The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge began building the military cemetery in Bitola in 1932. The site is located on a mountain on the North-Western edge of today's Bitola over which the front line ran during a battle in 1916. German soldiers who died between 1915 and 1918 during the fighting on the Salonica Front are buried in Bitola. The cemetery is surrounded by a thick circular wall made of granite blocks. The entrance hall, built in the shape of a tower, is also made of the same material.
The German Military Cemetery in Bitola was designed by Robert Tischler, who worked as chief architect of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge from 1926 to 1959. He designed several military cemeteries and developed the concept of the so-called "Castles of the Dead" ("Totenburgen"), which were mostly built on hilltops and are strongly reminiscent of fortifications due to their design. The military cemetery in Bitola is another example of such a "Castle of the Dead".
The construction work took almost five years, partly because the required heavy granite blocks had to be transported over a long distance. On 25 October 1936 the military cemetery, where 3,400 dead rest, was inaugurated. A local company repaired the site in 1969. In the course of time some granite blocks and large parts of the mosaic laid in the roof of the hall had become loose. The granite blocks could be rejoined or replaced. However, the mosaic depicting an eagle could not be saved. As a replacement, the German artists Franz Grau and Josef Eberl created a sgraffito that still exists today. Since the 1970s a road tunnel is crossing through the mountain on which the military cemetery in Bitola is located.