German pow dying in France
Max Abraham a soldier on the 176 infantry regiment part of the 11thCompagny was captured near Chérizy on 23/04/1917,( now there are two villages in France with that name, so that accent on the e is important.) a very small village in Pas de Calais near Hendecourt lès Cagnicourt so the battle of Arras( second one) or the action known as the second battle of the Scarpe 23-24 april1917.
One of the British regiments in front of his regiment :
The 17th Manchester battalion improved the trench system in front of the village of Heninel, facing Cherisy. At 9 am in the morning of 23rdApril, the Germans carried out a major assault and the Manchesters managed to hold their hastily built defences. A second attack followed at 2pm, and the men maintained their positions but at huge cost. Only 290 remained on duty after the battalion withdrew. So our Max ends up as a POW, has to work and is put into the pow company 72 he get’s a number: 377. He is eventually injured during an accident ,a railway engine fractured his skull, he end’s up in general hospital 30 where he unfortunately dies .
In the POW files of the red cross all his details can be found including were his father August Abraham lived. In the German on-line database there is as good as nothing added about him, I was yet again not impressed, I will send them my research in the hope they might ad this.
Cimetière Nord, carré militaire Allemand
The Calais cemetery was established in July 1922 by the French military authorities, who transferred the German dead from various temporary military hospital cemeteries to the cemetery. In 1927, the men who had been buried in Sangatte were also transferred here. During the war, Calais was one of the most important supply harbours for the British armies in France. As a result, there were also numerous military hospitals here, where not only their own wounded and sick were treated, but also Germans who had been taken prisoner of war. Temporary graves for the deceased were often set up on the grounds of the military hospitals. The earliest death dates of German soldiers begin in October 1914 with the fierce battles in the course of the ‘Race to the Sea’ and around Ypres. In the first half of 1915, deceased soldiers who were taken prisoner during the battles for La Bassée, Neuve-Chapelle and Arras were buried here. Further burials only took place again from June 1917 with the start of the major British offensive in Flanders and in 1918 following the German attacks on Amiens, Armentières and the Kemmelberg. Those buried here belonged to units whose home garrisons were located in all countries and provinces of the German Reich. In total 359 German headstones. There are also 1048 Belgians and 301 French buried here.
Sources : Volksbund.de, geneanet.be,