For more than eight decades, the remains of two German soldiers lay in the mud of the Danube. Only the exceptionally low water level of the Danube in Budapest has brought their story back to light.
Next to the bodies, fully intact German identity tags were found. That gives an unusually good chance of identifying the men more than 80 years on.
The discovery is closely linked to a remarkably well-preserved DKW NZ 350-1 motorcycle, which was found in early August on the Buda bank of the Danube.
Directly under or very close to the motorcycle, staff from Hungary’s Institute and Museum of Military History came across the human remains. Volksbund staff member Gábor Kohlrusz recovered the bones of the two men from the exposed riverbed.
For many years Kohlrusz has worked in Hungary for the Volksbund as a reburial specialist. His tasks include searching for, recovering and documenting German war dead, and securing personal belongings and identity tags. Together with historians and local partners, he helps to establish the identities of the fallen and shed light on war fates that have long remained unresolved.
Two dead men who had probably been listed as missing until today
In the Second World War, the identity tags of fallen German soldiers were split in two: one half stayed with the dead man, the other was sent to the Wehrmacht information office in Berlin so that deaths could be recorded and relatives notified.
Because both identity tags recovered from the Danube were still complete, it suggests that their families probably waited in vain for official news.
Alongside the identity tags, a wedding ring and a Kuban sleeve shield were also found. If the badge can clearly be assigned to one of the fallen soldiers, it could provide an important clue to his military career. The Kuban shield was awarded to German soldiers who served in 1943 at the Kuban bridgehead in the south of the Soviet Union. The decoration was instituted in September of that year.
If it is confirmed that one of the two soldiers wore the shield, that would indicate he had already been deployed on the Eastern Front years before his death.
Arne Schrader, head of the War Graves Service and International Relations Department, knows how difficult such attribution can be. Several examinations are needed to determine whether the two identity tags really belong to the bodies found. The names of the original holders may be established relatively quickly. But that still does not fully confirm their identity.
Identification is a complex process
The process begins with a detailed examination of the bones. Even the length of individual bones can provide clues to the deceased’s height. Wherever possible, different bones are used for this – for example the bones of the lower and upper leg. Taken together, the findings gradually build up a picture that can be compared with the known data on the possible holders of the identity tags.
There are various anatomical reference points that allow experts, with a high degree of probability, to assess whether a bone belonged to someone under 20, between 20 and 25, or an older person up to and over 40.
How old the two soldiers were is not yet known. Anthropological analysis of the remains is intended, among other things, to use bones, epiphyses and wisdom teeth to determine their approximate age.
“Here, among other things, the sacrum and the epiphyses on the long bones can be assessed, and the wisdom teeth can also provide information,” explains Arne Schrader. Dental fillings can also offer clues to origin: teeth filled with amalgam suggest that the dead man probably came from Western Europe.
One of the identity tags now found in the Danube belonged to a Wehrmacht soldier, the second to a member of the Waffen-SS.
However, it still has to be established whether the respective tags really correspond to the two recovered bodies. Any provisional identification by the Volksbund would then have to be officially confirmed by the Federal Archives.
Over the course of the war, around 900,000 people served in the Waffen-SS. They included committed National Socialists and foreign volunteers, but also, particularly towards the end of the war, people who were forcibly conscripted and minors. The Waffen-SS was responsible for many war crimes and took part in the Holocaust, and was declared a criminal organisation at the Nuremberg war crimes trials in 1946.
The discovery site lay in an area where harbour silt had accumulated, and the silt was mixed with gas oil. These particular conditions apparently helped to preserve both parts of the motorcycle and the identity tags exceptionally well.
The Volksbund can now compare the details on the tags with military records, missing persons reports and its own “Gräbersuche Online” database, which now contains around 5.4 million data entries.
What does the DKW NZ 350-1 have to do with the soldiers?
According to current information, the motorcycle is a DKW NZ 350-1 manufactured in Saxony. This model was developed from 1944 specifically for wartime use.
However, the mere fact that the motorcycle was found together with the two dead men does not prove that the soldiers were travelling on it.
Several scenarios are conceivable: the two men may have ridden the motorcycle themselves, with one as the driver and the other as a passenger. It is also possible that the DKW belonged to a unit, while the two soldiers came from a different context. Another possibility is that the motorcycle only ended up at the site after the men had died. The machine could have fallen into the Danube during fighting or been deliberately sunk there at a later date.
Ammunition was also lying in the riverbed
During the recovery work, the bomb disposal service had to be called in because, alongside other items of equipment, Type 35 Teller mines were also discovered – German anti-tank mines from the Second World War.
The Hungarian Military History Institute (source in German) (source in Hungarian) considers it possible that the site could be a post-siege dump for war material and waste. Whether the objects found were deliberately disposed of at this spot, and under what circumstances, cannot yet be conclusively established.
A link to the Battle of Budapest?
From a historical point of view, a connection with the fighting around Budapest seems plausible.
The Battle of Budapest lasted from late October or early November 1944 until 13 February 1945 and was among the bloodiest and militarily most bitter engagements in the final phase of the Second World War in Hungary. Budapest was defended by German and Hungarian units against the Soviet Red Army and Romanian forces. After the city was encircled at the end of December 1944, the battle turned into a long siege, ending with the capture of Budapest by Soviet troops on 13 February 1945.
The fighting was extremely brutal and claimed many lives on both sides.
Today the German-Hungarian war cemetery at Budaörs, west of Budapest, is the largest burial site for German and Hungarian war dead in Hungary. It is home above all to soldiers killed in Budapest and the areas lying east of the Danube. According to the Volksbund, 16,630 dead have now found their final resting place in Budaörs.
Whether the two men from the Danube really fell during the Battle of Budapest is something only future research can answer. What is already certain is that their remains will be interred at the Budaörs war cemetery.
The discovery shows how many traces of the past are still hidden today in Europe’s rivers. The Danube was not only a key transport and traffic route during the wars.
The Volksbund explicitly expects that the current low water level could also lead to further war dead being recovered from surfacing shipwrecks.
The find in Budapest may therefore not be the last of its kind.