For more than eight decades, the remains of two German soldiers lay in the mud of the Danube. Only the exceptionally low water level of the river in Budapest has brought their story back to light.
Both bodies still carried intact German identity discs, giving investigators an unusually good chance of identifying the men more than 80 years on.
The discovery is closely linked to a remarkably well-preserved DKW NZ 350-1 motorcycle found at the beginning of August on the Buda bank of the Danube.
Under or right next to the motorcycle, staff from the Hungarian Institute and Museum of Military History came across the human remains. Volksbund employee Gábor Kohlrusz recovered the bones of the two men from the exposed riverbed.
For many years Kohlrusz has been working in Hungary for the Volksbund, reinterring war dead. His duties include searching for, recovering and documenting German war dead, as well as securing personal belongings and identity discs. Together with historians and local partners, he helps to establish the identities of the fallen and shed light on long-unresolved wartime fates.
