In Memoriam: Recovery of fallen soldiers in the Bitburg area by Gerda Dreiser after World War II (Published on 15/11/2021, latest update on 10/03/2023)
A reader of these pages drew my attention to the fact that also beyond the Huertgen Forest people have tried in a Julius Erasmus-like manner to recover and identify fallen soldiers and thus end the agonizing uncertainty of their relatives. Toni Latschrauner from Merano/Italy, Lodewijk Johannes Timmermans in Ysselsteyn/Netherlands and Nikolai Orlov from Novgorod/Russia have already been reported on.
Also one of these people was former district preparedness leader of the German Red Cross (“DRK-Kreisbereitschaftsführerin”) Gerda Dreiser, who was active in the Bitburg area.
In the initial post of 15/11/2021 an excerpt from an article by Ms Dreiser had been reproduced here, which was taken from the book “Kriegsende 1944/1945 – Zwischen Ardennen und Rhein” by H.-Dieter Arntz (2nd edition [1985], p. 109 ff.). As it turned out in the meantime, this excerpt, although quoted, does not correspond to the original, but was partly revised. The initial post is archived here.
The original of the contribution by Gerda Dreiser, who also became known as a local history writer, is entitled “So haben wir sie gefunden …” (“This is how we found them …”) and was published in the first local history calendar of the Bitburg district from 1952 on p. 149 ff. In it she describes her experiences during the recovery of fallen German and American soldiers in the area around Wallendorf/Eifel near the border to Luxembourg, where heavy fighting took place in September 1944 and in the winter of 1944/45.
In this article, Ms Dreiser describes her impressions as follows (translation from German):
“They lie before me, these silent witnesses of a fateful battle. Witnesses, so quiet, yet with a deep, heartfelt eloquence — the last belongings of fallen German soldiers from the Siegfried Line area. Rusted identification tags, earth-encrusted pocket knives, coins, watches with yellowed dials, pieces of a rosary, wallets swollen by earth moisture, a small red amulet, a pay book with a large blood stain — they all tell of life fates that were suffered by young hopeful people here in the hard-fought Eifel region in the Bitburg district.
From deep forests, from wide slopes of the Eifel borderland, from the meadows and fields, we recovered them to take away the agonizing uncertainty and hard pain from the waiting relatives at home — here with us and with the others —, but also to bring redemptive comfort. A faded inscription on a crooked cross made of bludgeoned wood is often the only thing that shows us the way. With difficulty we decipher: ‘Here rests an unknown soldier’ or just the simple word ‘Unknown’. Let me speak to you of those unknown graves in the Eifel region which are rarely passed by the step of a man.
On the wide height in the Red Zone area lies the pillbox. Who still knows it, one is tempted to ask, as it lies there, torn, burst, split into pieces. But it is not that it stares at us like a petrified beast that touches us, but that it is overshadowed, as it were, by two small weathered wooden crosses. Two German soldiers rest here after hard fighting on 19 September 1944.
With the first one we find a small brown rosary, which was his pious companion in the war, and nothing more except his perforated steel helmet. The second carries the identification tag — that bit of sheet metal that now becomes a heavy solution to a final question. Hoping and hesitating, the two graves look west — toward home: ‘I wonder if our loved ones will ever find us?’
So we search and find many graves in one day under the quiet drip of the rain, on the already overgrown edge of the trails, along the black scorched death paths. Again and again we see the perforated, rusty steel helmets on crooked crosses — and like a friendly encouragement that there is not only forgetfulness and unkindness on earth after all: the small bunch of flowers on the lonely grave of a young soldier up on the Bocksberg close to Wallendorf, who carries with him as the last of his earthly belongings his spade and the small oval tin plate of the identification tag that have outlived him.
Further down is a grave at the edge of a field. The traces of the plow are a few clods wide from it. The plowing farmer has guided his horses around this small site as around a sanctuary, so as not to strike a wound in the earth that has seen so much hardship and struggle.
Many a grave still lies up here on the heights, where pillbox follows pillbox. The Eifel wind blows coldly over the mountains and chases over the site that witnessed hard resistance struggles in a horrible time and is soaked with the blood of so many young people. The men stand silently by the graves, and some of them think of the comrades they have buried in cold earth in a foreign land.
We trudge up the slope and find another gravesite, lying in the middle of the flowerbed of a small garden. Whether the mother or father know how far from home loving hands decorate the grave of their only one with flowers? The colorful asters — they know the caregiver who took care of this grave in memory of a fallen brother. We find the identification tag, to which still hangs a medal with the inscription ‘Saint Barbara, protect me!’. How many times will the young artilleryman have thought of his patron saint in the dangers of war. To his parents at home she brings the last greeting from his grave.
In a scree slope lies the next grave. The stones cover and protect it. The cross has no other designation than the date of death: 16. 1. 1945. The grave was hastily made, and the dead man was buried just as hastily. There was probably no time to linger long. Only the cross must have been carpentered by a comrade during a break. Here, too, we find the identification tag. It is illegible, weathered by rust and soil. ‘I guess you’ll always remain unknown, you dead German soldier on the western border.’
The vast silent forest takes us in. Here the traces of the war are even more visible. We are led over narrow forest paths known only to the hunter and the deer. We are led past deep funnels, torn into the earth by bombs, filled to the brim with dark water. The dark, serious firs, many, many years old, are sometimes nothing more than stumps, for the shells of the Rundstedt offensive have shredded their crowns. In many places still lie the remains of vehicles and weapons. We make our way through the thicket. Silently we look at the small boulder at our feet, on which the inscription reads, ‘Here seven German soldiers died a hero’s death.’ We think of the sounds of pain that the forest swallowed up here and that went unheard before many a mouth fell silent and many a young heart gave its last beat. Everything is dead here. Silently we walk on.
