - these boys beat the Third Reich.
And yes, I am grateful to them for doing so - I wouldn't have enjoyed to live under
people like Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Goering and any other fanatic fashists.

I don't think I have ever read a better tribute than this

I am nearly in tears now Olham

Let us all hope our future is better than our past

EDIT: removed the emoji
Don't know why - just seemed a little disrespectful somehow

...wait a minute...
Lederhosen? You live in Köln? I thought, someone with that Nick comes from beyond the "Weißwurst-Äquator"
Well then: Donn' mich mal 'n Kölsch...

Not any more, now I'm down near Metz..well in Trier.

It is not a matter of hope, I'm afraid, but of our actions. I can really only
admire all those men and women, who fought in the Resistance - that was true courage!
Hats off!

Damn, didn't want to stirr you up like that.
But if the "brown hordes" should ever raise here again (like Zombies), I'd try to get
out of here and go to England, or maybe even further, to America.
I'd want to fight them. (But then, at my age and being a German, I guess they wouldn't
let me fly a fighter plane - they might rather put me in a camp for Germans then...

A Bavarian comedian back in the thirties, Karl Valentin, once came out of a Kneipe (pub)
where he had enjoyed some strong beer. It must have gone to his head a bit, cause when
he saw two German SA men in their brown outfit, he raised his right arm and made this
joke, saying: "Heil, ... aerh - Heil... ahem - wie heißt er noch gleich?"
("... now, what's was name?") He got immediately imprisoned.
No sense of humour, those brownies!

In todays Europe, you British guys taught and still teach us some good humour -
we Germans have to catch up on that.
(Monty Pythons was well received here, but it's a real pity that "Blackadder" was never
imported - maybe they just didn't know how to dub that kind of English humour.
I was lucky, I saw it in England in the 80s.)

Thanks for sharing Olham. I have had a similar goose bump episode twice in my life. Once on the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor when you realize you are standing on the grave of 1102 US sailors. The other was standing on Cemetery Ridge in Gettysburg where Lee made his final assault with 12,000 men across 3/4 of a mile of open fields, uphill, into the Union's position during our Civil War. Needless to say, it did not turn out well for Lee's men.

Damn, so many were on just that one ship?


I once saw a well-made docu about that battle, and it looked like suicide to me.
The battle orders of those days - they were marching straight into the enemies fire. Not only at that ridge.
I was wondering - I think General Lee was quite a good strategian.
Did it just not occur to the militarians in those days, to try a different way?

Talking about Lee, I like this scene from the Civil War dokumentary, as I also like the great acting
of Robert Duvall here, and in the Western "Open Range".

Olham, I am sure it looked like suicide for the men that were going across that field. But, like so many in so many wars, they went anyway because they were told to.

On a lighter note, Open Range, now there is a movie that cranks my tractor! IMHO, one of the best westerns ever made. Except the part, in the final gunfight when Charlie, played by Kevin Costner, fires his six gun NINE times without reloading. It is Hollywood though. I agree with you wholeheartedly, Robert Duvall is one great actor. Dont know which I like best, Open Range, Lonesome Dove, or Broken Trail.

MFair, I had the same experience at Gettysburg except mine occurred at the spot where Amistad was killed. It just floored me that I was standing where that fine gentleman was killed. Btw, I don't think Duvall has made a bad film.

Naw, that's battle-rage, Mark - in moments like that, such men outgrow themselves - Mmuahahahahaaa!!!
And didn't we all expect him to? (Always wanted to use that smiley!)


Dammit, both Lonesome Dove, nor Broken Trail seem to have been imported to Germany - or I missed them.
Which would be a pity; just checked YOUTUBE and saw excerpts.

9 times? Pah! That's almost correct LOL
...I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Red Heat"... I think he fired his 629 .44mag Revolver 24 or 27 times... probably a special Multi-Layer-Drum...