It is located adjacent to the British Saint-Désir War Cemetery and is unique as the two burial grounds are linked by a pathway.

The cemetery is maintained and managed by the voluntary German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge).

The majority of the German war dead buried at Saint-Désir-de-Lisieux were killed during the last days of the Battle of Normandy and inside the Falaise Pocket in August 1944.

In the late 1950s the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge) remodelled and expanded the cemetery.

Headstones were replaced with red sandstone plaques giving the names, ranks, dates of birth and death of two fallen German soldiers.