Cologne Southern Cemetery is located within the civilian cemetery, Sudfriedhof Koln. More than 1,000 Allied prisoners and dozens of German servicemen were buried in Cologne Southern Cemetery during the First World War. Commonwealth forces entered Cologne on 6 December 1918, less than a month after the Armistice and during this period the cemetery was used by the occupying garrison. In 1922 it was decided that the graves of Commonwealth servicemen who had died all over Germany should be brought together into four permanent cemeteries at Kassel, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne. There are now almost 2,500 First World War servicemen buried or commemorated in the Commonwealth plots at Cologne.