Malcolm Hilgartner

Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents, he told a crowd of AFD supporters at a rally. Weeks later, at a security conference in Munich, Vice President J.D. Vance threw his support to authoritarian movements across Europe, telling German leaders that there is no room for firewalls between extremist parties and the seats of power.

Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents, he told a crowd of AFD supporters at a rally. Weeks later, at a security conference in Munich, Vice President J.D. Vance threw his support to authoritarian movements across Europe, telling German leaders that there is no room for firewalls between extremist parties and the seats of power.

The comment drew gasps in the room and a rebuke from Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who later said, a commitment to never again is not reconcilable with support for the AFD. The commitment to never again raises hard questions for the Volksbund, which confronts the idea of guilt, individual or collective, with every disinterment.

The comment drew gasps in the room and a rebuke from Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who later said, a commitment to never again is not reconcilable with support for the AFD. The commitment to never again raises hard questions for the Volksbund, which confronts the idea of guilt, individual or collective, with every disinterment.

Sometimes we have truly evil perpetrators, says Dirk Bakken, who heads the organization. In some cases, we know the biographies, and we know that probably if they had survived the war, they would have been put on trial and executed immediately.

Sometimes we have truly evil perpetrators, says Dirk Bakken, who heads the organization. In some cases, we know the biographies, and we know that probably if they had survived the war, they would have been put on trial and executed immediately.

but sometimes the organization will instead find itself seeking a grave for the disinterred bodies of German mothers and their children, who were cut down by Soviet artillery fire or, in a grayer zone, the corpse of a conscripted teenage soldier who was forced at gunpoint to murder Jews.

but sometimes the organization will instead find itself seeking a grave for the disinterred bodies of German mothers and their children, who were cut down by Soviet artillery fire or, in a grayer zone, the corpse of a conscripted teenage soldier who was forced at gunpoint to murder Jews.

These cases can reflect the complexity of history, but, as I found after many months of reporting on the Volksbund and its own sometimes embattled history, they can also obscure it. Germany's search for its fallen soldiers begins in a lonely office park a two-hour train ride from Frankfurt.

These cases can reflect the complexity of history, but, as I found after many months of reporting on the Volksbund and its own sometimes embattled history, they can also obscure it. Germany's search for its fallen soldiers begins in a lonely office park a two-hour train ride from Frankfurt.

On a fall day, I met Arne Schrader, a retired Army Reserve major who heads the Exhumations Department at the Volksbund's headquarters near Kassel, an industrial city in central Germany. Kassel was once filled with medieval buildings, but after it became a wartime manufacturing hub of the Nazis, Allied bombers flattened it into rubble.

On a fall day, I met Arne Schrader, a retired Army Reserve major who heads the Exhumations Department at the Volksbund's headquarters near Kassel, an industrial city in central Germany. Kassel was once filled with medieval buildings, but after it became a wartime manufacturing hub of the Nazis, Allied bombers flattened it into rubble.

That changing landscape after the war presented one of the biggest challenges to finding the dead, Schrader told me. An archival map might show the exact place where a group of soldiers were buried, based on the location of a local church or an old street plan. But what if that church is gone, the streets remapped? Now it's only just a field, Schrader said. Where do you even begin?

That changing landscape after the war presented one of the biggest challenges to finding the dead, Schrader told me. An archival map might show the exact place where a group of soldiers were buried, based on the location of a local church or an old street plan. But what if that church is gone, the streets remapped? Now it's only just a field, Schrader said. Where do you even begin?

The Volksbund Deutscher Kriegsgraberfürsorge, the organization's full name translates roughly to the People's League for the Care of German War Graves, was founded in 1919 as a private group to search for those lost in World War I. Members went door to door collecting change from war widows and their children, who hoped that the next time they heard from the Volksbund, it would be with news about the fates of their loved ones.

The Volksbund Deutscher Kriegsgraberfürsorge, the organization's full name translates roughly to the People's League for the Care of German War Graves, was founded in 1919 as a private group to search for those lost in World War I. Members went door to door collecting change from war widows and their children, who hoped that the next time they heard from the Volksbund, it would be with news about the fates of their loved ones.

The Volksbund's mandate is not just to find the bodies, but also to decide where to put them, creating a kind of vertically integrated operation that first exumes the dead, then reburies them, often in cemeteries it has established on the outskirts of towns, which the Volksbund cares for in perpetuity. Today it manages some 830 war cemeteries around the world, where 2.8 million Germans are buried.

The Volksbund's mandate is not just to find the bodies, but also to decide where to put them, creating a kind of vertically integrated operation that first exumes the dead, then reburies them, often in cemeteries it has established on the outskirts of towns, which the Volksbund cares for in perpetuity. Today it manages some 830 war cemeteries around the world, where 2.8 million Germans are buried.

The Volksbund's budget comes mainly from its members, many of them relatives of the dead. It leads tours of grave sites as points of departure to reflect on what participants would have done had they been in the shoes of the war's victims. Die Toten verpflichten die Lebenden, goes an old saying of the Volksbund. The dead oblige the living.

The Volksbund's budget comes mainly from its members, many of them relatives of the dead. It leads tours of grave sites as points of departure to reflect on what participants would have done had they been in the shoes of the war's victims. Die Toten verpflichten die Lebenden, goes an old saying of the Volksbund. The dead oblige the living.