Kriegsgräberstätte am Waldfriedhof

In the Hadern district of Munich, a forest clearing holds one of the largest war cemeteries in Germany. The Kriegsgräberstätte am Waldfriedhof dates from 1965 and occupies a glade 100 metres wide and 150 metres deep. Three thousand five hundred and forty people rest here: soldiers and civilians from both World Wars, drawn from eighteen nations. Tischlerstraße runs between the graves and the newer section of the Waldfriedhof.

Within the clearing stands a memorial hall built as a tall triangle of white concrete. Its front carries a narrow screen 13 metres high, made of more than 1,800 prisms. Sunlight falls through them and throws a shifting pattern across interior walls that carry the names of the dead. The display moves with the sun, so the walls never show you quite the same light twice.

Care for the dead crosses borders here. Remembrance takes a shared form: every year, young people from the International Youth Camp come to help tend the graves.