#langemark

Thys Vermeulen, Town Hall Expansion, Langemark, 2019

Tijdens de eerste voorjaarsdagen van 1326 organiseren de Ieperlingen een raid op de ‘kaardtoestelen’. Controleur Jan Christiene, vergezeld van Willem van der Heule, Roelant Abrame en hun gezellen ‘voeren in de dorpe omme de carden’. Het kaarden, een soort kammen van de warrige wol, is een stap in het productieproces van de wol die het gemakkelijk maakt om de wol achteraf te spinnen. Het kaarden…

German War Cemetery of Langemark, Poelkapelle Belgium, December 2018.

Full photo gallery online here.

German War Cemetery of Langemark

Over 44,000 soldiers of the German Empire are buried at the Langemark cemetery. The memorial at the front gate includes a wood carved map of all the Great War German burial sites within Belgium.

On the opposite wall are the names of 3000 German students killed during the First Battle of Ypres in 1914, an event that Adolph Hitler, then a private in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment, would write about in Mein Kampf. A particular moment in the battle, taking place near Langemark and dubbed the Kindermord von Ypern (The Massacre of the Innocents at Ypres) would go down as legend in the Third Reich:

With feverish eyes each one of us was drawn forward faster and faster over turnip fields and hedges till suddenly the fight began, the fight of man against man. But  from the distance the sounds of a song met our ears, coming nearer and nearer, passing from company to company, and then, while Death busily plunged his hand into our rows, the song reached also us, and now we passed it on: “Deutschland, Deutschland liberalles, liberalles in der Welt!”

Hitler, writing those words in 1924 while incarcerated for his part in the failed Munich putsch of the previous year, was not at Langemark that day. It did not matter as his goal was to invent a myth that could be used for Nazi propaganda. 

The German Empire suffered over 100,000 casualties with 30,000 soldiers killed in the First Battle of Ypres in a desperate attempt to take West Flanders and the channel ports from the Allies. Most of those who fell were older conscripts, men of the reserves, fathers and tradesmen. Less than 20% of the troops were students, in panic called up and sent into battle without proper time and training to be ready for combat. It was indeed a massacre, but also a total waste of men.

The myth of innocent students sacrificing their lives for the greater good of the Fatherland and who went to their death singing to the glory of Germany would obscure the waste and prove a valuable story of patriotism, honor and sacrifice during the bitter years in Germany following the end of the Great War. Novels, poetry and stage performances would build upon the legend of the innocent students that were mowed down at Langemark in defense of their empire.

The German War Cemetery at Langemark was dedicated in July 1932. The next year Adolph Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany. In 1940 he would visit the Langemark cemetery during a tour of the Ypres area.

Hitler at Langemark in 1940

In 1956 a sculpture of four mourning figures by Emil Kreiger was added between the front gate and the Comrades’ Grave of 24,917 soldiers. German blockhouses from the war occupy the northern portion of the cemetery. The value of this site for Nazi propaganda during the 1930′s is obvious, as is the attempt to bring the sorrow and somberness of the effects of war in years following the Second World War.