The German War Graves Commission cares for the graves, at 832 cemeteries in 46 countries, of more than 2.7 million persons killed during World War I and World War II.2 The German war graves are intended to remember all groups of war dead: military personnel, those dead by aerial warfare, murdered in the Holocaust, and all other persons persecuted to death.3 In addition, the Volksbund maintains cemeteries and memorials of the Franco-Prussian War, First Schleswig War, Second Schleswig War, and the German colonial era.4
The commission was founded as a private charity on 16 December 1919, as the recognised [German] Commission under the war graves provisions of Article 225 of the Treaty of Versailles. By the 1930s, the commission had established numerous cemeteries for German World War I dead.5
During World War II, the Volksbund's work was mostly carried out by the Wehrmacht's own graves service. After World War II, the Volksbund resumed its work in 1946 and soon established more than 400 war cemeteries in Germany.6 In 1954, the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, tasked the Volksbund with the establishment, care and upkeep of German war cemeteries abroad.7
To guard the memory of the victims of war and violence, to work for peace among all nations and to guarantee dignity of men, are the main goals in the statutes of the German War Graves Commission. All activities of German War Graves Commission must harmonize with these general principles.8
The Commission spent about €52 million in 2019. Half of it was used for maintenance of the cemeteries, more than a third to remind what happened and to learn from it, the rest was used to keep the association running. Two-thirds of this sum was financed by members and private donations. One-third was paid by government (war graves outside of Germany) and states (maintenance of some war graves within Germany).9
The commission looks after "832 military cemeteries in 46 countries with about 2.75 million dead" and its work is carried out today by 8,000 honorary and 556 full-time employees.10 Since the end of the Cold War, the Volksbund has access to Eastern Europe, where most World War II German casualties occurred.11 Since 1991, 188 World War I cemeteries and 330 World War II cemeteries in eastern, central and south-eastern Europe have been reconstructed or rebuilt and about 764,524 bodies have been buried in new graves.1213 Maintenance of German war cemeteries in France is looked after by the Service d'entretien des sépultures militaires allemandes (the "German Military Burials Maintenance Service") known as S.E.S.M.A..14
The German War Graves Commission offers an accessible online database of 4.8 million individual names for World Wars I and II.23 24
War cemeteries and war dead of World War I and II inside of Germany are also documented in these files (895,561 in 2010). Among these are war dead transferred to Germany or persons who died within Germany but only those are registered whose remains were transferred to war cemetery areas within civil cemeteries, not those removed to individual family graves.
Further in this database persons can be found who died by aerial bombing of cities, as prisoner of war or in imprisonment, partly foreign members of German auxiliary troops who died in World War II or even some members of Wehrmacht who died before World War II began.
A grave research request (Grabnachforschungsauftrag in German) can be sent online or as hardcopy to Volksbund (German War Grave Commission) to clarify the unknown fate of a German soldier. As some family names are very common it is important to mention all given names and the date of birth of the missing soldier. As additional data should be given if available: date of death, last unit (Truppenteil in German) and last letters. Often withdrawing troops could not bury their casualties. Detailed data on the war dead of World War I were reconstructed by volunteers in digital format.25
German War Graves Commission has an online inventory of its cemeteries.26 Data collected for each cemetery are location (geography), how to reach, number of dead, course of military events in the region and architecture of the cemetery.27
"Über uns". www.volksbund.de. Archived from the original on 11 March 2013. Retrieved 16 March 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20130311141515/http://www.volksbund.de/en/volksbund.html ↩
Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (Hrsg.): Arbeitsbilanz 2019 (Annual Report). Brochure. Kassel, April 2020. ↩
Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (Hrsg.): Frieden, Vertrauen und Versöhnung. Reden zum Volkstrauertag 2016. Kassel 2017, ISBN 978-3981771145. Wolfgang Schneiderhan: Begrüßung, S. 16. /wiki/ISBN_(identifier) ↩
Bau, Instandsetzung und Pflege. auf: volksbund.de http://www.volksbund.de/kriegsgraeberstaetten.html ↩
Satzung des Volksbundes Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, § 3 – Aufgaben und Rechtsgrundlagen (Activities and legal basis) ↩
(fr) Paysages et Sites de mémoire de la Grande Guerre: Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge – S.E.S.M.A. http://heritage-grandeguerre.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35:volksbund-deutsche-kriegsgraberfursorge-vdk&catid=53&Itemid=145&lang=fr ↩
Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (Hrsg.): Arbeitsbilanz 2010. Sonderdruck 2011, p. 13 ↩
"Kriegsgräberstätte: Rossoschka – Bau, Pflege und Instandsetzung | Volksbund.de". kriegsgraeberstaetten.volksbund.de. https://kriegsgraeberstaetten.volksbund.de/friedhof/rossoschka ↩
Beate Kalbhenn: Der Name ist entscheidend. Grabnachforschung durch den Volksbund. In: Stimme & Weg x/1997, pp. 24–25 ↩
"Kriegsgräberstätten – Bau, Pflege und Instandsetzung – Volksbund.de". www.volksbund.de. Retrieved 16 March 2018. http://www.volksbund.de/kriegsgraeberstaetten.html ↩
Online-Search for War Graves (Volksbund Gräbersuche online) (in English) http://www.volksbund.de/en/graebersuche.html ↩
"Verlustlisten Erster Weltkrieg/Projekt – GenWiki". wiki.genealogy.net. https://wiki.genealogy.net/Verlustlisten_Erster_Weltkrieg/Projekt ↩
"Kriegsgräberstätten – Bau, Pflege und Instandsetzung (en: construction, maintenance and care)". www.volksbund.de. Archived from the original on 22 December 2018. Retrieved 24 November 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181222051924/https://www.volksbund.de/en/volksbund.html ↩
"Website of Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge: Inventory of German War Grave cemeteries in geographical and alphabetical order (Land=country, Friedhofsname=name of cemetery)". http://www.volksbund.de/kriegsgraeberstaette ↩
"Woodland Cemetery". Retrieved 16 March 2018. http://www.waterlooogs.ca/cemeterypics/Woodlandcemetery.html ↩
"Google Maps". Google Maps. Retrieved 16 March 2018. http://maps.google.ca/maps/place?rls=com.microsoft:en-ca:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7GGIE_en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=Woodland+Cemetery+in+Kitchener,&fb=1&gl=ca&hq=Woodland+Cemetery&hnear=0x882bf48c03ee5105:0x9525f8e6df5f544b,Kitchener,+ON&cid=4387736266396252338 ↩
"Gerbéviller German Military Cemetery" (in French). HoriZon 14-18. Retrieved 2018-03-01. http://horizon14-18.eu/gerbeviller-all.html ↩
"Kriegsgräberstätten – Bau, Pflege und Instandsetzung – Volksbund.de". www.volksbund.de. Archived from the original on 3 November 2010. Retrieved 16 March 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20101103024351/http://www.volksbund.de/kgs/stadt.asp?stadt=781 ↩
Österreich betreut Kriegsgräberstätten. In: Stimme & Weg, 2/2011, p. 24. ↩
(fr) Ministère de la Défense, SGA Sépultures de guerre (file of graves of french soldiers) http://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr/fr/arkotheque/client/mdh/sepultures_guerre/ ↩
(fr) Website of Souvenir français Archived 2014-01-11 at the Wayback Machine http://www.souvenir-francais.com/ ↩
Website of the Oorlogsgravenstichting in Netherlands http://www.ogs.nl/ ↩