Wevelgem
During the First World War, the Germans constructed an airport. The airport still exists and is now used for private purposes. Also remaining is the German Military cemetery, which is also partly situated in Menen. There are 47,864 soldiers buried there, who all died during WW1. This makes the cemetery the biggest German cemetery in Belgium. Across the cemetery, there used to be a (fake) airport, with wooden planes to mislead the enemy; there are still remains of the airport consisting of a big bunker and a small bunker near the railway. The bridge that connects Lauwe to Wevelgem was destroyed during the Second World War and was rebuilt later.
German Jewish military personnel of World War I
Some Jews did fear marginalisation as the German public enthusiastically geared up for the Great War, but once the war began such attitudes dissipated and the general reaction of Germany's Jewry was to greet the war with enthusiasm. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the situation drastically changed for German Jews in the military. At the start of the war, 12,000 German Jews volunteered for the German Army. Of the 100,000 Jews who served with the German military, 70,000 fought at the front line, 12,000 were killed in action, and 3,000 were promoted to officer ranks, but they could only become officers of the reserve, not the regular army. The Iron Cross was awarded to 18,000 German Jews during the war, of which 1,000 received the first class award. Jewish-born Wilhelm Frankl became the first member of the flying corps to be awarded the Pour le Mérite. The anti-semitic "Judenzählung" of 1916 disgusted many German Jewish soldiers, being aimed at falsely proving that Jews were trying to avoid military service. For many German Jews, the war held the hope of being treated equal to non-Jewish Germans for the first time. Many Jews also held strong patriotic feelings for Germany and the belief that the war in the East against the Russian Empire would bring the liberation of their fellow Eastern European Jews from pogroms and persecution.