A Truly Honest Seller

[Gaspare]

*"To have his relatives in uncertainty for ever?" *
You want certains?! How about working with the diggers, making it easier for them to report what they are finding,,OR do you want to stop it all completely?!,,again you leave the familles with "uncertainty".
Most German familles that had family die on the eastern front have no idea where their family member had actually fallen .. If the diggers report the site with the proper map coordinates and write the tag info down then report it to the proper authorities it is all they can do..At LEAST the families know the exact area their family member had fallen. .The German Gov. or agencies like yours then have to ACT...
From what I have seen myself over the years they have NOT been following up on the sites that have been reported..

* "And once again:
Only German authorities are authorized to allow persons or groups the search for German soldiers in Russia." *
Sir, your not living in the real world..Try telling my Father in law in Ukraine he can't dig on his own property and you'll probably get a shovel upside your head..
For me the only tag that has even the slightest possibility of being from a proper German grave is a half tag. Whole tags in general were usually from battlefield digs,,not from graves..

[benny-vermisst]

Hello,

thank you for the much "input"

probably you are right right, I are probably very passionate. sometimes so this well, sometimes won't do ...,
Please, also don't forget one, I unfortunately don't speak in my mother tongue here.
It can already happen there that some wrongly arrive, I wrongly translate it.
But I work on it ...
command back .

Thanks for all informations about vlad.
Well, we will see.
We will examine.

Well, if it is so, if it right, then I also must apologize to Vlad.
But why doesn't he answer directly then? Why he doesn't mention his reputation at his sales at ebay????? OK, we will see, later. Need a little bit time.
With any word I haven't said in our letter to Vlad that he is a grave robber.
I have said that there is many in Russia.
And asked him how he proceeds etc.
This is nothing bad I think.
It is the problem that there are searchers so much just at Stalingrad, which then leave something like that:

These certainly haven't reported. And this hole isn't 60 years old!!

It is not diffcult to find there human remains on the right places.
This is, what me, what moves us.
Do you understand this?
And he sells the most ID-tags from Stalingrad on internet, at ebay ...


To the Wast and dealing with Id-tags:
What I have said about the wast, this I don't have this from the air !!
This is what the leader of the Wast has me told to this topic, yesterday !!!

I know, you think I am crazy:
YES; it would be the best, not to buy Id-tags from floor finds.
Every demand for a ID-tag increases logically the sales, the "production" of these.
It is a circulation.
Because of this the Wast also tells everyone veterans: Don't buy any ID-tags at your visits in russia.

(@gaspare, it would be beautiful if it were just like you write but it unfortunately isn't this. Many soldiers were buried with complete brands, we already have even on cemeteries of Wehmacht such found.
Like this man:


Many were spilled, also again with complete Id-tags etc. In the field of my previous search approx. 50% still had the id-tag, soldiers who had been shot after the capture also had under this. Thats true!
It already agrees, need long time to the "mills of the government" begin to run. you unfortunately are right there. if they do it at all...
but permanently we try to do something against this )

[Matt L]

Hello,

thank you for the much "input"

probably you are right right, I are probably very passionate. sometimes so this well, sometimes won't do ...,
Please, also don't forget one, I unfortunately don't speak in my mother tongue here.
It can already happen there that some wrongly arrive, I wrongly translate it.
But I work on it ...
command back .

Fair enough Benny- because I share your feeling that destroying men's identities by taking Erkennungsmarken from remains I understand your passion, and I hope you understand that I take exception to what are unfounded attacks against someone I know. If there were evidence to support anything you said, that would be a different story, but there simply isn't.

Thanks for all informations about vlad.
Well, we will see.
We will examine.

Well, if it is so, if it right, then I also must apologize to Vlad.

That is fair enough too- it's perfectly reasonable for you to want to confirm that what he says is indeed true.

But why doesn't he answer directly then? Why he doesn't mention his reputation at his sales at ebay????? OK, we will see, later. Need a little bit time.
With any word I haven't said in our letter to Vlad that he is a grave robber.

Well he explained to me that he's been working 16-hour days with no time off for months now, so when he receives a very undiplomatic letter, he isn't inclined to respond right away. Selling things on ebaY is not his profession- it is a small sideline, so real work must take precidence of course. And if someone writes angrily, why would he want to reply? I wouldn't in his place. I haven't read the letter you sent to him, but given how you have written here Benny, I don't doubt that the insinuation that he is a grave-robber was there. It's not necessary to say it directly.

I have said that there is many in Russia.
And asked him how he proceeds etc.
This is nothing bad I think.
It is the problem that there are searchers so much just at Stalingrad, which then leave something like that:

These certainly haven't reported. And this hole isn't 60 years old!!

