A well-preserved Wehrmacht motorbike is recovered from the Danube, along with two German soldiers' remains and ID tags. One likely served in the Waffen-SS. Experts now examine the bones: how old were the men, did they hit a mine?
For more than eight decades, the mortal 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.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Complete German identity discs were found on both bodies. This means there is an unusually good chance of identifying the men more than 80 years on.
The find is closely connected to a remarkably well-preserved DKW NZ 350-1 that was discovered on the Buda bank of the Danube at the beginning of August.
Beneath or in the immediate vicinity of the motorcycle, staff from the Hungarian 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.
Kohlrusz has been working in Hungary for many years as an exhumation specialist for the Volksbund. His tasks include searching for, recovering and documenting German war dead and securing personal belongings and identity discs. Together with historians and local partners, he helps to establish the identities of the fallen and shed light on long-unresolved wartime fates.
Two dead men who were probably still considered missing
At that time, German soldiers who were killed in the Second World War had their identity discs split in two: one half remained with the dead man, the other was sent to the Wehrmacht Information Office in Berlin so that deaths could be recorded and relatives informed.
Because both identity discs found with the two men from the Danube were complete, this suggests that their families probably waited in vain for an official notification.
In addition to the identity discs, a wedding ring and a Kuban sleeve shield were found. If the badge can be conclusively assigned to one of the two dead soldiers, it could provide a revealing clue about 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. It was instituted in September of that year.
If it is confirmed that one of the two soldiers wore the shield, it would indicate that 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 an attribution can be. Several examinations are needed to determine whether the two identity discs really belong to the bodies that have been found. The names of the original holders can possibly be established relatively quickly. But that alone does not settle the question of identity.
Identification is a complex process
The starting point is a detailed examination of the bones. Even the length of individual bones can provide clues to the deceased's height. Where possible, different bones are used – for example shin and thigh bones. Taken together, the findings gradually build up a picture that can be compared with the known data on the possible holders of the identity discs.
There are various anatomical indicators for the soldiers' age that allow a high-probability assessment of whether a bone belonged to someone under 20, between 20 and 25 years, or to an older person, up to and over 40 years.
How old the two soldiers were is not yet known. The anthropological examination of the remains is to provide, among other things, information about their approximate age based on bones, epiphyses and wisdom teeth.
"Here, among other things, the sacrum and the epiphyses on the long bones can be evaluated, and the wisdom teeth can also provide information," explains Arne Schrader. "Dental fillings can also give clues about origin: teeth filled with amalgam suggest that the dead man probably came from Western Europe."
One of the identity discs now found on the Danube belonged to a Wehrmacht soldier, the second to a member of the Waffen-SS.
Whether these discs actually correspond to the two recovered bodies still has to be clarified. Any provisional identification by the Volksbund would then have to be officially confirmed by the Federal Archives.
Around 900,000 people belonged to the Waffen-SS over the course of the war. They included committed National Socialists and foreign volunteers, but also, particularly towards the end of the war, conscripts 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 trial in 1946.
The find site was in an area where harbour sludge had accumulated; the sludge was mixed with gas oil. These particular conditions apparently helped ensure that both parts of the motorcycle and the identity discs were preserved in exceptionally good condition.
The Volksbund can now compare the details on the discs with military records, missing-person reports and its own "Gräbersuche Online", a database that now contains around 5.4 million data sets.
What does the DKW NZ 350-1 have to do with the soldiers?
According to current knowledge, the motorcycle was a DKW NZ 350-1, manufactured in Saxony. This model was developed specifically for wartime use from 1944 onwards.
The mere fact that the motorcycle was found together with the two dead men, however, does not prove that the two soldiers were travelling on it.
Several scenarios are conceivable: the two men could have ridden the motorcycle themselves, one as driver and the other as passenger. It is equally possible that the DKW belonged to a unit, while the two soldiers came from a different context. It could also be that the motorcycle only reached the find site after the men's deaths. The machine may have fallen into the Danube during the fighting or been deliberately sunk there at a later date.
Ammunition was also lying in the riverbed
The bomb disposal service had to be called in during the recovery work because, alongside other items of equipment, Tellerminen type 35 were discovered: German Second World War anti-tank mines.
The Hungarian Institute of Military History (source in German) (source in Hungarian) considers it possible that the find site could be a post-siege wartime and refuse dump. Whether the objects found were deliberately disposed of at this spot and under what circumstances cannot yet be conclusively determined.
A link to the Battle of Budapest?
Historically, a connection with the fighting for Budapest would seem plausible.
The Battle of Budapest lasted from late October or early November 1944 until 13 February 1945 and was among the bloodiest and militarily fiercest battles in the final phase of the Second World War in Hungary. Budapest was defended by German and Hungarian formations against the Soviet Red Army and Romanian units. After the city was encircled at the end of December 1944, the battle turned into a protracted siege, ending with the capture of Budapest by Soviet troops on 13 February 1945.
The fighting was extremely brutal and claimed numerous victims on both sides.
The present-day German-Hungarian war cemetery at Budaörs, west of Budapest, is the largest site for German and Hungarian war dead in Hungary. The dead buried there are mainly soldiers who fell in Budapest and in the areas 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 were in fact killed during the Battle of Budapest is something only the future will tell. 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 in Europe's rivers today. The Danube was an important transport and traffic route not only during the wars.
The Volksbund explicitly expects that, because of the current low water level, more war dead could be recovered from emerging shipwrecks.
The find in Budapest may therefore not be the last of its kind.
