The German government has instead decided to declare the burial site a war memorial and put it under state protection. “Rescue efforts to reach the remains in 2021 and 2022 had proven very difficult,” a spokeswoman for the Volksbund told CNN on Friday, adding that there had been “several attempts” to open the “very deep and very long” tunnel, which is located in a nature reserve with “sandy ground still contaminated with ammunition. “In the past years and months we have been cooperating with our French partners in a spirit of trust,” said Dirk Backen, chief executive of the Volksbund