Cimetière allemand de Fricourt

Fricourt was strongly fortified by large-scale structures linking cellars to underground tunnels and by concrete fortifications on the surface. It formed a key support position for the famous "Fricourt salient" which the Germans considered to be a practically impregnable pillar of their defence system. It did not deserve such trust as it fell to the British on 2nd July 1916. Of the 17,027 soldiers buried here, about a thousand died between late August 1914 and June 1916; 10,000 died between late June and mid-November 1916, during the Battle of the Somme; just over 6,000 were killed during the 1918 offensives, between March and October. Created in the early 1920s, this cemetery briefly housed the tomb of Manfred von Richthofen (known as the Red Baron), a famous flying ace of the Great War. In 1925 his remains were transferred to Berlin before being finally buried at Wiesbaden.