Grady, Tim Burying the Enemy

The Story of those who cared for the Dead in two World Wars

A fascinating and moving story of the British and German war dead buried in enemy territory in the two world wars. Why do societies commemorate only their own national war dead? Today, the enemy dead may have largely disappeared from view, but that was not always the case. In both world wars, Germans and British died by the thousands in enemy territory. From Berlin to Bath, from London to Leipzig, civilian communities buried the enemy in the nearest churchyard. It may come as a surprise that local people took care of these graves and often tended them with great affection. Tim Grady explores the history of this curious aspect of the post-war community. He describes how the two states transferred the bodies to new military cemeteries, how the population protested against the disturbance of the dead, and how relations between the bereaved and those who cared for the graves were forever broken. Once the enemy was out of sight and out of mind, the British and the Germans focused exclusively on commemorating their own war dead and their own victims. The insular public memory of the world wars that exists today was only made possible by the removal of the traces of the enemy and by the fact that people were thus able to create much simpler narratives about the recent past.