German bodies in Finnish ground: whose difficult heritage? (ENG)

What makes a cemetery an authentic place of remembrance is the presence of the bodies buried beneath it. These concrete material remains connect the present with past generations and their memory. In the case of German war cemeteries in Finland, the buried bodies are by no means neutral or unproblematic. On the contrary, their nationality and affiliation with the Nazi German Wehrmacht frames them as the wrong bodies to be remembered. While the Finnish war dead are treated as heroes, the German dead buried in Finnish ground are an uncomfortable reminder of a controversial past alliance. It is the Germanness of the dead that makes these cemeteries a difficult heritage. 

This paper investigates German war cemeteries in Finland through the lens of bodies. The focus is on the two designated German war cemeteries in Finland, Honkanummi in Vantaa and Norvajärvi in Rovaniemi. Cemeteries not only contain the dead, but also embody aspects of memory culture and politics of history by connecting the abstract level of memory with a tangible physical space. By examining how these sites and the bodies buried there are dealt with, new perspectives on Finnish and German cultures of remembrance regarding World War II can be revealed. To what extent do the two contexts have a different approach towards bodies as elements of collective memory and how is this difference manifested in the example of the two war cemeteries?

The journey of the German bodies buried in Finland also provides an interesting perspective on authenticity and microhistory. Whereas the cemetery sites were chosen retrospectively and are not the original burial sites of the soldiers, their relocated bodies remain as authentic artefacts. In addition, the names on the tombstones emphasize individual stories behind the vast anonymous casualty figures usually associated with war history. What role do the bodies play in conveying these micro-historical perspectives?