St-Désir-de-Lisieux: German Cemetery

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3,735 German graves ​

The cemetery at Saint-Desir in the Pays d'Auge is in open country near a British cemetery. It was set up by the German Army on their withdrawal to the Lower Seine. The greater part of the German soldiers killed in the fighting were interred here by the Commonwealth War Graves personnel. The Volksbund were not concerned with interments but with lay-out and landscape which was carried out between 1957 and 1961. Its 15,000 square metres, make it the smallest of the German cemeteries.

The entrance is through a flat-topped building that gives on the grave-yard against the light, through a semicircular colonnade. Bounded by a hedge-row and planted with big trees like the other German cemeteries, Saint Desir's distinguishing feature is the beds of Irises at the foot of the head-stones in red sandstone. Each of these have four names inscribed. The tranquillity of the place with the green and violet of the Irises in the shade of great trees adds atmosphere and a peculiar light that gives a singular charm to the cemetery.

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