The Commission maintains more than 830 war cemeteries in 46 countries, containing the remains of more than 2.8 million war dead. The Commission is also involved in the maintenance of prisoner-of-war cemeteries, in order to create a dignified memorial for these victims of tyranny.

In order to maintain the graves permanently, as provided for in the war graves agreements with other nations, it is necessary to dissolve the many small graves, especially those from the Second World War, and to reburial them in central war cemeteries. It was and is important to integrate the facilities into the landscape. Their boundaries make them stand out as special places, but the unobstructed view allows them to remain part of the overall picture.

The most distinctive difference between the war cemeteries is the form of the name identification. While it was common in Western Europe to use grave crosses or name plaques, the stele or book of names was chosen as an element due to the immense numbers of victims in Poland, the Russian Federation, Belarus and other states of the former Soviet Union.

There are over 12,000 war cemeteries on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, where more than 1.8 million German and foreign dead of the First and Second World Wars have found their final resting place. The preservation of these graves is a state responsibility enshrined in the Basic Law, which is mostly carried out at the municipal level.

Our brochure "Wenn Steine reden könnten ... Handreichung für den Umgang mit Kriegsgräbern in Deutschland" contains the legal basis for the state's responsibility for the care of war graves in Germany, as well as information on the design, marking, maintenance, relocation of war graves and sponsorship of graves.