Reburial of German remains in Russia

[peter monahan]

Today's Toronto Star (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) has an interesting photo in the "World News" section.

The title reads: "All That Remains": Some 43,000 German soldiers killed in World War II near Leningrad have been reburied so far in Russia.

The photo shows a pile of wooden caskets - perhaps 1 meter long - each with a number on it - all in the 36400-36800 range. The caption reads "A Russian soldier carries the remains of a German soldier to a final resting place at the German military cemetery in Sologubovka, northeast of St. Petersburg, Russia. About 95,000 soldiers died in the region, but only about 70 per cent of the remains have been identified."

Unfortunately there is no acompanying story! Sounds intriguing. Does anyone know more?

Peter Monahan

[Guest Rick Research]

I would think the percentage identifiable is extremely over-exaggerated. Official 1940s Soviet policy was, as far as I have ever read or heard, to dig up German cemeteries once a territory had been liberated and throw them in pits, often uncovered. Odd burials here and there may have simply had cross markers thrown away, but I have never heard of any undisturbed wartime German military cemetery anywhere on recaptured Russian territory.

Aside from the understandable wartime emotions, presumably it didn't LOOK good to have the invaders all neat and tidily labelled, while the defenders had... nothing at all. ARE there any Soviet post-liberation military cemeteries of the type or scale of the Allied ones in Western Europe? Colossal monuments to martial glory aplenty, sure, but actual individually marked war cemeteries? The only ones I know about are in Eastern Europe and what was the DDR, from the last days of the war.

[robert39]

From " ASSAULT ON MOSCOW 1941" by Werner Haupt

The German soldiers' cemetery in LYUBLINO, southeast of MOSCOW . 500 German soldiers are buried here that had died in Russian prisoner of war camps

in the greater Moscow area after 1945.

The photograph shows the author during a visit in early 1984.He found that in spite of all the protective precautions, there were bouquets of flowers

on individual graves, showing that Russian women had climbed over the " BERLIN WALL " to decorate the German graves on memorial days .

He wrote that these small acts of love mean much more than the peace declarations of politicians from the East and WEST....

______________

Robert

Edited September 1, 2007 by robert39

[peter monahan]

Rick and Robert

I have never heard of any undisturbed wartime German military cemetery anywhere on recaptured Russian territory.

Rick

I did wonder, but this looks as if the Russians may be changing that policy/reality: the size of the "coffins" suggests incomplete skeletons or bones "piled" as opposed to laid out anatomically, but OTH, they seem to be putting each set of remains into its own container with an ID number on it. That and, perhaps, the presence of a Russian soldier (as opposed to a labourer) suggests to me that someone is trying to do the right thing by these remains.

I wondereed if anyone else over there had heard anything on this topic, as it suggested to me - if accurate - a surprisingly open and heartening attitude on the part of the current administration in Russia, as well as on the part of the individual Russians of the sort Robert references.

Peter

[joe campbell]

with absolutely no diminution of the anxiety and

chronic not-knowing of the VN era POW/MIA

families, we Americans have only a taste of the

magnitude of the scale of loss for many

German, Russian, and numerous other combatant

nations in WW 1 and WW 2.

it does a heart good to see this effort continue in

this vein. i wish them success and hope that

there will be families who will finally get some information

on lost loved ones.

joe

[Tiger-pie]

I saw a doco filmed around Stalingrad and there were still bones collected in heaps where they had been washed down ravines by the thaw. Many of the German dead were simply thrown into ravies and left uncovered, or buried in trenches and bunkers were they died.

Regards;

Johnsy

[new world]

There are still tens of thousands of Russian soldiers' remaining on various battllefields.

Believe it or not - Russian government does very little to discover, identify and properly bury these unknown heroes who were protecting the country.

There are some private organisations who take care of the uncovered remains, but the pace of such work is slow.

It's very touchy that Russian governemnet puts out these publicity footages in carying for German soldiers, but perhaps they owe it to their own soldiers to take care of them first and then look after the invaders?

William

[rudicantfail]

I have just recently discovered that Sologubovka German military cemetery is where my uncle is buried. I am desperately trying to find photographs of the area on the internet. The cemetery looks pretty basic, but it is nicely kept. As you say, Soviet cemeteries never seem to be well looked after, at least, not in the same way as British, German and American ones are.