It is not diffcult to find there human remains on the right places.
This is, what me, what moves us.
Do you understand this?

Well my impression from what he said is that you didn't just ask these things as politely as you have above- if you had, as I did, you may have gotten a reply immediately as I did. As the saying goes, one catches more flies with honey than with vinegar. If you enquire nicely, people are far more willing to answer than if you do so angrily.

That picture of the trench is indeed terrible- and certainly there are people all over eastern Europe who don't care at all about the people they find. The thing is that it is very bad to just assume someone is doing this- ESPECIALLY if that person could actually be one of the good ones who cares enough to do the proper things. I have heard stories of people in former Soviet countries who have found unknown German soldiers (no Erkennungsmarke) and re-buried them in proper graves that they tend along with their own people until the WASt came for them.

And he sells the most ID-tags from Stalingrad on internet, at ebay ...

Indeed this is true, but again he says that his group finds hundreds of them without any human remains- discarded, lost or just unissued. They're NOT taken from fallen soldiers. It's very easy to assume that this is what is happening when you see pictures like that of the bones in the trench, however it is appropriate to ask a person about the circumstances of their finds rather than assuming the worst automatically.

To the Wast and dealing with Id-tags:
What I have said about the wast, this I don't have this from the air !!
This is what the leader of the Wast has me told to this topic, yesterday !!!

I didn't think you just made this up Benny, it's simply that I don't understand the logic. What possible reason could they have for wanting to know about Erkennungsmarken just found on or in the ground? If there are no human remains, what information can a disc provide?

I know, you think I am crazy:
YES; it would be the best, not to buy Id-tags from floor finds.
Every demand for a ID-tag increases logically the sales, the "production" of these.
It is a circulation.
Because of this the Wast also tells everyone veterans: Don't buy any ID-tags at your visits in russia.

No, I don't think you're crazy at all- it is indeed logical that if there were no one buying discs that had been dug-up, there would be no reason for bad people to steal them from graves. The problem is, as I've said before, the vast, vast majority of discs that are dug-up do NOT come from graves. Vlad's group, my friends, and most others it seems rarely if ever find a body, but find hundreds or thousands of Erkennungsmarken each year.

Expecting people to not buy any at all because a few may be stolen from graves is like saying that no one should drive a car becasue thousands of people die each year in auto accidents. It's actually rare.

The logical alternative I see is not to buy dug-up items from just anyone, but to deal only with people you either know or that you can get personal references for.

(@gaspare, it would be beautiful if it were just like you write but it unfortunately isn't this. Many soldiers were buried with complete brands, we already have even on cemeteries of Wehmacht such found.
Like this man:

Many were spilled, also again with complete Id-tags etc. In the field of my previous search approx. 50% still had the id-tag, soldiers who had been shot after the capture also had under this. Thats true!
It already agrees, need long time to the "mills of the government" begin to run. you unfortunately are right there. if they do it at all...
but permanently we try to do something against this )

Certainly this is true- a complete Erkennungsmarke taken from a grave is far worse than a half because if the remains only have a half, at least the man's death was probably recorded and he isn't listed as missing. A complete disc means that no one knows he died, where, etc., so those are the ones that are truly bad.

[Matt L]

The German Gov. or agencies like yours then have to ACT...
From what I have seen myself over the years they have NOT been following up on the sites that have been reported..

This is something I've been told of too- one fellow I know who metal-detects on old battlefields has found three German soldiers (and a lot of Erkennungsmarken without any remains)- he collected the bones and all the associated objects so they would NOT be taken by anyone, and reported them to the WASt. He even sent them the Erkennungsmarken, but last I heard, after two years he had not even been contacted about the matter.

Certainly one can understand that the WASt has limited funding and cannot rush out ever time remains are found, but there doesn't appear to be as much of an effort to keep up with reports as one might expect either. This is partly why I expected that they'd only want to know about actual finds of human remains and not just any old disc that's found on the ground- because that would literally flood them with reports and it would be far far harder to get to the really important ones where a man was found.

[münster]

Earlier on Alex was talking of finding unbroken ones here a lot in Germany. I find them all the time and even a leather pouch with one once. These are not found with remains but usually found with pistols, ammo, or medals. I search an area where a mass surrender and march into American/British captivity took place. One of my digging friends turned up SS belt buckles in a field camp also, a lot of soldiers also wanted to hide certain identities. Also as Alex said, these were often forests and large fields, not what you would imagine a POW camp as. When you find the right area here in Germany, there is usually a TON of stuff in the ground. Ive never been to Russia or dug there, but I would imagine in the Stalingrad region a lot of remains come up with those tags,,thats just my opinion.

