The Gate of the Dead was inaugurated on June 17, 1964 and it commemorates all the victims of the wars of 1866, 1870-1871, World War I 1914-1918, and World War II 1939-1945, from Rhineberg–Mitte Germany. It is a symbolic Gate opening to the east made of meter high shells of Rhine gravel cement. Some surfaces of the vertical shells are smooth while others are rough as if exposed due to bomb blasts. The two shells enclose a large bronze plate which had three bronze crosses on the front and a large inscription on the back which says, “We have gone before you in dark times. Remember us and see the will of him who gives and takes away.” The names of 650 war victims are imbedded in the ground in the inner area.
For the Second World War there are 300 fallen soldiers, 95 missing, 60 civilian victims of bombings, 20 victims of flight and 10 deaths from concentration camps listed. All the victims were men woman and children from Rhineberg. They were Christians, Jews and people of no faith.
The Gate of the Dead is not a war memorial, it is instead a beacon of hope that people might someday abandon war and tyranny.
The Gate of the Dead is right behind a day care. I could hear the screams of children at play the whole time I sketched. Townspeople walk their dogs around the paths that run past the edifice. The Gates remind me of the entrance to Jurassic Park. I liked that a distant barren tree lined up right in the middle of the sliver of the entrance.
This edifice was not here in 1945 as the 75th Infantry Division stood at the western side of the Rhine River about to cross the largest water barrier between them and Berlin Germany. The 75th Infantry Division would ultimately not advance as far as Berlin. General Eisenhower decided that he would let the Soviets advance to Berlin from the East, and the goal of the American troops would be to cripple the German war effort by destroying the Industrial Ruhr area which was the backbone of the German war machine.
The 75th Infantry Division was going to cross the Rhine just south of the Lippe River. Their objective would be to clear the area between the Lippe River and the Lippe Canal. This is a very narrow strip of land which eventually would lead to Dorsten Germany. The troops had to wait at the Rhine river’s edge for the start of what would be known as OPERATION PLUNDER.