The city of Bernburg (Saale) had invited on the occasion of the 99th anniversary of the erection of the war memorial in May 1923 to a public commemoration at the cemetery III.
Numerous interested people accepted the invitation and visited the war memorial and selected historical graves together with the mayor Dr. Silvia Ristow, Dr. Lambrecht Kuhn, chairman of the German War Graves Commission in the Salzlandkreis and Joachim Grossert.
The history of the war memorial
In the 1920s, numerous honorary monuments and memorial plaques were erected in Bernburg (Saale) for the fallen, missing and deceased of the 1st World War. The Waldauer Stefanusgemeinde was the first parish in Bernburg (Saale) to build a large memorial, which was inaugurated in May 1923.124 victims’ names are carved on the sandstone slabs. In the 1960s, the surroundings of the monument had become overgrown, many of the war victims forgotten. So it happened that also the monument was remembered by only a few.In order to make the memorial accessible to the public again and thus enrich the places of commemorative culture in the city, the memorial was moved to Cemetery III in 2020, based on a private initiative.
Heinz Gorris from Bernburg, in cooperation with the city of Bernburg (Saale) and the State Office for Monument Protection and Archaeology, organized the relocation of the monument from a private property to Cemetery III at his own expense.