War graves and memorials

There are a number of war cemeteries around Berlin. The Commonwealth one (in West Berlin) and Soviet one (in Treptower Park) stand proud and in pristine condition to remember their dead. But for understandable reasons, there is no such monument to commemorate the German soldiers killed during the second world war. As the author of this Times article suggests, many are still not sure how to view the ordinary German soldier - criminal or hero. The German war graves commission - in undertaking its responsibility for the final resting places of Germans killed during the war, abroad and at home - is conciliatory in its explanation. It talks about their work as a way of learning lessons from history. There is no one memorial, but they look after graves in cemeteries across the country, including around 10 in Berlin.

What prompted me to find this out was this war cemetery in Lichtenberg which I've run past a few types. In contrast to the Allied and Soviet memorials, it is a boarded up and graffitied over church-like building, with only the sign to reveal its purpose. Its not one of the cemeteries that the war graves commission looks after and I can't find out anything about it. And I think its this difference - an unremarked-upon memorial in a unremarkable street - that makes the deaths of those buried within it even more poignant. A very different type of tomb of the unknown soldier.