We come to a slope that has two soldiers’ graves ‘Unknown’ on a rock face. Here a father has already searched in vain for his son. Close by is a one-man hole where a dead soldier, wrapped in a blanket, his carbine in his arm, keeps a silent guard. The comrades buried him just as they found him. Here too, after a long search, we can find the identification tag and identify another member of the large crowd of unknown fallen.
We stop at one of the largest pillboxes. The entrance has been buried by a bomb. The door is crushed. A demining squad has already removed the stacked bazookas and grenades. 24 young people met their end here. Their coffins stand side by side in the open field like a silent indictment. In front of them we spread out what the pillbox had in custody of them for years: watches, knives, pipes, wallets, alarm clocks, paper money and coins, medals and rings, photos and many other things that the Landser carried with him. Eerie and unforgettable is this sight.
Then our way goes a short distance along the border road. On the opposite Luxembourgian side we see strong rock walls and on our left two broken pillboxes. Nobody speaks a word. With difficulty we climb down the slope into the thicket of which it is said that a dead body is still lying there. In the semi-darkness of the undergrowth we see nothing at first. Suddenly, my companion points to a long strip tied in a knot on the branch of a tree stump. It is a piece of bandage, formerly white and now gray and friable. It certainly has a meaning, and who may have attached it here with the last of his strength? There is nothing to see on the ground. There — a large, dark moss cushion spreads over a spot, and we find him, who probably lay down here for his last sleep after a severe wounding. He could not find a grave — but nature covered with a soft hand what cruel human spirit destroyed. Apparently no one saw the last sign with which he wanted to make his position known. It is an American. His comrade carries him up the slope.
We turn out of the forest to the grave of three unknown soldiers at the entrance to the village of Biesdorf. Every house here shows us its ruined walls. There is barely a makeshift roof. The church, which is over 1000 years old, has also become a victim of the war. The masonry is shot to pieces and the church tower can only be recognized by its outline. But the adjacent cemetery with its many soldiers’ graves has long felt the loving, organizing hand again. The people here have known the hard fate of those displaced from their homeland and also know about the suffering and pain of others. They also help us here with the work at the graves.
The first soldier is a man of 25-30 years with severe skull injuries. We do not find his identification tag. Perhaps a comrade took it, because he was found near the road passing by and was buried here. The second is a man who suffered the hardships of the Russian campaign, the blood-red ribbon of the Eastern Medal and the remains of his pay book tell us so. It is all his belongings. The third is wrapped in a soldier’s coat — as he may have been lying outside in the snow. His carbine still lies next to him. He wears a wedding ring, and the pay book is also found. Unfortunately, it is no longer legible. In the pocket is something hard. It is the wallet with some illegible scraps of letters. This is also where the identification tag is — and then, in a translucent cover, we see the photo of a happily smiling child’s face — undamaged, only a little darkened at the edges by moisture. “Annemarie”, it says on the back in large, awkward letters of the perhaps six-year-old — unblurred and easily legible. We are moved and all look past each other. It is the last legacy of your dead father, poor little Annemarie!
We go back into the forest again. On a steep slope we climb down. “Im Eichengrund” is the name of the place where we direct our step to the last grave for today. Quiet and lonely it lies between two tall oaks. A small rampart of stones is built protectively around it. Only the shy animals of the forest will pass here. Across the grave, through a clearing, there is a wide view of the valley. In this place, one does not notice anything of the war with its killing and burning, its wounds and pain, if it were not for the lonely grave. You can only hear the murmur of the small spring that bounces cheerfully down to the valley a few steps away. From time to time a small shy bird sounds. Maybe this grave was selected by the comrades with much love. Perhaps by those who sank to the ground deadly wounded in another part of the forest. The wooden cross is placed in the stone mound, the crossbeam is tightly wrapped with cable wire. It bears the steel helmet and the designation of the identification tag. We disturb the silent sleeper under the oaks and get the final certainty. We take him to his comrades, put a few green branches on his grave and greet all those who died here for the homeland.
‘Now we have found all of you, you dead soldiers, who fell for us on the border of the Fatherland. You lie in long, silent rows in the military cemetery on the Kapellenberg in Wallendorf, in the midst of the shadow of the cross, which is to announce your sacrificial death far beyond the borders. Man to man, you — 471 in number — have found an eternal resting place as comrades. We can dry the tears of your families that are cried around the heavy word ‘Missing’. And you are not only asking for a commemoration of the greatness of your sacrificial death. No — you are admonishers for us and the coming generations, so that we are always aware of where human delusion and human cruelty have led the German people.’
Know that they who sleep deep in the earth now,
fell for no one in vain and for the glory of no one.
God took them all, who met in the battles,
friends and foes, home to their property.”
Gerda Dreiser, born on 16 February 1906 at Malberg, was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal, the highest award of the Red Cross, by the International Red Cross in Geneva on 12 May 1955. On 1977, she also received the Federal Cross of Merit (“Bundesverdienstkreuz”). Ms Dreiser died in Bitburg on 6 January 1991, at the age of 84.
(Head picture: Military cemetery Wallendorf around 1955
[source: Archives of Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V., Kassel],
Gerda Dreiser around 1960
[source: Neu, Bitburger Persönlichkeiten (2006), p. 147 (153), private photograph])
If you wish to support my work, you can do so here. Many thanks!