In Memoriam: Recovery of fallen soldiers by Toni Latschrauner after World War II (Published on 22/04/2022, updated on 06/06/2022)
This blog also seeks to commemorate those who, much like Julius Erasmus, were committed to the recovery, identification and burial of fallen soldiers and endeavored to restore the names of the dead in the interests of their relatives. Gerda Dreiser from Bitburg, Lodewijk Johannes Timmermans in Ysselsteyn and Nikolai Orlov from Novgorod/Russia have already been reported on.
Anton (“Toni”) Latschrauner from Merano in South Tyrol was similarly committed. After his military service, he spent many years as a prisoner of war in Russia before taking up employment with the German War Graves Commission (“Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge”) in March 1956. He was deployed in numerous countries to search for and rebury fallen soldiers. In addition to Germany, he worked in Algeria, Austria, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Sweden and Tunisia. He was often called upon for the most difficult recovery tasks, e.g. for those in the high mountains, from canyons and caves. Reports about him repeatedly praise his special abilities. It is emphasized that his intuition and tireless dedication made possible the reburial of war dead, whose recovery was often considered hopeless.
In July 1986, he retired from his position with Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge. Nevertheless, he continued to take on further reburial work in Italy, despite his impaired health.
In an article from 1970, the person Toni Latschrauner and his activities are described as follows (Article „Der Latschrauner Toni“ by Karl-Heinz Darweger, magazine „Kriegsgräberfürsorge“ of Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, issue 8/1970, translation from German language):
“There he stands, in the middle of the stubble field, wide-legged, immobile like a pole: Toni from South Tyrol. He has a face like a mountain guide; weather-brown, a little wrinkled. He has a steady gaze. What he looks at, he sees. And then there’s the scar on his left temple. It’s from Russia. Back when he attacked the tank that was trying to crush him in his foxhole with an explosive charge.
His outward calm is deceptive. Like a lynx, he watches as Giuseppe and Domenico, his Italian helpers, lift the black-brown arable soil, throwing the clods onto the stubble. Down there lies a dead German soldier. For 25 years the plow passed over him. But forgotten he was not. The Alsatian farmer who owned the field led the horses with a bad conscience. First he had plowed around the wooden cross. But one day, when the wood had become rotten, the horses no longer swerved. The family no longer talked about it. But at Volksbund in Kassel there was a file card, a few sheets with sparse information. Guémar, open field, in a former trench, one dead. He was supposed to have been buried with a machine gun, name and unit unknown.
And now Toni is here. He wants to get him, the dead man, and give him back his name. The Toni Latschrauner from Merano, 45 years old, father of three lively boys, who see their ‘daddy’ only very rarely. His wife has had to get used to the fact that he is always burying fallen soldiers somewhere for weeks, for months. And where has he been everywhere: Italy, France, Greece.
‘Stop!’ he shouts now, and the two workers from Abruzzo are startled. Toni puts on rubber gloves, grabs the iron hook. Then he climbs into the pit. He has heard the spade crunch so strangely. And to his own astonishment he finds – the machine gun. Rust and earth have attacked it. Moments later, the gun is lying on the plastic sheet next to the hole together with an ammunition box. ‘It’s true!’ Toni marvels. ‘The machine gun is really there. Then the man is lying here too!’ He has found him, the young German soldier. And he has carefully examined his bones. Shot in the thigh, shot in the shoulder, shot in the jaw – he recognizes. The man has bled to death. If only someone could have helped him when he was shot, you think of your own accord: ‘if’ and ‘when’. Now only work remains to be done. Soberly, without false sentimentality.
He searches and he finds. Amazing stories are told at Volksbund about his instinct to determine the exact location of a dead person. Most of the time he finds more graves than were known. Once he was sent to four graves. He found 22. Most of the dead were identified. Many relatives suddenly knew, after long years of uncertainty, where their father, their husband, their brother had fallen. (…)”
Mr Latschrauner has received many awards for his services to the recovery of fallen soldiers. Among others, he was awarded different levels of the German Federal Cross of Merit (“Bundesverdienstkreuz”) in 1979 and 1988.
Toni Latschrauner, born on 20 October 1925, died on 5 October 2009 after a short illness at the age of 83.
(Head picture: German military cemetery
Ysselsteyn/Netherlands, May 2023)
If you wish to support my work, you can do so here. Many thanks!