The VDK commemorates around 2.8 million casualties in 832 war cemeteries in 46 countries around the world. Many of these cemeteries fall within Europe, but there are German burials across the world, including Tatura German Military Cemetery in Australia, and Kitchener German War Cemetery in Canada.
From 1946 onwards, the Volksbund quickly established more than 400 war gravesites in Germany. In 1954, the Federal Government officially commissioned the Volksbund to search for German soldiers' graves abroad, to bury the dead and to maintain the war gravesites.
WW2 German cemetery at La Cambe
In all, 80,000 German soldiers are buried in Normandy. Slightly inland from Isigny sur Mer, La Cambe is the largest and most visited of the German military cemeteries. More than 21,200 young men are buried there, their names engraved on dark stones laid flat on the ground.
The Langemark cemetery is the final resting place of 44,294 German soldiers. More than half of them are buried in one mass grave, the Kameraden Grab, their names etched on large dark plaques running alongside the site.
The German War Graves Commission estimates there are still many thousands of German unmarked war graves throughout Russia and areas of the former Eastern Front but has successfully located and reinterred over 600,000 in German sponsored cemeteries like Sologubovka since the end of the Cold War.
In June 1951, a pair of German soldiers from the Wehrmacht were reportedly found alive after being trapped inside a military bunker at Babie Doły for six years. They were the only survivor from a group of six who had been inside an underground storehouse when the entrance was dynamited by the retreating German Army.
A commission set up by the West German government found that 3,060,000 German military personnel were taken prisoner by the USSR and that 1,094,250 died in captivity (549,360 from 1941 to April 1945; 542,911 from May 1945 to June 1950 and 1,979 from July 1950 to 1955).
More and more younger Germans want to know fate of their relatives during war. Exactly 81 years after the start of World War II, around 1.3 million Germans are still missing and their fates may never be cleared up.
The Americans forced nearby German townspeople to witness the atrocity site, disinter the bodies, place them in coffins, parade these bodies through the town and lay them to rest in town cemeteries.
The soldiers were found in neat rows of wooden coffins lined with zinc with their heads pointing north in an indication that the site was an “advance cemetery” rather than a “retreat cemetery”, the commission, or Volksbund, said.
Overview. The Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial in France covers 113.5 acres and contains the largest number of graves of our military dead of World War II in Europe, a total of 10,481.
The cemetery site, at the north end of its half mile access road, covers 172.5 acres and contains the graves of 9,386 of our military dead, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations.
There are nearly 70 German War Graves in Scotland, predominantly from the Second World War. They are buried at: Campsie Cemetery. Dunfermline (Douglas Bank) Cemetery.
As shown by plastic and glass slots on every trash can, Germans really like recycling. For centuries, Germans have taken the practice up a notch. They recycle graves. Recycling graves is a sensitive subject in the States, but it is considered normal in Germany.
In some instances, families can renew leases indefinitely, of course. But in the case of single gravesites that are not renewed after that "rest period" has expired, the gravesite is cleared — and can be reused. If it is not needed, the area is usually turned into a lawn.
A war grave is a burial place for members of the armed forces or civilians who died during military campaigns or operations.
The Department of Defense revived previous efforts to recover the remains of missing American soldiers during the 1970s. Since then, the remains of almost 1,000 Americans killed during World War II have been identified and returned to their families with military honors, according to the POW/MIA agency.
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency works to recover the remains of missing soldiers. The agency has accounted for 1,474 missing WWII soldiers since beginning its work in 1973. Government figures show that more than 72,000 WWII soldiers are still missing.
Historians estimate that at least 2 million German women were raped at the end of World War II. That figure is based on German hospital and abortion clinic records. Many women, like Schumacher, were raped multiple times.
Russia and Germany Both Hard Up for Officers
After the war started, Germany was equally hard on general officers. During the course of the war, Hitler executed 84 German generals, and another 135 generals were killed in action.
According to postwar German estimates, more than 35,000 soldiers were convicted by military courts of leaving their units during the course of the war. Some 23,000 were sentenced to death, and at least 15,000 of these were actually executed.
After Germany's surrender in May 1945, millions of German soldiers remained prisoners of war. In France, their internment lasted a particularly long time. But, for some former soldiers, it was a path to rehabilitation.
During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war.
they were ruthlessly hunted down and killed soviet female soldiers were also targeted for death the germans portraying them as degenerates.
Most German POWs seem to have died before 1945 due to their poor health when falling captive after month-long fighting such as in Stalingrad. Many others died because of overwork, and because the Soviets did not allocate resources towards the POWs, but to their war effort.