In Belgium and France (and elsewhere) there are of course some huge war graves dating from WWI. When the Germans over ran these in 1940, how did they treat them? Did this treatment change at all over the course of the war, until they were driven out 1944-5? Thanks in advance.
Addition: apparently, the German army showed scrupulous respect for allied Great War graves, but destroyed a couple of memorials such as the american memorial of Saint-Nazaire, the original Australian Memorial of Mont St Quentin or the french memorial of Boesinghe, generally because these referred to "Hunnish atrocities" or "barbarians". Although I found no sources to support these claims, I found certain references to an order to the german army to respect miitary cemetaries, and the story of one or more soldiers who were punished (executed?) for urinating on the gate or a grave in the Menin cemetary.
I'm not on my computer, but here is a fascinating article on why Hitler spared the Canadian vimy ridge memorial http://www.thestar.com/news/2007/04/07/how_hitler_spared_vimy_ridge.html?app=noRedirect