Hitler's lost soldiers: Remains of 120 German servicemen who died fighting Red Army as it advanced on Berlin are laid to rest at ceremony in Lietzen war cemetery
- The men died 76 years ago during the fierce Battle of the Seelow Heights
- Soldiers died during fighting on the River Oder, trying to stop Russian advance
- Soviet Union troops breached German defences and marauded into Berlin The remains of 120 German soldiers who were killed during fighting to prevent the advance of the Red Army on Berlin at the end of the Second World War have been reburied in a war cemetery.
The men died 76 years ago during the fierce Battle of the Seelow Heights, which marked the beginning of the Soviet Union's final push to Berlin after Nazi Germany had been largely defeated.
The men who died were hastily buried where they fell, before being discovered and exhumed last year across a 60-mile-wide area.
At least a third of the men were identified by their 'dog tags' – the common term given for the identification discs given to all soldiers.
The soldiers died during fighting on the River Oder, whilst unsuccessfully trying to stop Russian troops from reaching the German capital.
It was where Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was holed up in his bunker before he killed himself on April 30, 1945.
The men's remains were packed into 92 small coffins, each of which had a small rose put on it, before they were covered over in the ceremony in Lietzen, 40 miles east of Berlin, the Times reported.
The remains of 120 German soldiers who were killed during fighting to prevent the advance of the Red Army on Berlin at the end of the Second World War have been reburied in a war cemetery. Pictured: The men were packed into 92 small coffins and buried in Lietzen's war cemetery, east of Berlin
The men died 76 years ago during the fierce Battle of the Seelow Heights, which marked the beginning of the Soviet Union's final push to Berlin after Nazi Germany had been largely defeated. Pictured: Soviet troops bombarding German positions during the battle
The ceremony, from which descendants were barred because of coronavirus restrictions, was just the latest in a series of reburials of German soldiers which have taken place in recent years.
It is part of an effort by Germany's Wolksbund war graves commission since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991 to find war dead on what was the Eastern Front.Astonishingly, 15,000 remains have reportedly been exhumed since 1993 alone, many of them in fields and forests east of Berlin.
They were among 50,000 German and Soviet soldiers who died during intense fighting which took place over the course of just three days in April 1945.
The men who died were hastily buried where they fell, before being discovered and exhumed last year across a 60-mile-wide area
The soldiers died whilst unsuccessfully trying to stop Russian troops from reaching the German capital – where Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was holed up in his bunker before he killed himself on April 30, 1945. Pictured: The ceremony in Lietzen last week
A pastor offered a blessing and prayer during the ceremony to re-bury the German soldiers
The ceremony, from which descendants were barred because of coronavirus restrictions, was just the latest in a series of reburials of German soldiers which have taken place in recent years
The conflict saw Soviet troops breach Hitler's defences outside of Berlin.
The Volksbund has so far found the remains of 964,329 soldiers who died in Eastern Europe and countries which once made up the Soviet Union.
However, there are still 1.5million missing soldiers who investigators hope to find. But because of decades of building work covering up where their bodies are, many are likely to remain where they fell.
Russian soldiers are seen marauding into Berlin as a German soldier lies dead in the street, during the final battle for the capital in late April and early May, 1945
This iconic image showed a Russian soldier hauling the Soviet Union's flag above the ruined Reichstag after troops took Berlin
Diane Tempel-Bornett, a spokeswoman for the Volksbund, said in The Times: 'We would of course like to find all of them but we assume that a third can no longer be retrieved because shopping centres or whatever have been built on them.'
Because the Germans were fighting for the Nazi regime, she said the reburial ceremonies were not about 'honouring' them.
Instead, the aim was to give them a 'dignified grave' and allow people to mourn their loss.
No comments: