WAR CEMETERY OBERLANGEN

The deceased of the Oberlangen camp during its use as a prison camp, in the period from 1934 to 1939, were buried in the Börgermoor camp cemetery, today's Esterwegen/Bockhost burial ground. The Oberlangen camp cemetery, today's war cemetery, was only designated in the late autumn of 1941.

Current research assumes that there were around 2,000 to 3,000 graves. The names of 909 Soviet prisoners of war who died in the Oberlangen camp are known. Of these, 447 graves at the Oberlangen war cemetery can currently be identified by name. The Soviet soldiers who died before the Oberlangen camp cemetery was established were buried in the nearby Wesuwe camp cemetery.

The entries on the personnel cards of the Soviet prisoners of war reflect the entire spectrum of religious affiliations within the Red Army. The ‘(Russian) Orthodox’ denomination made up the largest proportion, followed by ‘Greek Catholic’ and ‘Muslim’. For a long time, the fact that there were also prisoners of Islamic and Jewish faith among the deceased Soviet prisoners of war went largely unnoticed by the public. The deceased were not exclusively people of Russian nationality, but prisoners of war from the 15 republics of the multi-ethnic state of the former Soviet Union.

The majority of the approximately 872 Italian military internees who died in the Oberlangen camp between May and September 1944 were buried in the camp cemetery in Groß Fullen. According to the counts of the Italian burial service, an additional 17 dead were buried at the Wesuwe camp cemetery.

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 Oberlangen war cemetery is currently a memorial design, i.e. artistically designed monuments and steles adorn the cemetery without designating specific grave locations.