Pollen Solves Mystery of 32 Postwar Killings in Germany

The mystery of who killed 32 men found in a mass grave in Germany in 1994 has apparently been solved by examining pollen in the victims’ sinuses. The identities of the victims and their killers were unknown when the bodies were discovered in the town of Magdeburg. But the massacre was thought to have been carried out by either the Gestapo during the spring of 1945 or by the Soviet secret police after a June 1953 revolt.

Biologist Reinhard Szibor and his colleagues at Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg took samples from two of the skulls and report in today’s issue of the journal Nature that they found pollen from plants that flower in summer, ruling out the Gestapo. The victims apparently were Soviet soldiers who were executed after refusing to put down a German revolt in 1953.

Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II