baron von blitzkreig Posted May 14, 2010 Share Posted May 14, 2010 hi there i seen an article in the daily express about russians robbing graves of german soldiers . it got me thinking , you see i collect buttons and i have bought buttons from russia german ww2 buttons and crimean war buttons. do you think these have been took from graves and if so should i bury them in consecrated ground thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAF635SQ Posted May 15, 2010 Share Posted May 15, 2010 I heard about something like this to, its just awful they could do such a thing! people these days have no respect for the German soldiers they would rather call them all Nazi's, we all know that they weren't all Nazi's. To be honest i don't think you could ever know if a button was from a grave or not though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny Andrew Posted May 15, 2010 Share Posted May 15, 2010 We get offered these type of items all the time , and to be honest I would not touch them never mind have them in my collection. Things like your Crimean buttons might be OK as are things which have been picked up off the battle field , however the Russians are clearly digging up graves, maybe not always official graves but certainly corpses and removing the items. Sometimes it is done in a humane way with the bodies being returned to Germany , I have no problem with this however to sell the clothing ,helmets etc I think is sick and even a health hazard. I have seen helmets for sale complete with photos of them being removed from the ground with the skulls still present , also helmets with human hair attached and helmets covered with strange sorts of mould. Some say it's the only way they can afford an SS helmet but for me I think it's terrible not to mention the fact it would give me the hebe jebes! Plenty of good stuff still out there without having to dig up bodies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr bridger Posted May 15, 2010 Share Posted May 15, 2010 The sun ran an article on grave robbers of the tr yesterday in its centre pages this activity has been going on for years personaly i would not touch the stuff. The sun claimed that the grave robbers were after ss insignia cant work out why as its been in the ground for 65 years surely it would be rotten, and that they also find ek's that sell for £35. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted May 17, 2010 Share Posted May 17, 2010 I'd agree with everything that's been said here. A little while ago I was seaching the net and came across the web site of a (well known) German WW2 re enaction group. They had "relic" IAB, GAB and EK1 for sale. These were heavily corroded. I do not believe that awards pinned to soldiers' tunics could be found on the battlefield loose as weapons etc are. They must have come from graves. I feel this is bad given the fact they represent the soldiers whose graves have been robbed. It's even more upsetting when the graves are British. A while ago there was a spate of robbing graves at the Isandlewana (sp?) battlesite. This lead to 24 foot badges etc on the market. I saw a documentary on Sky about a British group who dug the WW1 battlesites to recover remains from unmarked graves. They found remains of three Germans and a few British. Near the end of their visit thieves came one night and stole the British brass collar dogs and shoulder titles. One of the blokes said that the thieves had robbed the soldiers of the only chance of identification as the id tags had rotted away. Without the unit id there was no chance to id the individual. One of the Germans had been identifyed by a song book. All done for a few pounds! Collectors must shun this awful practice and take opportunity to shame those involved and anyone selling the stuff. Stealing from dead heroes is despicable. I personally hope that those involved contract painful and embarissing diseases! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme Posted June 24, 2010 Share Posted June 24, 2010 I have a mate who has a Commonwealth War Graves Commission Headstone sitting in his back garden. It's for a chap in the Royal Scots. Interesting story. He got a call from a friend who said that someone had a grave marker that they wanted to get rid off. (These were what marked the graves before the headstones were made). He called them up and spoke to them about it and had it picked up in London and delivered to Edinburgh. Turned out to be a bloody solid stone headstone. He got back in touch with the person to find out where it had come from. Apparently it came from a house that was situated near the factory that made the headstones. They had used 14 reject headstones to pave their back patio. When the new owner decided to go green again they discovered the headstones. Possibly a former factory worker paving his patio on the cheap. This was the only one to survive. The rest were broken up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 I have a mate who has a Commonwealth War Graves Commission Headstone sitting in his back garden. It's for a chap in the Royal Scots. Interesting story. He got a call from a friend who said that someone had a grave marker that they wanted to get