Germany's Corpse Hunter: Helping the Lost Dead of WWII Rest in Peace

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After Kowalke finds the remains, the case is turned over to the German Information Office (WASt), formerly known as the Wehrmacht Information Office for War Losses and P.o.W.s. For every number on an insignia, there exists a file which will indicate the fallen soldier's identity. In the chaos of war and its aftermath, a lot of information was lost. Nevertheless, the bureau is still the place to seek the identity of a fallen soldier after more than 60 years. Whether it's a wedding ring, an insignia, a rank or a love letter, the WASt gets all the personal items Kowalke finds. They're numbered, packed and compared with the files of 18 million members of the Wehrmacht, as the German armed forces were called during World War II. In the evidence room the belongings of soldiers whose relatives can't be found -- dentures, watches, glasses -- are collected.

Kowalke has been adding to this morbid collection for more than 30 years. The wiry 68-year-old is actually a cabinetmaker by trade. He tells of how, as an apprentice, he had to build a coffin as his first assignment. At the time he had absolutely no idea that dealing with the dead would become his career.

In 1980, he was asked by his minister in Buckow to take responsibility for war graves in the Oderland region. The fate of his father, killed in France in 1944, was another motivating factor. Kowalke still has vivid memories of a rainy day at the end of the 1980s when he stood by his father's grave in Andilly in Lothringen -- which, with more than 30,000 graves, is the largest German war cemetery in France . He felt sad and happy at the same time: "Finally, I had a place to focus my grief." Additionally it is important to him to give those who lost brothers, sons and fathers a little knowledge.

Around 20,000 Dead Soldiers Found

Before 1990, that was no easy task. In the former East Germany (GDR), soldiers who had served in Hitler's army were viewed as wrongdoers and GDR leaders frowned upon according them any last honor or even last resting place. For this reason, Kowalke's unearthing, and then reburial, of fallen soldiers all had to be done under the auspices of the church.

It was only in 1990, the year of Germany's reunification, that what he did started to become accepted and publicly acknowledged. At that time, in the western part of Germany, there was no longer any official organization responsible for reburials and the search for the bodies of fallen German soldiers, from Scandinavia to North Africa, had generally been called off. However in the eastern part of the country, where the war's most deadly battles had been fought in early 1945, the work was really only just beginning. This was true for all of eastern Europe. And since 1990, Kowalke has dug up the bodies of 20,000 fallen soldiers.

Every year, Kowalke and his 25 colleagues, who search for fallen soldiers in Eastern Europe and Russia on behalf of the VDK, rebury between 35,000 and 40,000 soldiers. Generally the fallen soldiers are buried in the country they died in. For example, Russian soldiers found in Brandenburg are buried in a military graveyard in Lebus, a town north of Frankfurt an der Oder. Likewise, soldiers of the former Wehrmacht who died abroad are buried in German military cemeteries there. However relatives of the fallen are entitled to submit an application to the VDK requesting that their loved ones be buried in Germany.

The Worst Thing Is Finding Remains of Children

Kowalke has lost a lot of sleep thinking about his job and the fate of the young men he finds. Happily, over time, he has become accustomed to the situation and has even been able to find a greater sense of inner peace. Still, there are places that continue to haunt him, such as the area south of Berlin where the Battle of Halbe was fought. Here, at the very end of the war, tens of thousands of German soldiers in the Ninth Army and civilians died as they desperately tried to break through three lines of enemy forces to reach their comrades in the German Twelfth Army; all many of them wanted was to surrender to Western forces.

"When it comes to the Battle of Halbe," he pauses a moment, "I still feel my heart ache." The very hardest thing for him, as a father of two girls, is when he comes upon the remains of children. "Even after so many years," he says, "coming across a pair of small shoes with tiny ankle bones in them cannot help but affect you."

What worries him most is leaving someone behind, forgotten in the ground. "Here in Brandenburg, the war is far from over," he says, in a reference to an 18th-century Russian general who said that a war is only over once the last fallen soldier has been given an honorable burial. That kind of "end" to war is something that Kowalke, who has already been awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, Germany's highest civilian honor, would like most.

'God Loves Them All'

When it comes to reburial, he believes even the smallest details are of paramount importance. "If I overlook something," he stresses, "no one else can make up for that. It's gone forever." And it doesn't matter to him if the person who he recovers is German or Russian, a member of the SS or the Red Army. "After death, we are all the same," Kowalke says. "I might not know the poor guy. But God knows and loves them all."

Even more than six decades after the end of the war, there is still grieving to be done for the fallen. When reburial ceremonies are held, guests may include wives, children, grandchildren, former comrades in arms and even former class mates.

Kowalke recently attended the reburial of a soldier he had found. It was held in the German military cemetery in Halbe, which is the country's largest, with 28,000 graves. The family of the soldier was also there. There was his widow, his daughter and his granddaughter.

All of them laid their hands on the small, gray coffin once more before it was lowered into the ground. Then they sang the Bach hymn, "Befiehl Du Deine Wege" together. "At moments like that, I know exactly why I do this job," Kowalke says.

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• Part 1: Helping the Lost Dead of WWII Rest in Peace
• Part 2: Adding To A Morbid Collection