War Cemetery Grossringe/Neugnadenfeld (Camp Alexisdorf)

The death rate of the Soviet prisoners of war in the Emsland camps, with more than 20,000 dead, was far higher than that of other nationalities. The majority was buried in mass graves. The Soviet prisoners of war from Camp XV Alexisdorf were buried in the cemetery of Camp XII Dalum until the early summer of 1943, when a new camp cemetery was built about 500 metres north of the Alexisdorf camp.

According to current research, 2,731 personal cards with biographical data have so far been assigned to Soviet prisoners who died in the Alexisdorf camp. Contemporary witness Hermann Kronemeyer from Hoogstede-Bathorn reported: "It must have been in the winter of 1943/44, when dead Russians were transferred from brigade wagons [Feldbahnloren] to lorries once or twice a week about 40 metres from our home [...]. The biggest pile of corpses was 1 ½ brigade wagons." (Interview excerpt with Hermann Kronemeyer from 16 February 1990, in: Werner Rohr/Hubert Titz (eds.): Lager unterm Hakenkreuz, Nordhorn 1990).

The entries on the personnel cards of the Soviet prisoners of war allow the conclusion that they reflect the entire spectrum of religious affiliation within the Red Army. The largest proportion was of the ‘(Russian) Orthodox’ denomination, followed by ‘Greek Catholic’ and ‘Muslim’. For a long time, the fact that there were also people of Islamic and Jewish faith among the deceased Soviet prisoners of war went largely unnoticed by the public. It is important to note in this context that the deceased were not exclusively men of Russian nationality, but also prisoners of war from the 15 constituent republics of the multi-ethnic state of the former Soviet Union.

After the end of the war, the Alexisdorf camp cemetery was provided with an obelisk bearing a Soviet star. Due to the ‘Cold War’, this was removed again when the cemetery was redesigned in the 1950s - as were the orthodox sandstone crosses. The Nazi victims of the Emsland camps buried in the war cemeteries have a perpetual right of rest under the ‘Law on the Preservation of Graves and Victims of War and Tyranny´ (Gesetz über die Erhaltung der Gräber und Opfer von Krieg und Gewaltherrschaft). The current design of the cemeteries was largely shaped between 1951 and 1974. The Großringe / Neugnadenfeld war cemetery is currently a memorial design, i.e. artistically designed monuments and steles adorn the cemetery without designating specific grave locations.