German soldiers await Czech burial

[tyovan4]

The exhumed bodies of thousands of German soldiers killed in World War II have been stored in a Czech Republic factory for three years, reports say.

Some 4,000 sets of remains have been awaiting burial since they were exhumed by a German war graves association, the Czech newspaper MfDnes said.

Plans to establish a permanent cemetery in Prague have run aground because of a lack of funds, the newspaper reported.

The remains include soldiers who fought across eastern Europe during the war.

The remains have been stored in containers in the town of Usti-nad-Labem until the German association draws up final plans for their permanent burial.

'Solution needed'

But funding for new cemeteries in the Czech Republic has run out, MfDnes quoted German officials as saying.

"We are very sorry, but our People's Association for Care for Wartime Graves has run out of money, so I cannot say what will be done with the remains," embassy spokesman Sebastian Gerhardt told Dnes.

The newspaper quoted Fritz Kirchmeier of the graves association, as saying that his organisation would now seek a cheaper site outside central Prague.

"The main thing is to find a proper solution in a spirit of good neighbourliness," another embassy spokesman told the AFP news agency.

Nine cemeteries for German war dead have been established in the Czech Republic since the collapse of communism in 1989, MfDnes said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4818434.stm

Why not bring them home to Germany if they have been sitting in a factory in the Czech Republic for three years?

[Jim Bowie]

Why not bring them home to Germany if they have been sitting in a factory in the Czech Republic for three years?

Contemporary Germans really are not into caring for their war dead like other western nations. I can understand not attempting to tackle the mass piles of Wehrmacht dead in the trenches of Kiev or Stalingrad but since someone has already taken the time to pull the bodies you would think they would want them back.

[East Scout]

I wonder how many of them are actually German since auslander service in the German army was very high at the end of the war....

..Very interesting story..Thanks for posting it...

[oregongrunt]

How shameful that a country's war dead is treated this way.

[towelie]

they deserve better than to stay at a warehouse.

[SPQR]

This is utterly disgusting!!! The German government should immediately send military cargo aircraft and bring these men home to a hero's welcome. They gave the most precious thing they posessed for their country; their lives. It doesn't matter wether their leader was an evil mad man or not, these men were sons, brothers, and husbands and most of all human beings. F-U Germany, if this is how you treat your service men, I say they should all mutiny today.

[Hessian]

Most there would rather just forget about the war and that generation, pretty sad if you ask me.

[KEEPER0311]

Most there would rather just forget about the war and that generation, pretty sad if you ask me.
Indeed, its one thing to try to forget the war, but the everyday men who fought in and died in it, no matter the nationality should be hailed as heros.

[Para]

I would have thought that the German Government would or should have taken over and brought them back home to Germany. Now the war may not have been correct, but they did die fighting for their country whether they wanted to or not. The best the the Czech Government can do is to send them back to Germany and let them get on with it as it would appear it is a case of out of sight and out of mind.

[hughdotoh]

That's a depressing thought. It's a whole generation of German manhood is being despised simply for being part of that generation. The Japanese treat their war dead better.

[2RHPZ]

Awful ... According to the latest news here in CZ the goverment has called for investigation and police is taken first steps. I will keep you update, guys ...

[Freibier]

I haven't heard about this in the german media, if true - it's really a shame :(
Any updates are greatly appreciated, CAG 147.

[Reaver180]

That our government even lacks the common decency to give those soldiers a grave:roll:

[2RHPZ]

Any updates are greatly appreciated, CAG 147.

No problem ...

Only pic available:

http://i.idnes.cz/06/033/maxi/SKR11cb11_20usti2.JPG

The site is guarded by Police now. Bodies of German soldiers were exhumated by Czech company PARGENT for German Association of the solicitude of military graves (?). Their spokeman Fritz Kirchmeier stated that they have no money to continue with their plans to bury exhumated bodies in new cemetery in Prague as planed before.

[Freibier]

That's pretty sad :(
I contacted the Volksbund Kriegsgräberfürsorge on this issue, will post the answer as soon as I get it.

[toki]

Sad.
Some who just bash germany now have to understand that in the years after the war there was not much "time" or room to think about the fallen. First everything was destroyed, people had to care about themselves and even many POW were not back until the mid 50's.
Men where not there. So the women had to carry it all. And virtually every family had lost someone. So it was carried as a personal tragedy and not by the new government who had more pragmatic goals in the fifties. I guess the families after the war didn't want monuments, they wanted the pow's back, the wanted food and they wanted peace. And one has to understand that the government after the war was completely in the grip of the denazification. Which was needed, but that way everything was erradicated. There was no space for german monuments about that era in germany. Then came the sixties who completed the "break" with the war generation. It was a big clean up.

I think that some of the ghosts of the earlier post war era should be put to silence. (I'm not speaking about the war itself.) They were understandable from 1946 till the late sixties, but now after 60-70 years there should be room for those graves. :| If we do not accept those monuments we are stuck in the past. Seems unlogic for some, not for me.

[2RHPZ]

This story already becomes the political issue in Czech Republic. President Klaus demands the burial of remains even for Czech gov. money and calls for keeping humanity in that case.

Another big issue has risen along this story. Czech historians point out the fact that there are no-name mass graves at the Dablice cemetery in Prague where Nazis (in WWII) and Commies (1948 - 1958) buried the victims of their regimes. Now, there lie in one big grave Czech commandoes Gabcik and Kubis who assassinated Heidrich (they commited suicidal when surrounded by SS in 1942 in Prague) alongside his succesor K.H.Frank (executed by Czechs in 1945). If it is true, then I am realy deeply shocked and ashamed of my nation.