The story about József Krieg.
I recently received a message from one of my blog readers asking if I could help uncover the fate of his wife's great-grandfather, József Krieg.
József was either conscripted into, or perhaps volunteered for, the Austro-Hungarian Army at the outbreak of the First World War. He was later killed in action on the Serbian Front. Nearly a century has passed since his death, and I knew from the outset that discovering reliable information would be a considerable challenge.
As an amateur historian specializing in Hungarian military history and a long-time collector, I also knew where to begin. Throughout Hungary, almost every town and village was touched by the wars of the twentieth century. Following the First World War—and later the Second—communities erected memorials to commemorate the local men who never returned. These monuments often remain one of the most valuable sources for identifying fallen soldiers whose official military records have long since disappeared.
Because József was killed on foreign soil in Serbia, it seemed unlikely that his original grave could still be identified. Many Austro-Hungarian soldiers were buried in temporary battlefield cemeteries, and countless wartime burial records were lost during or after the conflict.
Knowing that József was a native of the Hungarian town of Herend, I decided to begin my search there. A quick search for First World War memorials in Herend led me to the excellent website Magyar Hősök ("Hungarian Heroes"), a remarkable project dedicated to documenting Hungary's historic war memorials. It seemed the perfect place to begin the search for a soldier whose story had been forgotten for almost one hundred years.
