Germany’s annual Volkstrauertag observance will foreground its relationship with Austria on Sunday, as the Bundestag hosts Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen for a ceremony honoring those killed by war and oppression.
Van der Bellen is scheduled to give the memorial address at 7:30 a.m. ET (12:30 UTC). German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will deliver the formal commemoration, according to the Bundestag schedule. The German War Graves Commission, known as the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, lists a wreath-laying at Berlin’s Neue Wache for 6:30 a.m. ET (11:30 UTC).
Commemorations are also planned at cemeteries, memorial sites and churches across Germany, as well as at German war cemeteries abroad, the Volksbund says. The commission identifies Neue Wache as Germany’s central memorial for victims of war and violent oppression, a role it has held since 1993.
A 2025 revision to Steinmeier’s remembrance text added people murdered under Nazi rule because of their gender or sexual identity, alongside police officers who died on duty. The text also recalls soldiers who died in both world wars; people who died through wartime violence, its aftermath, captivity or flight; and victims of present-day wars, terrorism and political persecution.
The observance dates to 1919, when it was established to remember those killed in World War I. The Reichstag hosted its first official ceremony in 1922. The Federal Republic restored the day in 1952 and expanded its remembrance to include civilians killed in war, the Bundestag says.
