The Andilly German War Cemetery is located 10 kilometers north of Toul and three kilometers outside of Andilly (Meurthe-et-Moselle). With 33,085 dead soldiers, it is the largest German World War II military cemetery in France.
At the beginning of September 1944, Allied troops were pressing toward Germany. From the Rhône Valley to the Vosges Mountains and the Rhine Valley, fighting against the retreating German troops caused enormous losses on both sides.
In 1944, the Americans established a temporary cemetery here for their nationals as well as for fleeing German troops who had fallen in combat. This temporary cemetery contained 5,000 graves. After the war, the Americans relieved their soldiers and reburied them in the American War Cemetery in Saint-Avold. Andilly then became a German military cemetery, where 5,000 victims were buried at the time.
From Saint-Avold, 575 German soldiers were buried, and from Épinal-Dinozé, 4,891 died in the Andilly area. In total, the death toll at Andilly rose to 11,000. Following the Franco-German agreement on military graves in 1954, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (German Military Graves Maintenance Service) was commissioned by the German government to develop this military necropolis for the victims of World War II in the early 1960s. Its members and benefactors funded its maintenance with their contributions and donations.
Starting in 1957, the Volksbund began searching for and gathering in Andilly the bodies of German soldiers who had fallen west of Metz and in eleven departments: Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire, Côte-d'Or, Haute-Marne, Jura, Doubs, Haute-Saône, Vosges, Territoire de Belfort, Meuse, and Meurthe-et-Moselle. There were 2,000 unknown dead German soldiers in the Vosges who were transferred to Andilly. Thus, with 33,085 graves, the largest German military necropolis for the Second World War in France was created. In the spring of 1961, the cemetery was transformed from a garden perspective. The result was a solemn plot surrounded by bushes and trees. The cemetery was opened to the public in 1962.
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