Graveside reconciliation – Commemoration in Verdun

Strasbourg/Verdun – In pursuance of further education in the field of military history, members of the multinational Eurocorps Headquarters travelled to the World War I battlefields in the proximity of Verdun at the beginning of April. The VIth German Reserve Corps, which was employed there in 1916, was taken as an example for a situation-based terrain orientation, an estimate of the enemy situation, a force comparison and for the consideration of possible courses of actions.

The German service members and their comrades from France, Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg accomplished the assigned tactical tasks together in mixed groups. Later, the participants compared their own approach to what actually happened on the battlefield in 1916.

Commemorative Chapel in the Ossuary of Douaumont

Highlight of the educational trip was a solemn commemoration ceremony held by the Deputy Commander Eurocorps, the French Major General Philippe Sommaire, and the Chief of Staff Eurocorps, Brigadier General Georg Nachtsheim, in the Ossuary of Douaumont near Verdun. In the presence of local representatives of the Verdun region, they commemorated the 260 000 dead and the 470 000 wounded who had to be deplored in this front section done in the year 1916. A wreath was laid down and an eternal flame kindled in honour of the victims. For the Eurocorps members it was a particularly emotional moment when letters written by French and German soldiers during World War I were read out in their mother tongue and not in English as would have been the normal way of proceeding in Eurocorps. Hearing the letters in their native language allowed the participants to better grasp the horrors felt in the trenches of World War I and the suffering of the servicemen of the fighting nations.

Contribution to the Unification of Europe

Against this backdrop, not only the younger participants understood the particular concern of the former French President François Mitterrand and the then Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl as - when laying down a wreath together at the very site in 1984 - they not only commemorated the victims of war but also emphasized the Franco-German friendship and the reconciliation process. Both nations have made by this an exemplary contribution to peace in Europe and to the European unification.

The Eurocorps has been a symbol thereof ever since it was established by these two statesmen in 1992. A visible sign substantiating this claim is that within the fortification system around Fort Douaumont the main street running past the central national memorial museum was named “Avenue du Corps Européen” in 1994.

Text: Captain Klaus SCHMIDT, DEU Army

Pictures: OR9 MAUCOTEL, FRA Army

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