IR 13 - Burials and Graves
Germany suffered 1,773,700 deaths in the First World War (according to other sources: 2,037,000). The German losses are distributed as follows: field/occupation army 1,900,876, navy 34,836, in the colonies 1,185. In addition there are about 100,000 missing persons who were considered dead. Of the approximately 281,000 officers of the German army, about 55,000 (= 19%) fell. The losses among the ranks – including non-commissioned officers – are estimated at approx. 14%. About 1,250,000 dead German soldiers were buried outside the homeland, among them in the colonies 1,053 German colonial troops. The recorded losses of individual regiments were mostly dramatic.
Until and including November 1916, IR 13 counted 11,047 dead, missing and wounded soldiers (see list below). In total 175 officers and 4,038 non-commissioned officers and enlisted men of this formation fell in the First World War. The war memorial on the promenade commemorates these losses. The monument was created by the sculptor Heinrich Bäumer (1874 - 1951 in Münster); the laying of the foundation stone took place on 03.06.2023 and the inauguration on 03.05.1925.
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Uniformierung & Ausrüstung
2nd Westphalian Field Artillery Regiment No. 22
The 2nd Westphalian Field Artillery Regiment No. 22 was also part of the permanent garrison of Münster.
Heeressoziologie
On the military culture of remembrance in Münster after 1918
When the Münster regiments finally returned to their home garrisons in 1918 and 1919 and were almost completely disbanded, the German Reich sank into revolutionary turmoil. Against the backdrop of the Weimar Republic, the processing of the military defeat began — a defeat that allegedly had not occurred (the "stab-in-the-back legend"); the myth of the front-line soldier and a culture of remembrance and commemoration developed.
Kriegsgeschichte
Münster before and after the destruction in World War II. Photographs from a private photo album.
World War II originated from the criminal National Socialist (Nazi) regime and was carried out by German soldiers and other units (e.g., police battalions or SS and SD task forces), bringing combat operations, destruction, expulsion, deportation and the systematic murder of Jews and other population groups in labor and concentration camps across much of Europe. German war crimes also included the deliberate bombing of civilian targets, for example the Dutch port city of Rotterdam on 14 May 1940 or the English industrial city of Coventry on 14 November 1940. However, this war violence returned to Germany as Allied air superiority grew in the further course of World War II and developed into a systematic bombing campaign against German cities. Münster, too, as an important military center and a major transport hub for rail and canal connections, was the target of devastating American and British air raids. The first bombing raid on Münster took place on 16 May 1940. In total, from mid-May 1940 to the end of March 1945, 102 air raids were carried out against Münster, for example by 230 bombers on 10 October 1943 in two waves of attack. In the hail of tens of thousands of explosive bombs, incendiary stick bombs and incendiary canisters, the historically grown cityscape largely disappeared. As a result, more than 90% of the building stock in the city center was destroyed. By the end of the war only 25,000 people were living in the city; in 1940 there had still been 140,000 inhabitants. It is estimated that the air raids cost approximately 1,600 lives.