German soldiers to get final resting place

A final resting place has been found for around 4,000 German soldiers who died on Czech soil during World War II, ending a protracted and embarrassing search for a burial place. Germany’s war graves authority signed an agreement for the soldiers’ remains, until now kept in storage, to be buried at a specially arranged graveyard in the West Bohemian town of Cheb. The drawn-out search for an appropriate burial ground started in March 2006 when Czech media uncovered the soldiers’ remains at a disused factory in the northern city of Ustí nad Labem.

It is estimated that around 178,000 German soldiers died in the former Czechoslovakia fighting Soviet forces closing in from the north and east and US forces from the west. Some of the fallen are already buried at 10 war cemeteries dotted across the country.