“More than 80 years after the war, the remains of tens of thousands of victims have still not been found. The discovery of a mass grave of Wehrmacht soldiers in Poland shows how much work still lies ahead,” the German news agency DPA laments while reporting on the discovery of a mass grave of Hitler’s soldiers in Łośno, near Gorzów Wielkopolski. The remains are expected to be transferred to a German war cemetery in Poland in the near future.
Take a close look at these photographs. They document not even a fraction of the crimes committed by Germany in Poland during World War II, crimes carried out in part by what some still describe as the “chivalrous Wehrmacht.” Among them are the Ciepielów massacre, in which Wehrmacht troops executed around 300 Polish prisoners of war; German soldiers breaking into a home in the Poznań region in September 1939; and Polish women being led to their execution in Palmiry. Yet today, it is the graves of the German aggressors that are being searched for in Poland.
The German news agency DPA recently reported on the discovery of a mass grave of Wehrmacht soldiers in Łośno, near Gorzów Wielkopolski. The Pomost Centre for Historical and Archaeological Research, which has spent years searching for victims of wars and armed conflicts, recovered the remains of 31 individuals from the site. Experts hope they will be able to establish their identities.
“The German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge) estimates that around 100,000 Wehrmacht soldiers’ bodies may still be awaiting discovery in Poland. According to the organisation, more than 170,000 soldiers killed during World War II have already been exhumed in Poland over the past 25 years, with their remains reburied in war cemeteries,”
the German outlet DW notes.
The outlet reports that Tomasz Czabański, director of the Pomost Centre and head of the excavation in Łośno, has announced that the remains will later be transferred to a German war cemetery in Poland. Quoting Czabański’s remarks to DPA, DW highlights that, in his view, “the question of guilt and whether those buried here were involved in war crimes is of secondary importance.” “We do not know whether they were good or bad people,” said the founder of the Pomost Centre, who was previously awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his contribution to Polish-German reconciliation.
Meanwhile, Holm Kirsten, a historian and head of the historical collections at the Buchenwald Memorial, argues that “the relatives of Wehrmacht soldiers also have the right to learn the fate of their fathers and grandfathers.” DW also reports that twenty identification tags worn by German soldiers were recovered in Łośno. The tags, each bearing an identification number, will be examined at the German Federal Archives in Berlin-Tegel in an effort to match them to specific individuals.