Originally Posted by Marc_St_Hilaire

What?

Langemark German war cemetery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I suggest you visit the place. It's a very strange Tutonic, experience.

So in effect what you are saying is dead people can change weather patterns? Is the temperature and humidity in this place any different to let's say 2 miles down the road? It's human reaction that makes places like this feel eerie, cold, dank or whatever you interpret it to be.

Originally Posted by Krazy_Ivan

I agree with you mate, Langemark has quite an 'unsettling' atmosphere.

Our troop did the old Market Garden tour back in 2001, we went around the fantastically looked after CWGC cemeteries. We then went to another German war graves cemetery near(ish) to Arnhem and that was another very dark (yes teutonic!), eerie place.

We then went on to spend a couple of days in Holland getting very, very, very drunk!

Thinking about it, the reason the German cemetery is so much different from the CWGC one at Casino is that the CWGC cemetery is in the plains approaching th hills, outside in the sun. The German cemetery is up in the hills and completely under the trees. It gives it a different feel.

Originally Posted by Fallschirmjager

So in effect what you are saying is dead people can change weather patterns? Is the temperature and humidity in this place any different to let's say 2 miles down the road? It's human reaction that makes places like this feel eerie, cold, dank or whatever you interpret it to be.

Yep, have to mainly agree with FJ, that's why we often see little chavmong kids running around cemeteries, treating it like a playground, while their chavmong parents, of all classes, say nothing to reprimand them - ( cos if you act like a chavmong with no class, you are a chavmong with no class, no matter what your job title or pay packet says).

The kids aren't feeling any atmospherics, so maybe there really aren't any and it's just our own pre concieved ideas that show up in a pyschosomatic way?

Don't get me wrong, I've been to many places that apparently have 'a sense of history'...both good and bad, kind and evil..and often actually felt FA. Other times, I've been left speechless for a few minutes,when I realise where I'm standing.


It's a state of mind, how you're feeling at the time thing, IMO.

Originally Posted by Marc_St_Hilaire

What?

Langemark German war cemetery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



I suggest you visit the place. It's a very strange Tutonic, experience.

is it a Tutonic experience because you stood there tutting at the Teutonicness of it all ??

Originally Posted by Bouillabaisse

Originally Posted by Krazy_Ivan
I agree with you mate, Langemark has quite an 'unsettling' atmosphere.

Our troop did the old Market Garden tour back in 2001, we went around the fantastically looked after CWGC cemeteries. We then went to another German war graves cemetery near(ish) to Arnhem and that was another very dark (yes teutonic!), eerie place.

We then went on to spend a couple of days in Holland getting very, very, very drunk!

Thinking about it, the reason the German cemetery is so much different from the CWGC one at Casino is that the CWGC cemetery is in the plains approaching th hills, outside in the sun. The German cemetery is up in the hills and completely under the trees. It gives it a different feel.

There are a several reasons why the German war graves are laid out differently to CAGC ones..

1. The CWC cemeteries are a free gift in perpetuity to Britian and the commonwealth for the sacrifices made for the freedom of ther countries in which they are situated. The Germans were uninvited guests to Belgioum France the Nwetherlands and post Sep 1943 Italy. There are restrictions on how the Germans could lay out their cemeterisd:-
a. They had much less land. 44,000 Germans at langemarck occupy less ground than 3,800 British at Bayeux CWC.
b. German cemeteries had to be behind walls or hedges so the locals didn't have to see the graves.
c. The Germans were not allowed to glorify the deeds of their soldiers. (Though the design of cemetery gates at langemarck and la Cambes as the "Gates to Valhalla", implies that those inside are fallen heroes, as does the inscription inside Langemarck from "Soldier's farewell" by Heinrich Lersch "muss leben, und wenn wir sterben müssen!“ i.e. Germany must live - even if we have to die. (Thoiugh there is a punk version of this too Slime: Deutschland - YouTube

2. The CWC was well funded and supported by the greatest architects and gardeners of the day. The German, war graves organisation is a charity surviving on donations.

3. German funeral and cemetery traditions are very different to British ones. The CWC are laid out in the style of an English country churchyard, planted with the flowers of the cottage garden. If every englishman sees his home as a castle, then his garden is a mini version of the gardnes of a stately home. German gardens aren't like that. The first thing Germans seem to do with gardens is to plant trees. Inside every german is some Teutonic chieftain of a forest dwelling tribe and the garden is a clearing in a forest.

French cemeteries are purely functional. Richard Homes once described the French attitude to war cemeteries as a bit like the attitude of Parisian restaurants to lavetories. You have to have one, but why spend any money on it.

Originally Posted by Nato Standard123

Yep, have to mainly agree with FJ, that's why we often see little chavmong kids running around cemeteries, treating it like a playground, while their chavmong parents, of all classes, say nothing to reprimand them - ( cos if you act like a chavmong with no class, you are a chavmong with no class, no matter what your job title or pay packet says).

The kids aren't feeling any atmospherics, so maybe there really aren't any and it's just our own pre concieved ideas that show up in a pyschosomatic way?

Don't get me wrong, I've been to many places that apparently have 'a sense of history'...both good and bad, kind and evil..and often actually felt FA. Other times, I've been left speechless for a few minutes,when I realise where I'm standing.


It's a state of mind, how you're feeling at the time thing, IMO.

Is this a point you want to make about society in general or about a specific group you have watched visiting a cemetery.

In general terms we ought to frown on people who treat memorials and the dead with disrespect. But what is the "appropriate behaviour?"

