Germany to end search for WWII missing
January 23, 2018
The German Red Cross on Tuesday said it would conclude its tracing service for missing persons from World War II in 2023, ending a decades-long search.
An interior ministry press release on Tuesday noted that the success rate "clearing up" such cases "is declining due to natural causes." The chances of finding missing persons from the era still alive decreases year on year, and the likelihood of them having been found by other means increases with time.
Thomas Huber, who heads the state-backed missing persons program, told DPA news agency that the fate of 1.2 million people would likely remain a mystery. "We won't be able to shed light on their fates," Huber said.
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Huber said the decision was taken in agreement with the interior ministry, even though there continues to be interest in finding missing persons. Some 9,000 inquiries were made in 2017, according to Red Cross figures.
"For many relatives it continues to be a black hole on their family tree," said Huber. "We're also actively working on these cases."
In the wake of WWII
The tracing service was established shortly after the end of World War II, tasked with searching for more than 20 million people who disappeared during the war. The figure also included soldiers who were killed in action and prisoners of war.
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By 1959, the German Red Cross still had more than 2 million cases open. The service has continued to do extraordinary work, such as reuniting two brothers in 2010 after being separated for more than 60 years.
Germany's Red Cross also conducts missing persons inquiries for more recent cases on the interior ministry's behalf, receiving €11.5 million ($14.1 million) annually. It's open to anyone with reason to believe their relatives might be in Germany, or that German authorities might have information on their whereabouts. In 2016, the most common countries of origin for such requests were Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia.
ls/msh (dpa, AFP)