Boots from a Bunker in Stalingrad and Hobnails from Kurland..

[Manu Della Valle]

I feel for the young and new collectors!I Just hate these grave diggers,I understand that money is impoortant but what's wrong with getting a job?


http://www.ebay.com/itm/WW2-A-pair-of-boots-from-a-German-bunker-in-Stalingrad-WH-/222050712941?hash=item33b340fd6d:g:LCIAAOSwDuJWz0HL
http://www.ebay.com/itm/WW2-ORIGINAL-German-BOOT-HORSE-SHOES-HEELS-HOBNAILS-SET-BARN-FIND-from-KURLAND-/351678933328?hash=item51e1b2a950:g:ymgAAOSwB4NWxkTZ
http://www.ebay.com/itm/WW2-ORIGINAL-German-VERWUNDETENABZEICHEN-RELIC-of-30-Inf-Div-from-KURLAND-/351678973577?hash=item51e1b34689:g:dd4AAOSwwpdW6KHm
http://www.ebay.com/itm/WW2-ORIGINAL-German-TUNIC-BELT-SUPPORT-HOOKS-of-290-Inf-Div-from-KURLAND-/351678933330?hash=item51e1b2a952:g:hlYAAOSwUV9Wpq6H

Edited March 16, 2016 by Manu Della Valle

[Davejb]

They are a scourge on the collecting world, if you find items on the surface then its not too bad but these guys are digging into graves and disturbing history of a site, for the only reasons ...Profit and greed, they show no respect for anyone who fought in these positions and probably died there

[Manu Della Valle]

MANY died there Dave!I try to stay the hell away from what these scumbags post on Youtube or on several fora!The dig,destroy,play with skulls and bones..they're the REAL SCUM of the Earth!
There was a thread over at a forum started by one of these unterm....scumbags showing a REAL time capsule in Kurland or a place like that!There were bodies,helmets,weapons and all kind of things scattrered all over the place.The bodies were skeletons of course but the whole scene looked as if it had been frozen in time,say,six month after the War!
Guess what?The 200-pages long thread shows these punks amassing piles of items that would have been sold for a lot of money;SS rings,dogtags,buckles,boards,papers...all kind of stuff!Now, if the MIAs Sturmbannfuhrer Schmidt and Felwebel Meyer were amongst those men we'll never know!
Can you imagine those bums leaving everything alone and turn on their heels?They even sell their sisters and girlfriends,let alone leaving those things on the ground!

[Manu Della Valle]

Here:
http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/battlefield-history-relics/digging-kurland-20971/

I cannot find the thread I was talking about but this one is nearly 1000 pages long!They'd be treated like grave robbers IMO!

Edited March 16, 2016 by Manu Della Valle

[Steve T]

I am sorry Manu but you are wrong. The thread you have linked is a group called Legenda, who have recovered and given a decent burial to more than 14,000 soldiers over the past 10 years. Every single item they find with these soldiers is re-buried with them, and any personal items sent on to the soldiers relatives. They work closely with the war graves organisations of both Germany and Russia and give their time for free, recovering soldiers and giving them a burial next to their comrades.

You should not judge a book by its cover. Yes, there are grave robbers out there who think nothing of taking items from a fallen soldier to make money, and those people are the scum of the earth. However, Legenda are certainly NOT one of those. Legenda are the good guys, fighting to save these fallen men from black diggers. 

Before you cast judgement, learn about who you are referencing. 

Steve T

[Steve T]

http://www.hobbyhistorica.com/the-workbench/legenda-kurland-diggers-ebook

http://www.military-history.org/articles/war-zone-courland-latvia.htm

 

[Manu Della Valle]

12 minutes ago, Steve T said:

I am sorry Manu but you are wrong. The thread you have linked is a group called Legenda, who have recovered and given a decent burial to more than 14,000 soldiers over the past 10 years. Every single item they find with these soldiers is re-buried with them, and any personal items sent on to the soldiers relatives. They work closely with the war graves organisations of both Germany and Russia and give their time for free, recovering soldiers and given them a burial next to their comrades.

You should not judge a book by its cover. Yes, there are grave robbers out there who think nothing of taking items from a fallen soldier to make money, and those people are the scum of the earth. However, Legenda are certainly NOT one of those. Legenda are the good guys, fighting to save these fallen men from black diggers. 

Before you cast judgement, learn about who you are referencing. 

Steve T

Yes,you're PERFECTLY right,Steve,and I apoologize for not double-checking before posting!This is NOT the link I wanted to post and,I repeat,I'd have double-checked before hitting the button but I just can't stand seeing certain things anymore!
I'll check again and hope to find another similar thread I had bookmarked!
Thank you Steve and sorry if I have tarred everyone with the same brush!Looks like you've been personally offended so my apologies go to those guys and to you if they are your friends or if I have offenfed you somehow!
Manu

Edited March 16, 2016 by Manu Della Valle

[Steve T]

No problems my friend @Manu Della Valle. There are a lot of grave robbing scum out there I admit, and I hate them all, but these aren't them!!!

Please post a link to the thread when you find it. I am aware of the most prolific grave robbers out there. After spending 20+ years digging WW2 relics, you can't help but know who they are.

 

[Manu Della Valle]

Now please remove the -1 which tars my reputation!

[Manu Della Valle]

I'll surely post that link but,just the other one,is not for faint of stomach!

[Steve T]

Removed.

 

[Manu Della Valle]

I was joking Steve...if I deserve a neg I keep it!

I practise sports where DQs for a mistake are at the order of the day and when they're deserved you bag them and try not yo repeat the mistake the next time!

Cheers

Manu

[DAK D]

Grave robbers are the scum of the earth and they have no respect for the dead or history.