Graham Parker, one of the pioneering battlefield guides of the Great War tells a story about visiting Tyne Cot towards the end of a day and being staggered to find juist what you describe. A school party were playing children's games in the Cemetery. Before getting into angry colonel mode he checked the bus. It was Belgian and so he thought he had better proceed with caution. He approached the teacher who explained that the children who attend her school live in an area with hundreds of cemeteries all visible reminders of horrific slaughter that took place around their homes. Visiting the cemetery and carrying out happy playful activities allows the ch;ldren to learn to live normally among the symbols of death. The soildiers who lie under the grave would like to know that long after their death happy children of a free country would feel ciomfortable coiming to visit their graves.

For whose benefit do we demand "respectful behaviour?"

The dead themselves? Judging by the film and anecdotes of the wars, these were young men who could be pretty disrespectful themselves.

Other visitors? Obviosuly it is wrong to disturb some group holding a service of Remebrance, but at what point do we accept that people can undertake Remerbance in their own way? Groups of schoolchildren and young adults get a lot from visiting war graves. Even if they do look chavvy they will get something from the expereince. Some of the most difficult children to control often do "get" what the cemetery is about. Its just that they just cant stay still. A retied RM Colonel and I took a group like that to Ypres. Neither of us realised until we started the tour that the school was a special needs school for boys on the autistic spectrum. Half of these boys had ADHT and were on Ritilin. Of course they ran around Tyne Cot. But they understood what it was about. Would you rather that those children most in need of understanding about the ideas of sacrifice remebrance and society were banned from visiting such places?

PS

I have no hesitation insisting that visitors avoid jumping over borders and risking damaging the plants. The CWC gardeners deserve every consideration.

Langemarck taken in July
Felt very cold and forbidding

Originally Posted by Cab-scab

Langemarck taken in July
Felt very cold and forbidding

what are you on about ?? ...looks like an ideal picnic spot if you ask me, you could even throw a frisbee about for a bit so long as you took those paving slabs up... bit of a trip hazard.

Originally Posted by Pteranadon

Is this a point you want to make about society in general or about a specific group you have watched visiting a cemetery.

In general terms we ought to frown on people who treat memorials and the dead with disrespect. But what is the "appropriate behaviour?"

Graham Parker, one of the pioneering battlefield guides of the Great War tells a story about visiting Tyne Cot towards the end of a day and being staggered to find juist what you describe. A school party were playing children's games in the Cemetery. Before getting into angry colonel mode he checked the bus. It was Belgian and so he thought he had better proceed with caution. He approached the teacher who explained that the children who attend her school live in an area with hundreds of cemeteries all visible reminders of horrific slaughter that took place around their homes. Visiting the cemetery and carrying out happy playful activities allows the ch;ldren to learn to live normally among the symbols of death. The soildiers who lie under the grave would like to know that long after their death happy children of a free country would feel ciomfortable coiming to visit their graves.

For whose benefit do we demand "respectful behaviour?"

The dead themselves? Judging by the film and anecdotes of the wars, these were young men who could be pretty disrespectful themselves.

Other visitors? Obviosuly it is wrong to disturb some group holding a service of Remebrance, but at what point do we accept that people can undertake Remerbance in their own way? Groups of schoolchildren and young adults get a lot from visiting war graves. Even if they do look chavvy they will get something from the expereince. Some of the most difficult children to control often do "get" what the cemetery is about. Its just that they just cant stay still. A retied RM Colonel and I took a group like that to Ypres. Neither of us realised until we started the tour that the school was a special needs school for boys on the autistic spectrum. Half of these boys had ADHT and were on Ritilin. Of course they ran around Tyne Cot. But they understood what it was about. Would you rather that those children most in need of understanding about the ideas of sacrifice remebrance and society were banned from visiting such places?

PS

I have no hesitation insisting that visitors avoid jumping over borders and risking damaging the plants. The CWC gardeners deserve every consideration.

TBH, it's a paradox.

On one hand I want to say to them to be quiet and show some respect, on the other I think of the fallen laying there and can imagine them saying 'Easy Chum, we lie here so that the children can play in energetic happiness and free from fear'

Maybe a major part of it is also that the parents/Adults don't seem to care or maybe realise that just perhaps their kids behaviour is impacting on the visiting relatives of the dead, who may actually want some quiet time to reflect on a dearly missed loved one, without the boisterous shrieking of children disturbing them.

Kids can play pretty much anywhere else on the planet, perhaps, just for a few minutes while they are in a cemetry, they can be a bit more reserverd and be made to realise that 'Hey, there are actually other people here who you may be disturbing?'.

Not having a dig, but organising a tour for school kids and then only later finding out that they were 'a bit special' doesn't give me a lot of faith in your 'Risk Assessment', and I'm not sure if I'll buy into the 'Yeah, they ran around like loons but understood the significance of Tyne Cot' either, when most of them have no comprehension of anything other than their own immediate, attention seeking needs or those that pander to them.

So on seconds thoughts, they should have be reminded that were they were going was a place of reverence for many people, so keep the fecking noise down and if you get too lairy, it's back on the Bus with no ice cream.

Just my opinion.

I have visited both allied and German War Cemeteries on the Aisne, including Italian graves, a truly cosmopolitan battlefield.
I found the experience moving but the curiosity was finding a handful of British graves from 1914 in a village graveyard, and stopping in a copse by the main road for a quick jimmy riddle, (I was on foot) and finding 8 French graves almost left there as an afterthought.
So I found it interesting that the telegraph article says that 165,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers still remain unaccounted for. Plus obviously other nations.
Definitely not a 'fun' war to have been in.

I was also interested in the solidity and depth of the defences, digging-in was a real art in those days. If you are passing there is a preserved German underground complex on the Chemin des Dames battlefield that included a hospital right up on the front line. Worth a visit.

Visiting the Chemin des Dames: The Caverne du Dragon
Chemin Des Dames Battlefield Tour - Battle Honours Walking Tours