Crawinkel is a municipality in the eastern part of Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 in the district of Gotha

Gotha (district)

Gotha is a Kreis in the middle of Thuringia, Germany. Neighboring districts are Unstrut-Hainich, Sömmerda, the district-free city Erfurt, Ilm-Kreis, Schmalkalden-Meiningen and the Wartburgkreis.-History:...

, Thuringia

Thuringia

The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....

. Crawinkel was first mentioned in 1088.

After the Armistice with France

Armistice with France (Second Compiègne)

The Second Armistice at Compiègne was signed at 18:50 on 22 June 1940 near Compiègne, in the department of Oise, between Nazi Germany and France...

 in 1940, during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, German forces took numerous memorials from the forest of Compiègne

Compiègne

Compiègne is a city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.The city is located along the Oise River...

, where the Armistice with Germany

Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)

The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...

 that ended World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 was also signed, as prizes to Crawinkel. These included the actual railway carriage where both armistices were concluded. In 1945, the car was dynamited and its pieces buried. Since the German reunification

German reunification

German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...

in 1989, numerous artifacts have been recovered and returned to France.