Monument Placed By Nazis in Chattanooga National Cemetery-- Part 2: World War I German Sailors and Soldiers

In February1933, the Chattanooga Daily Times reported  that the German government  was planning to place a monument  in the Chattanooga National Cemetery.  Days before, on February  4, the remains of 22 German sailors who had died at Hot Springs, North Carolina, were reburied there, joining the graves of  dozens of German POWs who had died at nearby Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia.  A local Presbyterian  minister delivered the prayer service.

The remains were buried in secret and the local newspapers did not learn about it until the next day.

All this came five days after Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany.  A few weeks after that, the Nazi paramilitary  organization, the SS, started the first concentration camp for political prisoners at Dachau.

Meanwhile, the German diplomatic mission in the United States was also changing.

Thanks to President Roosevelt's New Deal, the U.S. military handed the Chattanooga National Cemetery over to the Department of the Interior on August 10, 1934.

--GreGen