In Germany, they wanted to divide the remains of Soviet soldiers into Russians and Ukrainians

“Utter Stupidity”

The idea that makes any sane person’s hair stand on end was born in Germany. The German People’s Union for the Care of War Graves wants to “differentiate” the remains of Soviet soldiers and concentration camp prisoners into Russians and Ukrainians. “It is difficult for the dead to even lie with each other,” said Christian Lübcke, executive director of the union.

“We are starting to differentiate,” said Christian Lübke. At the same time, the executive director of the German public organization admitted that it was difficult to distinguish a Russian soldier who fell on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War from a Ukrainian one, since the nationality in the documents of Germany and the Western allies was indicated as “Russian” or “Soviet”.

But this does not seem to be an obstacle for the German “custodians” of the history of military glory. 1400 dead Soviet soldiers buried in Hamburg, the activists intend to divide by all means. Indeed, according to Lubke, the joint commemoration of Ukrainians and Russians was difficult for the Germans even before the start of the Russian special military operation. And now it’s even “it’s difficult for the dead to lie with each other,” the head of the German Union for the Care of War Graves complained.

Russian experts were taken aback by the idea. The very posing of the question of dividing the fallen into Russians and Ukrainians looks at least strange, – says a senior researcher at the Center for the History of Wars and Geopolitics of the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dmitry Surzhik.

– This proposal looks terribly blasphemous. Germany was liberated by the Red Army, in which no distinction was made on the basis of nationality. All people were one. Perhaps this respected person (Christian Lübke – approx. “MK”) plans to follow the Baltic example. First, divide the monuments into those belonging to military burials and just monuments, and then give some away, and the second ones are simply demolished, – the historian is perplexed.

It is almost impossible to trace any sensible grain or at least a hint of logic in the initiative of activists from Germany. Dmitry Surzhik suggested that Germany wants to allocate the graves of Ukrainians in order to later transfer the rights to these graves to the current Kyiv regime. However, the expert considers this idea frankly stupid, since modern Ukraine rejects everything Soviet and adopts the ideology of those who fought on the side of Hitler. It is also impossible to evaluate the initiative from the point of view of national self-consciousness, Surzhik is sure:

– National identity is not determined by blood. A person can be a representative of the Habsburg dynasty and at the same time wear an embroidered shirt, calling himself Vasil Vyshyvany (Wilhelm Franz of Habsburg-Lorraine, known under the pseudonym Vasil Vyshyvany, Archduke of Austria-Hungary, was a failed candidate for the throne of Ukraine – MK note).

Aviation historian, war graves specialist Andrey Simonov stressed that, purely technically, the separation of the remains on any basis, including nationality, is possible only in one case: we are not talking about mass graves. In this case, it is possible to establish belonging to a particular nation according to archival documents.

– If a soldier was called up from the territory of modern Ukraine, one could conditionally consider him a Ukrainian. But searching for this information in documents is a titanic job. If we are talking about mass graves, it is purely technically impossible to determine which remains belong to whom, Simonov says.

President of the Regional Public Organization IAC “Remember everyone by name” Galina Savelyeva suggested that German activists could exhume all the remains from Soviet military graves. However, even a last-name reconciliation of each deceased according to archival documents does not guarantee that a Russian will not be included in the list of Ukrainians, and vice versa.

– Even if a person has a Ukrainian surname, there are no guarantees that he does not have Russian blood. For example, my grandfather is Ukrainian, that is, I am a quarter Ukrainian. How can I be identified? In addition, the question arises, would the dead want to be separated? The attitude of the Germans towards military graves, both their own and those of others, has always aroused admiration and respect. But now it remains only to shrug, says Savelyeva.

All experts agreed that the initiative of the German NGO is politically biased and has only one goal – to inflame the situation against the backdrop of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.