Langemark German Military Cemetery

Sombre German WWI cemetery with 44,000 burials; a different register from the Commonwealth sites

Most visitors to the Ypres Salient see only the neat white Commonwealth cemeteries. Langemark, about 8 km north of Ypres, offers a very different experience: a German military cemetery where 44,000 soldiers are buried, the majority in mass graves under flat basalt lava stones. Dark oak trees rather than white headstones. A brooding, quiet place.

The difference in aesthetic between this and the Commonwealth cemeteries is striking and worth contemplating. The Germans were also burying their dead in a foreign country, on ground that had been contested at immense cost. The figures on the memorial — four soldiers, heads bowed — have the same grief as anything on the Allied side. Langemark is less visited than the Commonwealth sites, which makes it all the more affecting.

Open daily. About 10 minutes by car from Ypres; accessible by bicycle on the flat Flanders roads.

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A story
Among the mass graves at Langemark lie the remains of several soldiers killed in what the Germans called the Kindermord bei Ypern — the Massacre of the Innocents at Ypres. In October 1914, German reserve corps composed largely of student volunteers were thrown into an attack here and suffered catastrophic losses against experienced British professional soldiers. The losses were mourned in Germany as a generation of educated youth cut down.

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