Germany > Lower Saxony > Memorial To German Soldiers Near Bad Essen

Memorial To German Soldiers Near Bad Essen

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2012-08-18

On the way to Bad Essen I found an interesting place in the forest: a memorial to German soldiers that died overseas. Up to this point, I had no idea that such places exist in Germany. But it turned out that after World War I in 1919, a humanitarian organization "Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V." was created. It collects data about German soldiers who died abroad, takes care of their graves, advises relatives in questions of war grave care, supervises public and private sites, supports international cooperation and assists within the war grave care sector.

Today the Volksbund includes more than 400,000 active members and donators as well as more than one million interested people and those who occasionally contribute to the organization. With their contributions, legacies and income from inheritances and bequests as well as income from annual house and street collections the Volksbund finances its own activities to almost 75 percent. The rest is made up from public contributions of federation authorities.

Acting within the scope of bilateral agreements, the Volksbund started its work within Europe and Northern Africa, being responsible for 825 war gravesites in 45 countries with about 2.5 million war dead soldiers. More than 9,000 volunteers and 560 salaried employees do different activities for the organization today.

After the political revolution within Eastern Europe the countries of the former Eastern Bloc were included in the Volksbund's work. Approximately three million German soldiers had lost their lives in the Eastern countries in World War II meaning that more than 100,000 graves were difficult to find, had been destroyed, had been overbuilt or had been plundered. The Volksbund took care of, repaired and constructed more than 300 cemeteries of World War II and 190 grounds of World War I in Eastern, Central and South Europe. There are 55 central cumulative cemeteries. Approximately 716,000 war dead were reinterred.