German graves on the Eastern Front WW1

[hillgorilla]

Hello,

I am trying to find out about a soldier called Anton Korves who was killed on the 19/09/1916 whilst serving with the 136 IR. So far I have had great help from members of the forum. I have looked at the Denkmal Project, and from that site have accessed the German War Graves site - to try and look for burial places. I have been unable to find any reference to graves from men in his regiment about this time.

My question is that - would there have been a burial place at the time? Is there any chance that it could still exist? Are there any WW1 German cemeteries in the Ukraine that are known of? Is it possible that any cemeteries would have been destroyed by Stalin.

This has stired my interest, as men did die in this theatre of war - but where are they buried - they can't all be missing.

Thanks for reading this message.

[egbert]

Can't help you with the man, but here is a website with lots of info about left-over German cemeteries in White Russia

[hillgorilla]

Can't help you with the man, but here is a website with lots of info about left-over German cemeteries in White Russia

Thank you for the link. What an interesting site - from what I have seen from a short period of surfing on that site there are still cemeteries and memorials insitu.

[John Gilinsky]

Thanks Egbert for the website from Belarus. I think the people who put up this website are Belarusses(!?).

Comrade Ivan (aka John)

[Ernst]

Thanks Egbert, for the great link! I can spend hours on this site. The condition of the German graveyards is a shame.

[phil andrade]

Thanks Egbert, for the great link! I can spend hours on this site. The condition of the German graveyards is a shame.

Maybe this will change now. Different front I know, but I remember visiting Verona in Italy, and being shown an Austro-Hungarian military cemetery that had gone to rack and ruin, In recent years it has been restored, and the six thousand graves are properly tended and refurbished. Perhaps the German War Graves might do the same in Russia.

Phil

[CROONAERT]

Perhaps the German War Graves might do the same in Russia.

They've been doing so since 1990, Phil... however, WW1 cemeteries (about 115,000 graves?) aren't the priority as yet. There are many years (decades?) worth of work on WW2 graves (totalling nearly 2.2 million) to sort out first.

Dave

[phil andrade]

They've been doing so since 1990, Phil... however, WW1 cemeteries (about 115,000 graves?) aren't the priority as yet. There are many years (decades?) worth of work on WW2 graves (totalling nearly 2.2 million) to sort out first.

Dave

Dave, you mention, albeit with a query, a total of 115,000 German graves. Presumably, this does not include the total of bodies that were never recovered at all. There is another figure I've seen for 400,000 German dead in Poland from the Great War. These figures - and I don't know about other places like the Baltic republics - suggest a much higher death toll for Germany on the Eastern Front in the Great War than we might have imagined - especially if we allow for Rumania, and also factor in an estimate for bodies that were never recovered. Do you have any information or comments to add ?

Phil

[CROONAERT]

Dave, you mention, albeit with a query, a total of 115,000 German graves. Presumably, this does not include the total of bodies that were never recovered at all.Phil

That's correct...it doesn't cover the bodies that were repatriated either, nor does it cover "multiple graves" (ie. a grave that contains the remains of just 1 soldier is counted as '1', but a single grave that contains 20 is also counted as '1'). 115,000 is the total of individual graves (known or unknown soldiers) that were known about by the VdK in approx 2003 (hence my query as (I presume that) this "known about" figure may have increased by now). I was talking about actual (usually marked or charted) graves... not casualty figures.

Dave.

[phil andrade]

That's correct...it doesn't cover the bodies that were repatriated either, nor does it cover "multiple graves" (ie. a grave that contains the remains of just 1 soldier is counted as '1', but a single grave that contains 20 is also counted as '1'). 115,000 is the total of individual graves (known or unknown soldiers) that were known about by the VdK in approx 2003 (hence my query as (I presume that) this "known about" figure may have increased by now). I was talking about actual (usually marked or charted) graves... not casualty figures.

Dave.

The implication here is that German deaths on the Eastern Front might have been well in excess of half a million. The sanitatsbericht figure is 317,000 killed in action, missing or prisoners of war, although that figure does not include died of wounds. A sriking disparity.

Phil