VERDUN, France, Sept. 22— The leaders of France and West Germany visited this battle site today to pay silent homage to the millions of their compatriots killed in two world wars.

President Francois Mitterrand of France and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany chose the site of the 1916 battle of Verdun for a symbolic day of reconciliation.

Driving rain soaked the hundreds of war veterans from both countries who stood waiting for several hours at the Douaumont Ossuary, a cemetery that holds the remains of more than 130,000 French and German dead.

A group of French veterans from Nancy said it was the first time they had stood shoulder to shoulder with their German counterparts from World War II.

There were no political speeches, a decision that the veterans approved.

''De Gaulle shook the hand of the Germans 20 years ago and it is right that today we just have a simple ceremony of friendship,'' one Frenchman said.

''If we had had ceremonies like this before World War II, we might have avoided it,'' another said.

The ceremonies today were preceded by a joint military exercise by 2,800 French and West German troops in eastern France.

Before visiting the Ossuary and the graves of French soldiers, President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl paid tribute to the German dead at Consenvoye, one of the many German cemeteries in the Verdun region. It holds the remains of 8,700 soldiers.

President Mitterrand invited Chancellor Kohl to Verdun last May. The invitation was widely viewed in France as having been improvised to soothe feelings after the West German leader had been left out of the 40th anniversary celebrations of the Allied landings in Normandy in World War II.

There was no time scheduled for political consultations between the two leaders. But they were expected to meet again in Bonn next month.

The battle of Verdun lasted 300 days and was one of the bloodiest of World War I.

Of the two million thrown into the battle, about half a million men died and hundreds of thousands more were wounded. According to French figures, 360,000 French and 335,000 German soldiers were killed.

The French troops were commanded by Henri Philippe Petain, later disgraced after he led the Vichy French Government that collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II. At Verdun he coined and made good his famous slogan: ''Ils ne passeront pas'' (''They shall not pass'').

Mr. Mitterrand, a soldier in the French Army, was captured by the Germans in World War II during fighting in 1940 near Verdun.

The two leaders made a detour to visit a corner of the battlefield where Mr. Kohl's father fought in 1916.

France and West Germany have been close allies since Chancellor Konrad Adenauer signed a treaty of friendship with President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Today's ceremony reflected efforts to take the process further.

Previous French presidents visited the military shrine of Verdun without inviting representatives from West Germany.

Earlier this year President Mitterrand and Chancellor Kohl took another step to bring their countries closer together by abolishing frontier formalities for their citizens.

''The Chancellor and I will feel we have contributed to making history for our two peoples and have given new energy to a political construction which, if better understood, should transform the world balance,'' Mr. Mitterrand said in a statement Friday.