What happened to the cemeteries of German soldiers in the Soviet Union after Hitler’s defeat?
Millions of German soldiers and officers died on the Eastern Front of World War II. Some of them were reburied in military cemeteries, the remains of others are still found by searchers today. On the website of the People’s League, 185 such cemeteries in Russia are listed. Not only those who died at the front are buried there, but also prisoners of war. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, there are a total of 1,722 German military cemeteries in the former Soviet Union. In addition to the Germans are their allies – Italians, Hungarians and Spaniards. Cemeteries of German soldiers in the USSR Relatives of Wehrmacht soldiers often do not know where they are buried. According to the public organization Verein Russland Kriegsgräber, operating in Germany, only about 350 thousand Hitlerites were reburied in military cemeteries in the Russian Federation. And the remains of more than 1 million soldiers lie outside organized cemeteries. The occupiers often dug graves for their dead directly in the settlements and erected helmeted crosses. However, after the liberation of the country by the Red Army, these cemeteries were dissolved by Decree No. 1517 of the State Defense Committee of April 1, 1942. The document instructed local authorities to “clean” and bury the bodies of enemy soldiers and officers in the area and to “eliminate enemy cemeteries and individual graves created by the enemy in the squares and streets.” The places where “the corpses of enemy soldiers” were to be buried were to be chosen “far from inhabited places, streets and communal graves of soldiers and commanders of the Red Army and the civilian population.” The decree did not mention any measures for the organization of the graves. The places where such “spontaneous” burials take place are usually known to local residents, but there are no crosses or monuments, and no one cares about them. At best, they are recognizable by their uneven terrain. Excavations are being carried out in these cemeteries and the remains are being transferred to several larger memorial cemeteries for German soldiers, which have been actively expanded since 1992, when a corresponding intergovernmental agreement was signed between Russia and Germany. The Rossoshki War Cemetery in the Volgograd region, the largest military cemetery in southern Russia, is a kind of exception – there are about 50 000 graves
(120,000 names on the granite cubes). In addition to German war graves, there are also Romanian and Soviet soldiers. During the Soviet era, the German part of the cemetery was neglected; it was not until the 1990s that memorials and new graves were built. Prisoner-of-war cemeteries The Germans were most “lucky” with the burial of soldiers who had died in Soviet captivity. The researcher Natalia Markdorf writes that from 1943 onwards, separate areas were set aside in the camp districts for the burial of dead Germans; the graves were to be documented and small plaques with number plates were to be placed above the burial mounds. In practice, this NKVD-MVD guideline has not always been complied with due to the high mortality rate in the camps, especially in Siberia. For example, in Prokopyevsk in the Kemerovo region, the bodies of Germans were simply dumped on the access roads of the Voroshilov mine. After 1949, the war cemeteries and internment cemeteries were placed under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior. The police authorities, in turn, handed them over to the district and city administrations. According to the regulations issued by the Ministry of the Interior, these plots of land could not be ploughed up or used for construction purposes. In reality, many cemeteries were abandoned by 1949 or used by the collective farms for the cultivation of crops. In 1957, the East German government agreed with the Soviet Union that the Ministry of the Interior would return the largest cemeteries for prisoners of war and internees under its control. The Soviets were only able to provide a list of 50 cemeteries that were in a relatively satisfactory condition. In total, there were 30,000 graves. But the local authorities could not muster the financial resources, the time or the energy to maintain them. “The international and state obligations to record, preserve and protect the historical memorials in Western Siberia in the years 1945-1960 were not fulfilled, and in the 1970-1980s one can speak of a complete loss of interest in this problem in the USSR, and especially in Western Siberia,” says Natalia Markdorf. The largest German military cemetery in Russia is now located near the villages of Lezie and Sologubovka in the Leningrad region and was established in the late 1990s. Around 70,000 German soldiers found in the region have already been reburied here. The cemetery is designed for 80 thousand bones. The cemetery is regularly visited by volunteers from Europe as part of international youth camps. This work, in which Russian volunteers also participate, is financed by donations from German citizens. “The Volksbund regularly organizes bus trips to the cemeteries of hundreds of relatives of the dead. In addition to Sologubovka, on the map of the German organization there are also memorial cemeteries in Veliky Novgorod (Pankovka) and in the village of Koprovo, 60 km from Staraya Russa. The latter is also one of the largest in Russia – 30 thousand people are buried here. Another large cemetery, opened in 2013, is located in the village of Dukhovschina in the Smolensk region. Under the granite crosses are buried 30 thousand Germans who were killed not only in the Smolensk region, but also near Bryansk and Kaluga. After all the reburials, the cemetery is expected to hold 70 thousand remains. The Besedino memorial complex near Kursk contains 40 thousand dead “Germans” – the cemetery was opened there in 2009. The “German” cemetery is also located in Dyagilevo near Ryazan – prisoners of war and internees are buried here. In the Southern Federal District, in addition to the already mentioned Rossoschek, there is a memorial near Apsheronsk in the Krasnodar Krai. The number of people buried here is 45,000. As in other cemeteries, there are large stone slabs with engraved lists of German names. In the vicinity of Sevastopol, near the village of Goncharne, there is a memorial cemetery, which was created in 1998. The final resting place is occupied by 5.5 thousand soldiers. It should be noted that the establishment of German military cemeteries in Russia is not positively evaluated by everyone.
Many are of the opinion that the mortal remains of the Wehrmacht soldiers should be brought to Germany and buried there.