Römisches Institut der Görres-Gesellschaft
Austro-Hungarian soldiers in the crypt of the Anima in Rome
In the crypt of the German church of Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome lie 460 Austro-Hungarian soldiers from the First World War. It is a special kind of memorial. The remains were brought there from Campo Verano by Rector Hudal in 1937 and took on a pronouncedly Greater German significance after the Anschluss in 1938.
PD Dr Tamara Scheer is following the individual fates in a research project. The preliminary publication "Where have all the young men gone?", edited together with Nikolaus Rottenberger (both [former] members of the RIGG), is a first approach.
The project began in 2019 and is a time-consuming process, as the information on the origins of the soldiers, almost all of whom died as prisoners of war in Roman hospitals immediately after the war, has to be collected from the archives of many countries.
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- Written by: Stefan Heid
- Category: Recommended reading