D

[pylon1357]

Topics like this are very emotionally charged. Personally I do not care for any ground dug items. If I wanted rusty hunks of metal in my collection, I would just keep the rotten parts that keep falling off my bloody truck. 

I did at one time a few years back, follow a post about these guys bragging and showing off their booty. I was quite surprised at just how open and loose these people were with remains and such. 

[Waffenamt]

Indeedy a touchy subject. If done right,fair do's but ive also seen eye-watering videos that show total disrespect for the departed.

[Lenny]

 As long as we appreciate the difference guys. There is a world of difference to what @Steve T and Legenda do, with the black diggers. One does it to preserve history and honour the fallen, the others do it only for profit.

[DAK D]

27 minutes ago, Lenny said:

 As long as we appreciate the difference guys. There is a world of difference to what @Steve T and Legenda do, with the black diggers. One does it to preserve history and honour the fallen, the others do it only for profit.

Hi Lenny,

I definitely understand the difference between real battlefield archaeology and what the black diggers are doing and I have nothing but respect for the people who are helping to preserve and record the historic battlefield sites of WW2.

D

[Manu Della Valle]

That's how they behave in Italy,Germany,Holland,Belgium and Southern France!I've been many times in Villenuve-Loubet,where each year they held a militaria fair right were the Germans and US troops clashed!
I had a friends there who helped exhumating a fallen German soldier,the dogtag was sent to Germany ,the remains were given a proper burial and this guy was allowed to keep the remains of the equipment which he put in a frame with the name of the soldier and a short account of what had happened in those woods!Ditto for a crew of a US bomber that crashed on the Alps!
There are many Italian groups doing the same on WW1 and WW2 battlefields.

 

[Manu Della Valle]

I'm still looking for the link to that (in)famous clip but I fear that it had been removed and I have duly deleted it.It was similar to some sort of hyper-realistic horror-movie,with those corpses half-embedded in the turf,weapons scattered,helmets and stuff.
It deffo was more than I could bear,not because of the skeletons that oughta been buried anyway (we all have got a skeleton,don't we?) but because I couldn't stand the sight of heaps of bones mixed together waiting to be tipped in a freshly dug hole!
These people are the scum of the Earth..they look for easy money and wouldn't think twice to rob a grave or break a skeleton in order to get a buckle worth a few quids!
I've got nothing against people LOOKING for fallen soldier and I've got nothing against keeping some artifact but too aften there's something that just goes over the top IMO!
Last year I saw the ID tag of an Italian soldier who was a MIA in Russia auctioned on ePrey .The seller was an English or German guy who most likely got it from Russia!I wanted to purchase and present it to the family but I forgot about the auction that night and it got sold!
Nice move,you scum,this man had a son and a daughter who,for the last 73 years, asked themselves what happened to their father!He was an Alpino or a Bersagliere from Finale Ligure,just a few miles from where I live.May he and the other fallen soldiers rest in peace in their forgotten graves for ever and ever!
Cheers
Manu

Edited March 20, 2016 by Manu Della Valle

[Manu Della Valle]

This thread is very similar!
http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/battlefield-history-relics/battlefields-north-karelia-ss-nord-division-12909-3/
I don't know these people, but since it was either Kurland or another place and given the fact that the area had been left untouched for decades I wouldn't be surprised if it was he same or a nearby one!
Read the post #6 by one "Karel Gott"(with two Ts..no less!) and see what he replies to the moderator asking him what is he going to do with all those relics!
Again,I don't know these people,they could be friends with everybody here,you can cover me with negatives and all the rest but they're just corpse robbers in my book!
Ok,they say that they'll give the fallen a proper burial but how on Earth can you tell who is who when you pile up bones like that?
It's like telling your mom "Hey,we've exhumated uncle Rosie from grave 1 and buried her in grave 1b" while in fact you mean "I've dig up the diamond ring uncle Tim put on her finger and put her bones somewhere else!".
The thing that gets on my nerves the most is the legion of morons asking for those relics!
The same thing has been done in Poland for years,in fact I do have several ID tags belonging to men of the same company which have been clearly dug up from a mass grave, as I've been told showing them to a collector who pointed out the particular kind of corrosion.A friend gave them to me in Milan and each time I look at  them I cannot help thinking about the fate of those men and the fact that nobody will ever know where they are buried,since no grave robber would raise his hand and tell "Hey,I dug them,those soldiers are buried THERE!" knowing that he'd be charged with an offence,and definitely NOT a petty one!
My 0.02
Manu

[Guest Fred Karno's Army]

Going off on a tangent here,but in the late 80s we found a German jackboot in Mametz wood on the Somme.It was around a size 5 and the poor bugger must have walked from Berlin the heel was so worn.When we came across it after further cleaning it had the skeletal remains of the foot and woollen sock inside.Against several of our wishes the driver brought the thing back to the Uk.And had nothing but bad luck almost immediately starting in the vehicle breaking down and then trouble at customs it started there.........

I am a great believer in attachment of objects after we have passed and do believe in the hereafter.

   The conclusion was the guy after several months of nothing but bad luck gave it away and all returned to normal for him.

      The guy he gave it too,well he had nothing but good luck,I do believe it had finally found its home !. 

[Manu Della Valle]

I hope the same thing that happened to the first guy  will happen to those dicks and the ones who purchase the stuff they dig!
These guys don't respect the fallen!I have those dogtags and I think to the owners each time I see them and since I  BELIEVE in "certain things" I'm sure they know and appreciate that!
Look at this picture posted by "Eismeerfront" who thinks he's cool with fag,replica M43 hat,replica SS camo and eyepatch while in fact he's but a jerk..........I think it speaks volumes about those punks!Sorry if it could be deemed disturbing (IT IS!) or graphic (IT IS!) by some!

Edited March 20, 2016 by Manu Della Valle