70 Years Since WW2, War Dead Are Laid To Final Rest

HALBE, GERMANY - APRIL 29: Alfred Gansleben, 89, who was a soldier in an anti-tank unit (Panzerjaeger) of the German Army, fought at the 1945 Battle of Halbe and was captured by the Russians, attends a ceremony held by the German Wargraves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgraeberfuersorge) in which coffins containing the remains of World War II German war dead were to be interred into a mass grave at the German war cemetery and memorial on April 29, 2015 in Halbe, Germany. The 123 military and civilian dead were killed in ferocious fighting in the countryside around Berlin between German troops and the advancing Soviet Red Army in April, 1945, in the final stage of World War II in Europe, and their bodies were only recently found. Historians estimate that up to 200,000 soldiers, militia fighters, civilians and medical personnel perished in the battles, which include the Battle for Seelow Heights (Seelower Hoehen) and the Battle of Halbe, in areas where today bodies, munitions and equipment are still unearthed nearly daily. Europe, Russia and the former Allied powers will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the victory over Nazi Germany on May 8-9. (Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images)