11,169 German graves Sited in open country access to the Marigny cemetery is approached along a narrow winding road. It was set up by the Americans during the "War in the Hedges" and the battle for Saint-Lo. Following on from the Americans, then the French, the Volksbund transferred there, those from isolated graves and from many small cemeteries. The exhuming and the lay-out, took place from 1956 to 1961. At Marigny also is the Office of the person responsible for the Western Sector of the Volksbund which covers North West France. Built of Schist, a stone quarried locally the entrance building is in the form of a church of the type found in the region. A small paved courtyard separates the tower from the nave, is followed by a sombre part that gives access to the grave-yard itself. Over twelve acres, the cemetery is a square, divided into live long sections with beds of St John's Wort marking the alleys, divided by the alleys cross-wise, graves are marked by Maltese Crosses. These are gravestones in ceramic, laid flat, inscribed with two or even three names. The St John's Wort with its yellow flowers and softened contours gives to Marigny quite a different character than the other German cemeteries.
I visited this cemetery on two occasions back in the 1980s armed with "Panzers in Normandy Then and Now" and again about seven years ago, we had been to the collectors fair at St. Marie Eglise in the morning and went on down via Deadmans Corner" to Marigny. For me, it was Tyschen and General Marcks which brought me back if the opportunity presented I would spend a day there- again it won't be this year. Tychsen at Kursk.General Marcks.
