A MILLION fallen German soldiers are being reburied more than 60 years after the fall of the Third Reich. And, more controversially, the skeletal remains of thousands of Waffen SS Nazis recruited from other European countries are also being reburied.

The operation is taking place across Eastern Europe, where more than 15 million civilians were killed by the German war machine. Resentment against the reburial program is running high in many countries.

So far 520,000 skeletons have been exhumed from mass graves, old trenches and unmarked battlefield graveyards and reburied in properly maintained German war cemeteries. A further 400,000 are due to be exhumed over the next eight years. At least 100,000 will be reburied after that.