A disturbing article

[tampalam]

We need to remain ethical in what we purchase and where it comes from. Military archaeology should respect the remains of fallen soldiers from all countries. I have no issues with collecting and excavating battle sites legally as long as any time human remains are uncovered they be catalogued and turned over to proper authorities for identification and honourable burial.

There are guys on this forum who engage in digging up battlefields, most notably in the former Eastern front areas of WWII. I know from personal correspondence with a couple of them that they try to act respectfully and do report finds of human remains. Not all are ethical in their search for lucrative finds. We should bear this in mind and question where we obtain any battlefield relics.

Here is the link to the article.

Nazi grave robbers stealing medals, equipment and BODY PARTS to sell | Mail Online

Best to all.

[Steve T]

This is an old article, or at most a rehash of an old story. I would contend that no-one can be truly certain of the origin of a relic unless they have recovered it themselves. The dealer who has commented on the story is nieve if he believes 100% of the items he sells are legitimately obtained.

Rest assured that the admin team always challenge posts if there are any concerns over the nature of the digging being performed. We have, and will continue to delete suspect threads, and members we believe are taking items by 'grave robbing' are given a life ban from the forum.

Steve T

[diver99]

Even body parts! What about the antiquities trade, i think they have been at it for a few years before the militaria world was born. Daily mail reporters, get the word nazi in there somewhere, should appeal to the plebs eh? I would have preferred a better report about how many countries the items are not allowed to be bought and sold, or would that have been, like research yaa?

[tampalam]

Sadly, we do have the press sensationalizing everything by injecting "Nazi" into the story. Ignorant people automatically assume that the average German soldier was a Nazi. The article should have focused for fairness on the people who dig and treat remains with dignity. There are lots of those stories as well.

[Paul D]

The mail are way behind on this article and it has aready been discussed here , they are so off the mark that the original qoates are from Paul Reed not Peter Reed . sensationalsit rubbish and poor journalisim , what a surprise from the Daily Mail !!