What happened to WW1 graves in WW2?
What happened to WW1 graves in WW2?
Germans generally respected British and allied cemeteries and graves during WW2. Other monuments commemorating WW1 or the allied victory, however, were often destroyed or removed. Likewise the allies generally respected German wargraves.
Are there bodies in the war graves?
Graves and burial grounds situated in the area of a battlefront were often damaged by subsequent fighting across the same location, resulting in the loss of the original marked graves. Some bodies simply could not be retrieved from underground.
What did they do with the dead bodies in WW1?
The fact is most bodies were simply lost in WW1. The dead was usually buried right where they fell, and as soon as possible. Burying them was more important than the war itself because piles of rotting bodies would’ve caused plagues and decimated both sides.
Do they still find bodies from WW1?
The Bodies of More Than 270 German WWI Soldiers Found in French Tunnel. After remaining interred for over a century in the Winterberg tunnel, the bodies of more than 270 German soldiers — once thought to be lost deep within the still-battle-scarred French landscape — have recently been discovered.
How were dead soldiers identified in ww1?
Identification would be through pay books, tags, and other physical means by men who did not know the individuals. – some men would be unidentifiable, if the damage to them was such that they ceased to exist as a body or where any form of identification had been lost.
Who gets a war grave?
A war grave is a burial place for members of the armed forces or civilians who died during military campaigns or operations.
What happened to the bodies in World War 2?
In areas of active combat, troops would bury their fallen comrades where they fell, often in a shallow grave marked only with a large rock, a stick, or a rifle with its bayonet thrust into the ground. In a pinch, a shallow trench or shell crater would do; these bodies would be exhumed later and reburied.
Where did all the bodies from ww2 go?
The answer depends on where the bodies were. Some were buried in mass graves, some were incinerated, some (relatively few) were brought back home and reintered. Some just disappeared. There are military graveyards all over north Africa, Italy, France filled with soldiers and sailors that never went back home.