The cemetery at Tatura is the only German War Cemetery in Australia and is located close to the largest group of World War II internment camps established in Australia.
Heritage Council of Victoria Chair Professor Stuart Macintyre AO said the War Cemetery was socially significant for its longstanding relationship with the German community in Victoria.
He said it provided this community with a place for remembrance and commemoration at a local, state and national level, with the annual Volkstrauertag ceremony held in November.
Professor Macintyre said the Cemetery also shared a close relationship with the large group of local Tatura World War II internment camps, of which little physical fabric remained. These were the Dhurringile Mansion, Camps 1, 2, 3, 4, and 13 and an associated cutting camp at Graytown.
Established after World War II on land excised from the Tatura Cemetery, the cemetery provided for the burial of German internees and prisoners of war who died while detained in Australia during World War I and II.
The first section of the war cemetery was opened in November 1958 by the West German Ambassador, Dr Hans Muhlenfeld, for World War II civilians and prisoners of war who died while imprisoned in Australia. A second larger section was opened in 1961 for the reburial of German World War I internees.
The German War Cemetery contains the graves of 191 World War I and 59 World War II internees, including 11 prisoners of war. Each grave is marked by a small masonry headstone with a bronze plaque and iron cross to identify prisoners of war and Latin cross for civilians.
There is a rendered masonry entry gateway with seven rectangular columns supporting a flat-roofed canopy. A central concrete cross and a stone memorial with bronze plaque records the names of 27 Germans who died in the two World Wars and are buried elsewhere in Australia. This also commemorates 129 Catholic and 45 Protestant Missionaries.
Mr Macintyre said the German War Cemetery demonstrated the relationship between opposing countries soon after the end of World War II. The headstones and plaques in the cemetery record and illustrate the range of German internees who died in Australia as a result of World War I and II, including a sailor from the German ship ‘Kormoran’, which sank the HMAS Sydney in 1941, and internees shipped to Australia on the prison ship ‘Dunera’ in 1940.
The cemetery was one of a number of sites researched by Heritage Victoria with support from Veterans Branch, Department of Premier and Cabinet. Four avenues of honour have also been included in the Register as a result of this project.
For other registrations please go to heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au
