Remnants of War – 107 more people buried in Halbe 80 years after the war

In Halbe, 80 years after the end of the war, the dead are still being found and buried…

On Wednesday, in a moving ceremony overseen by the German War Graves Commission, a further 107 German soldiers who died during the fighting of the Halbe Pocket were laid to rest in the Forest Cemetery in Halbe.

The ceremony was attended by Brandenburg’s Minister-President Dr. Dietmar Woidke, who in his speech, argued how these acts of burial and commemoration should remind us that “When we consider the fate of individuals, we feel what war does to people. Therefore, we must work every day to ensure that such suffering never repeats itself.”

In the epilogue to my Halbe Pocket series I emphasised how the legacy of the fighting in and around Halbe still casts a long shadow over the area, as hundreds of war dead (soldiers and civilians) are routinely found in the forests and fields.

Of course, my greatest of respect goes to the German War Graves Commission @volksbund.de , who perform an important but challenging task of finding, burying, and identifying the war dead.