European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 5, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                May 1985 the stars and stripes a Childs War German re cafes recruiting of boys by Waffen is Bonn up Juergen Lorenz was 15 when the Waffen is suddenly appeared to round up except for some he figures he might be buried under one of the 49 is markers in the Pitburg i had 15 Lorenz said of his age when his Hitler youth construction corps unit suddenly was ordered to Muster in a schoolyard near Bonn Early in Waffen is officers made Lorenz recalled in broken English during an interview they say Hitler is counting on we Are the last Hope of Der everything is up to there Are about 150 boys in our i had 15 they ask us to join the Waffen of the 150 Only two did not one said he wanted to join his traditional family the other is i say i want to be a submarine the Waffen is accept for in those Days the submarines would leave and never come the All the other Waffen Lorenz is 57 had he joined the he thinks he could be under a Small Square Stone in the Pitburg Ceme Tery that president Reagan will visit even though Hes a Newspaperman and thus accustomed to finding he has been unable to uncover what happened to his companions of that he believes few experts these were mincemeat said who asked not to be their Job was to drive always and make mincemeat of the of course it also made mincemeat of the casualty rate in Waffen is units was the expert literally tens of thousands of men flooded into those units and flooded out again dead or severely none of the 39 Flat is gravestones in Pitburg 10 other is Graves have no markers identifies the military unit of the Man buried making it difficult to Trace their service but the West German Magazine Quick recently tracked Down the Brothers of several of those buried at the Ages on the gravestones Are revealing Josef 17 Josef 17 Emil 19 Ernst in Ernst suffered said Kohls brother in France he was hit by two months after a near hit from a he was terrible things happened Hans Kahl says but Ernst was no War he  Hurt a said Karlheinz of his brother dead at he was a Friend a world again focusing on role of the is by Charlie Bowden staff writer Germany forty years after its condemnation in the Nuernberg War crimes Adolf hitlers shadowy is has again become the focus of worldwide the grave Sites of 49 Waffen is buried in the military Section of the Kolmes Hoehe cemetery in have become the focal Point of a controversy that threatens to drive a wedge Between a German american Friendship that has been nurtured for the fuelled by news concerns president reagans plan to visit the town and Lay a Wreath at the cemetery As a gesture of reconciliation Between former despite the Reagan has refused to change his the grave Sites of the ranging in age from 17 to have revived the questions of the role of the is in nazi Germany and in world War the residents of a City of in the picturesque Eifel Are the primary victims of the although the entire country is feeling its in now rebuilt and thriving after being levelled in world War ii by bombers and artillery fire As gis cracked the Siegfried town leaders believe the Media has overplayed the role of the 49 mayor Theo Hallet has maintained that the dead were regular not to be confused with is concentration Camp he said the soldiers were killed in the ardennes better known to americans As the Battle of the although the gravestones do not give newspaper reports have connected some of the Pitburg soldiers with the 10th and 1st is Panzer after the the commanders and several dozen soldiers of the 2nd and 1st divisions were tried and convicted of War is Graves can hardly be considered a rare occurrence in German military there Are 366 German military cemeteries in 18 in them Are buried million the established As a personal Protection unit for expanded with the War into the Waffen is with divisions fighting on the Eastern and Western at its Peak in the fall of the Waffen is numbered roughly these considered by is generals As generally served As spearhead units in German As Lead they usually suffered heavy such was the Case in the Battle of the when hitlers favorite Josef Sepp commanded the 6th is Panzer Dietrichs Panzer supplied with fresh men and new Tiger temporarily overran the outgunned and out manned it was in this Las gasp offensive that the infamous Almedy involving units of the 1st is Panzer but the americans after allowing a bulge in the and pushed the German forces with devastating into the densely forested although figures official army histories estimate that the germans lost men and another were taken Dietrichs is Panzer divisions alone suffered american casualties numbered wounded and three months after the ardennes Campaign officially Germany surrendered Bergen Belsen Camp serves As reminder of holocaust by Charlie Bowden staff writer Germany in the Flatland Between the cities of Hamburg and Hannover is an area designated by the German travel association As the Lueneburg named for the Ocean of wild Heather that blooms there in the and for Germany largest preserved medieval it is to this Scenic area that president Reagan comes sunday to pay homage to the victims of one of the darkest times of German history the not far from a Village of about is the site of the infamous nazi concentration Camp known As the is also operated a Panzer training school in the nearby today the British army maintains a presence in the using the former is school As a nato base near the Border with East the former concentration where an estimated jews is Little More than a us Barren features broken Here and there by Mounds indicating mass Graves holding anywhere from 300 to breaking the horizon is an obelisk similar in design to the Washington although much smaller that was dedicated by the Bergen Belsen survivors association in 1953 As an International the opened in August was to be a place where the nazi regime could Send jews who might have some jews who could be traded for German citizens interned in other initial shipments included jews with dutch and polish More privileged jews coinciding with the nazi concept that Belsen was not a killing Belsen never was a killing Center of the likes of Auschwitz the inmates simply starved to death or perished in the typhus epidemic that swept the primitive the without electricity or running was designed to hold by March an estimated were packed into its most of the new arrivals were from other which were being closed Down As the Allied armies when the is guards led by the notorious Josef and 21yearold Irma Grese the Bitch of Belsen surrendered to British forces in the British were medically unprepared for what they typhus was and food was according to another died after the Camp was among the dead was Anne the German born dutch teenager now famous for the diary she kept while her family hid from nazi teams rounding up jews in a year after the Belsen survivors dedicated the first a simple Stone it bears this inscription conceal not the Stone Wall Marks the Entrance to Bergen Belsen concentration photo