German War Cemetery Linsburg

The Linsburg cemetery contains the graves of 22 German soldiers of SS Panzer Grenadier Ausbildungs und Bataillon 12. HJ killed during fighting nearby on Sunday 8 April 1945. The German forces had entrenched 2kms west of Linsburg at the small village of Meinkinsburg, to try to stem the advance of the British 11th Armoured Division approaching on the road from Husum. The attempt was such a costly failure that the commander, Werner Hartmann, decided the following day to evacuate his forces from the town of Nienburg/Weser and declare it an ‘Open City‘, thus sparing the historic town and its people from destruction. The graves are in a single row of eleven rustic stone crosses, each cross containing the names of two individuals. The stones are inscribed with the name of the deceased, their date of birth and their date of death. Five of the graves are of unknown individuals and these only carry the date of death and an identity number. An indication of the tragedy that occurred that day is shown by the ages of those who died: Werner Anlauf 23 Gustav Bernhardt 18 Artur Damerau 17 Werner von Eynem 37 Wilfried Fichtner 17 Otto Jahnke 19 Julius Kreischer 20 Horst Krüger 17 Dietrich Kuntze 16 Gerhard Quosdorf 19 Horst Rähme 18 Georg Rapp 17 Herbert Schifferinnen 20 Heinrich Schlicher 27 Günter Schulze 19 Helmut Spörker 17 Herbert Wesche 23