The Cemetery is in the district of Charlottenburg, 8 kilometres west
of the city centre, on the south side of the Heerstrasse. From Theodor
Heuss Platz in the district of Charlottenburg, near the exhibition hall
complex and next to the Olympic Stadium, follow signs for Spandau, proceeding
along the Heerstrasse. The Cemetery lies on the Heerstrasse on the left
hand side of the road and 3 kilometres from Theodor Heuss Platz. Visitors
should drive beyond the cemetery to the traffic lights, then turn left
directly onto a small one way street running parallel to the Heerstrasse.
The Cemetery entrance is on this small one way road.
The site of Berlin 1939-45 War Cemetery was selected by the British
Occupation Authorities and Commission officials jointly in 1945, soon
after hostilities ceased. Graves were brought to the cemetery from the
Berlin area and from eastern Germany*. The great majority of those buried
here, approximately 80 per cent of the total, were airmen who were lost
in the air raids over Berlin and the towns in eastern Germany. The remainder
were men who died as prisoners of war, some of them in the forced march
into Germany from camps in Poland, in front of the advancing Russians.
The cemetery contains 3,594 Commonwealth burials of the Second World
War, 397 of them unidentified. In addition, there are 266 post war graves
of men of the British Occupation Forces or their dependants, or of members
of the Control Commission. * Leipzig, Konigsberg, Iena, Dresden, Halle,
Rostock, Teltow, Wismar, Mittenwalde, Neuburzdorf, Magdeburg, Grunberg,
Doberitz, Buchholz, Halberstadt, Blankenburg, Gotha, Tannenburg, Potsdam,
Weder, Tessau, Stralsund, Schweren, Munsdorf, Brandenburg and Schonwalde.
There
are 3468 graves.
Details
taken from the Commonwealth
War Graves Commisison web site.