Hamburg Cemetery

Hamburg, Hamburg

Location Information:

The War Cemetery in Hamburg is situated within a large civil cemetery known locally as 'Ohlsdorf Cemetery'.

Approaching from Hannover or Kiel, leave the Autoroute A7 at the junction with the 432 following signposts for the Airport (Flughafen). After 2 kilometres turn right onto Swebenweg which later merges with Krohnstieg and passes under the airport runway. After 4 kilometres turn right onto 433 Chaussee. After 2 kilometres turn left onto Erdkampsweg following signs for Barmbek. Continue along this road for 1.7 kilometres then turn right, immediately before a prominent railway bridge, onto a road called Im Grunen Grund. After a further 600 metres turn left into Alsterdorfer. The Cemetery is located in this street at the junction with Fuhlsbuttlerstrasse. The 3 CWGC plots are located 300m to the right of Chapel 12 and are clearly signposted from the main entrance of Ohlsdorf cemetery.

Historical Information:

During the First World War, Hamburg Cemetery was used for the burial of over 300 Allied servicemen who died as prisoners of war. In 1923, it was decided that the graves of Commonwealth servicemen who had died all over Germany should be brought together into four permanent cemeteries. Hamburg was one of those chosen, and burials were brought into the cemetery from 120 burial grounds* in Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, Hanover, Saxony, Brunswick and Westphalia. The majority died as prisoners, but a few were sailors whose bodies were washed ashore on the Frisian Islands.

There are now 708 First World War servicemen buried or commemorated in the Commonwealth plot at Hamburg. This total includes special memorials to three casualties buried in Parchim Prisoners of War Cemetery whose graves could not be found, and 25 unidentified sailors whose remains were recovered from HM Submarine E24, which was sunk by a mine off Heligoland in March 1916, when the vessel was raised in July 1974.

The Commonwealth section of the cemetery also contains 1,466 Second World War burials, mostly of servicemen who died with the occupying forces, or airmen lost in bombing raids over Germany. There are also 378 post Second World War graves and 14 war graves of other nationalities.

* The following cemeteries are among those from which graves were brought to Hamburg:

GUSTROW PRISONERS OF WAR CEMETERY, Mecklenburg-Schwerin. 59 burials of 1914-1918. Gustrow was one of the main camps in which prisoners in Germany were registered.

HANNOVER (LIMMER) MILITARY CEMETERY, Hannover. 31 burials of 1914-1918.

HELIGOLAND CHURCHYARD, Helgoland. one burial of 1916.

MINDERHEIDE PRISONERS OF WAR CEMETERY, Westphalia. 55 burials of 1916-1918.

MUNSTER CAMP PRISONERS OF WAR CEMETERY, Hannover. 130 burials of 1917-1919.

PARCHIM PRISONERS OF WAR CEMETERY, Mecklenburg Schwerin. 83 burials of 1917-1919.

SOLTAU PRISONERS OF WAR CEMETERY, Hannover. 25 burials of 1916-1918.

VERDEN GARRISON CEMETERY, Hannover. 29 burials of 1916-1918.