"I had to remove everything from the dead bodies. From their breast pockets, their trouser pockets. I had to find the ID tags on their chests and remove them. I felt like a butcher sometimes, as I rummaged around in all that blood.
On some corpses, the whole torso had been flatten by mortars, pieces of flesh were hanging everywhere.
The rats would get into their clothes, and would start eating their faces, so that in a few days, the corpses would go black. First they gnawed their lips and noses, then get into their coats and start eating the rest.
We had to jump from corpse to corpse, if we stepped in the mud we'd get stuck. But we had to use the corpses lying face down because if we landed in their stomach, our feet would sink in which was disgusting. It was terrible..we were surrounded by death." - 2nd Lt. Ernst Weckerling, Füsilier-Regiment von Gersdorff (Kurhessisches) Nr.80. , Imperial German Army, Verdun, France, 1916 #reality #ww1 #verdun #stayzero #zerofoxtrot #notfortheweak