InvestigationJulien Hauser, 73, devoted part of his life to searching for the remains of Germans who died on French territory during the Second World War, to give them a decent burial and to contribute to reconciliation. A quest that marked him forever.
Imposing build, energetic gait, Julien Hauser walks the impeccably maintained lawn. He leans his meter eighty-six over a first slab of gray stone, takes a few steps back, stops. It’s here. Four Germanic sounding names are engraved, with the dates of birth and death. Alex Nolting, died August 10, 1944, at the age of 29, neighbor with Heinrich Ziemann, died the same day, at the age of 44. “They are part of the 17 bodies found in Dordogne, in 2003”, explains our guide. Julien Hauser, 73, is here in his “garden”.
A very special garden: the German military cemetery of Berneuil, about ten kilometers south of Saintes, in Charente-Maritime. This three-hectare necropolis houses 8,380 graves of German soldiers who died in France between 1939 and 1945, or after the war, while they were prisoners. It is a so-called “regroupment” cemetery, where bodies were collected initially buried in 14 departments of the South-West.
Julien Hauser was the curator of the place from 1993 to 2008. A mission which he inherited somewhat by chance, after responding to a job offer published in German in the daily newspaper South West. Perfectly bilingual, eager to leave a first professional life in transport, in the Paris region, he applied. And thus finds himself in the official apartment which adjoins the cemetery, in the middle of the fields.
Dives in cloudy water
Fifteen years later, instead of retiring, he extended his mission, this time on a voluntary basis, until 1er May 2018, as delegate general for France of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (VDK), the “Service for the maintenance of German military graves” of the two world wars. Founded in 1919, this association manages, on behalf of Germany, 832 military cemeteries in 46 countries. There are nearly 200 across France, in regions marked by the two world conflicts. The motto of the VDK? A call to appease memories: “Reconciliation on the graves – Work for peace”.
If Julien Hauser knows the location of such and such a burial so well, it is because he himself brought back dozens of the remains of soldiers engulfed in particular in the whirlwind of the Liberation battles. Three quarters could be identified thanks to their military metal plate. In the south-west of France, in the absence of conventional battles – apart from the bombardment of the Royan pocket, a city liberated in April 1945 – the vast majority of German dead were victims of clashes with guerrillas or summary executions. “Finding the traces of these soldiers is the raison d’être of the VDK, before giving them a dignified burial and maintaining it., specifies Julien Hauser. Soldiers who died in combat are entitled to a perpetual grave. “
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