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; a complement............
The Burial Service (Gräberdienst).
More than 50 million people died in World War II. Not only women and children and other civilians, but also more than 20 million soldiers. About five million soldiers died on the German side, one in three members of the Wehrmacht died from wounds, disease, accidents, suicide, exhaustion or in captivity. The dead were not buried in mass graves, as was common in the Middle Ages or early modern period, but were buried in individual graves whenever possible.
Since each unit was responsible for the burial of its dead, each regiment or battalion had to designate a burial detachment. The management and care of the graves were accompanied by so-called grave officers (Wehrmachtgräberoffiziere) who reported to the army and military commanders and received their technical instructions directly from the OKW.
The burial service was performed by full-time Wehrmacht Graves Officers (WGO)* from the burial service at the Wehrmacht Casualty Department at OKW. Former officers (active or on leave) were called up as WGOs who were no longer fully eligible for front-line service with combatant troops due to age or other circumstances. Each army or military commander (in the militarily occupied zones as the head of the military administration) was assigned a WGO for the duration of combat operations, which he worked alongside the military officers assigned there.
Wehrmacht grave officers supervised proper burials by troops, submitted grave reports, and searched the graves of fallen soldiers. His duties also included moving existing graves to larger cemeteries, as well as identifying so-called wild graves, that is, scattered and unrecorded graves. Wehrmacht grave officers not only guarded the cemeteries of the newly dead, but also supervised the cemeteries of the dead of the First World War.
This extension of the task of the actual management of the graves by the Wehrmacht officers shows the naturalness of the Wehrmacht in its role as successor to the imperial army. The Wehrmacht put the newly dead in line with the dead of the First World War. As the war progressed, the tasks and the number of officers assigned to them grew: by 1941 the Wehrmacht Casualty Department comprised 51 WGOs, two Burial Commandos and three Army Graves Officers in Military Districts VIII ( Katowwitz), XII (Wiesbaden) and XX (Danzig). In November 1944 the number rose to 154 offices.
The increasing number of casualties and the duration of the war required a large number of personnel and administrative expenses. The instructions and regulations established by the Wehrmacht to bury all soldiers could no longer really be guaranteed by the troops themselves or by the full-time burial officers.
The burial of a fallen soldier included not only the actual burial, but also recovery, proper reporting of the soldier's death and the location of his grave, and notification of next of kin.
* The WGO was characterized as »G. v.", i.e. capable of garrison service in the field, i.e. only capable of limited service as combat troops, but suitable for administrative and supply duties in rear areas of operation. WGOs in the Army High Command (AOK) were assigned to the Oberquartiermeisterabteilung (Quartermaster Department).
Sources: Von Toten und Helden. Die gefallenen Soldaten der Wehrmacht während des Zweiten Weltkriegs. nina janz
Aus der Arbeit zweier Gräberoffiziere an der Ostfront 1941–1944. nina janz
700 WWII GERMAN PHOTO s fm ALBUM plane tank cannon flak. eBay Auction. (Completed)
Cheers. Raúl M
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