Overview
- Passersby spotted motorcycle handlebars on Aug. 2, leading authorities to recover a well-preserved DKW NZ 350-1, the bodies of two German World War II soldiers, identity discs, a wedding ring, a Kuban combat badge and anti-tank mines.
- The finds were unusually well preserved by oily, anaerobic riverbed mud near Batthyány Square, and both halves of the soldiers’ identity tags were found intact, which suggests their deaths were never formally recorded.
- Germany’s War Graves Commission has taken charge of the recovery, started forensic and archival work to identify the men and intends to inter confirmed remains at the Budaörs German war cemetery once procedures conclude.
- Bomb-disposal teams secured the scene after anti-tank mines were found and a section of the riverbank was temporarily closed while munitions were rendered safe.
- The discovery highlights how extreme heat and drought have lowered Danube levels and exposed wartime wrecks across the river, raising the prospect of more recoveries and renewed efforts to locate unresolved war dead.