rid off. (These were what marked the graves before the headstones were made). He called them up and spoke to them about it and had it picked up in London and delivered to Edinburgh. Turned out to be a bloody solid stone headstone. He got back in touch with the person to find out where it had come from. Apparently it came from a house that was situated near the factory that made the headstones. They had used 14 reject headstones to pave their back patio. When the new owner decided to go green again they discovered the headstones. Possibly a former factory worker paving his patio on the cheap. This was the only one to survive. The rest were broken up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 Gentlemen, Gentlemen Some Russians have been digging in many of the battlefields for years you can see it on line…Some make a living doing this .They use steel rods ECT to find pockets ect and dig out bunkers ect..Many also keep records of dog tags found… for those looking for info on loved ones...Note some items are worth a lot of money even from the ground like ss rings ect…Remember a invading army came to their homeland….They beat it and in many cases left every thing for the crows and the wind…Maybe some just dont care don Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reece Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 Its sick,immoral,disrepctful,and creepy that people could do that wow ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 Some people just dont care.....Some german pows did not get home until the late 50s I am not trying to be mean,just pointing out another side. don Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reece Posted July 26, 2010 Share Posted July 26, 2010 I dont mean the POW side i mean the digging up and looting bodies. Fair enough everybody has there own opinion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don Posted July 27, 2010 Share Posted July 27, 2010 What part do you not get...Some of them dont care....Just dead german devils/.....Invaders. free money in the ground...Sorry for sounding hard.But not everyone thinks the same way as us. yes it is morally wrong....I also see things on the net like the remains of soldiers and their bodys. This is also n poor taste...Or medals and uniforms shot to hell and one knows the owner did not live. don Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STUKA STEVE Posted July 27, 2010 Share Posted July 27, 2010 Its morally wrong.Dont need to say anymore than that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny Andrew Posted July 27, 2010 Share Posted July 27, 2010 I can understand the Russians digging them up , but I would never buy anything like that and certainly wouldn't want anything in my house which has come out a grave, even a Knight's Cross and that's saying something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Posted July 27, 2010 Share Posted July 27, 2010 If it is 'fine' to dig up graves just because... is it fine to tell South Africa it would be fine to go grave rob the Isandlwana graves? What uproar would that cause... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STUKA STEVE Posted July 28, 2010 Share Posted July 28, 2010 In the seventies an American collector heavily stripped the graves at Isandlwana and took away a lot of items..a price was apparently put on his head.Isandlwana is stripped clean.And due to the torrential rain they have in the wet season occasionally many of the graves are literally washed away and have to be rebuilt.In the past bones got mixed with other bones.There is nothing left. It is a criminal offence in South Africa to loot the graves.And they do take it seriously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Posted July 28, 2010 Share Posted July 28, 2010 See what I learn every day? I had no clue about that Steve, thanks! Point was figurative though... in that it is a double standard to say War Graves of the side that lost can be grave robbed and those that the side that made a monument of a site (cause you cannot exactly say the Brits won at Isandlwana) should be protected. Personally it should simply be an international mandate just like the Geneva Convention, no grave robbing of military graves. On the other side, if you have not seen on BBC, Glasgow Uni Archeology just attended a ceremony in France for some excellent work on war graves they conducted. http://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_164342_en.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STUKA STEVE Posted July 28, 2010 Share Posted July 28, 2010 To add a point on Isandlwana,there is an excellent monument to the zulu dead that was erected a few years ago.Similarly there are memorials at Rorke's Drift to the zulu dead.Regarding universal 'illegality'(if i can call it that) of robbing,desecrating battlefields and graves etc i believe most countries do class it as illegal or at the very least frown upon it.One problem is that in places such as Russia and particularly the Ukraine the battlefields are in remote areas and thus difficult to catch perpetrators.Indeed this was a problem in South Africa in the remoter areas of Zululand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.