[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] graves of WWII soldiers

[Günther Böhm]

rlyster at telusplanet.net schrieb:

>I have recently located the grave of my mother's first husband at Smiltene, 
>Latvia.  The organization Volksbund supplied the information however cannot 
>tell me if the graveyard is still there or if the graves are still there.
>
>If someone out there is near here or has been in this direction, perhaps you 
>could comment.  
>
>I am wanting to locate the grave listed as:
>Hermann Belter
>Todesort: Feldlas.21
>Grablage: Smiltene, Soldaten Friedhof, block 1, reihe 3, grab 9
>

Hello Rita,
you probably got this information via Volksbund from Deutsche 
Dienststelle (WASt), the late "Wehrmachtsauskunftsstelle für 
Kriegerverluste und Kriegsgefangene", which holds the graves archive of 
the former Deutsche Wehrmacht. In most cases they can even provide 
little sketches of the graveyards which were mapped in-site by the unit 
commanders (here the military surgeon of the field hospital).

Generally, these larger cemeteries were levelled and partially even 
overbuilt by the Soviet authorities. Just minor cemeteries or single 
graves far off greater cities or highways are still in site and were 
partially even taken care of by the local inhabitants. Smiltene is a 
minor town of some 6000 inhabitants a bit north of the Riga-Pskov-St. 
Petersburg highway. From 1949 to 1959 it was a district capital. So 
there is little hope to find the German war cemetery. Perhaps older 
inhabitants can still locate it. Identifying the human remains by their 
identity disks and transferring them to central war cemeteries will be 
the task of Volksbund. Anyway, in this respect the Latvian authorities 
are much more cooperative than most of the Russian officials.

Günther