BTW ,,I detect but never have turned up remains,,and if I did I would turn them into the proper authorities,,Whom Iam also grateful located my Grandfather who was MIA in Russia for 50 years,,,They were fantastic in helping me find the location.Also my Grandmother died in peace knowing where he was buried.

[Matt L]

Earlier on Alex was talking of finding unbroken ones here a lot in Germany. I find them all the time and even a leather pouch with one once. These are not found with remains but usually found with pistols, ammo, or medals. I search an area where a mass surrender and march into American/British captivity took place.

This has been largely my point- they're all over Europe like this, especially where there were large-scale surrenders, which did happen at Stalingrad too. In the Czech Republic my friend has told me of finds of in excess of 300 discs in a pit on the side of a road where a large number of Germans were taken prisoner by the Soviets (the old people in the village told him this)- they appear to have been collected and just dumped. Another site was an old Feldlazarett where nearly 1000 discs were found- but not one body. Perhaps they were removed from men whose wounds they would have interfered with or something, perhaps there were men there when the Soviets came and they threw them away- who knows? The fact is that these discs don't give any information about the fate of the men so picking them up doesn't destroy a chance of solving the case of someone who is listed as missing...

[benny-vermisst]

To the problems here in Germany:

Hardly any of my compatriots here knows that there is an updated "Gräbergesetz" for wargraves in Germany since 1995.
After this the Wast or the Volksbund isn't responsibly anymore, only yet the authorities of the respective federal state. The so-called town clerk's offices (Ordnungsaemter)
This law can be looked up here.
http://bundesrecht.juris.de/bundesre..._bg/gesamt.pdf

This must report to these authorities so who makes a find with human remains in Germany.
( The §7 is maybe very interesting for all germans, who have wrote here-
Sorry, I have not wrote this law...)

It is only the problem that digging in the ground outside the property of one's own is forbidden in almost all federal states in Germany.
There also are in addition so-called "Kriegsstättenverordnung" in some federal states which in principle forbid to look for holdovers of the war.
Therefore may be (some "Ordnungsämter" are really "crazy") these peoples runs into danger to get police difficulties.
We know it ,also the Wast knows of this fact .

We have therefore created a possibility on our internet page of reporting founded wargraves discreetly.
We don't pass any data of these peoples on.
he doesn't run into danger to be included policely.


Because even if one reports something to the Wast and she then passes this information on to the respective commune: The communes do nothing mostly although they are obliged to it.
Because they don't have money !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


If a ID-tag is at the human remains:
The determinations of the Wast last for approximately 1-2 years.
The Wast tries so long to find the relatives.
This is the case and the relatives would like to like this ID-Tag, they will submit the family so.
if no relatives are found or they aren't interested, the finder can get this ID-tag again .
We care about it.

Something else for our work:
Our greatest inquiry at the moment concerns mass graves with fallen approx. 1400 in the middle of Germany.
The authorities know about it. Nothing was worked.
But no longer long ....

[Matt L]

This is the case and the relatives would like to like this ID-Tag, they will submit the family so.
if no relatives are found or they aren't interested, the finder can get this ID-tag again .

So is that the reason the WASt wants to know about every Erkennungsmarke that is found- in case the soldier's relatives might want it? I suppose if the man is still listed as missing and the disc is the last object associated with him, that makes some sense...

[Sturmpnr]

As a dealer, I have never sold these for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there are so many fakes. And secondly, because you never know where they did come from. I have seen originals come from the ground with no bodies attached, or in the vicinity, etc. and I have been to collectors shows in Riga and picked up a bag full of dogtags that a guy was selling, I always look at them to study the MANY different ways these were stamped and marked.... The styles, fonts and system is far beyond what I think the average collector would imagine.... In addition to these, which were real and from my understanding from Graves in Konigsburg, the seller had perfect copies or duplicas made on original dogtag blanks of the more rare and "valuable" ones. Some of them had hair on the backside from the guys chest..... I saw these early on when I first started dealing and I decided then and there not to sell them... (I have, in fact sold a few from my own collection I picked up at flea markets here in the states back in the 1980s /90s.)

I reported this guy (with the bags of dogtags) to the German representative that I know but he didnt seem interested, or at least was overwhelmed with all that he had to do.

From a different experience I know and have been on digs in Kurland where they found grouping or small piles of German medals, dogtags and other items in a large area the size of a football field. This was an area where some German soldiers mustered up in formation before surrendouring after capitulation in 1945. They were taking all their medals, awards, and other items and dropping them, etc. because they were about to surrendour and were worried that the Russians were likely to find the guys with the most medals and beat the crap out of them, or worse... Why they took off the dogtags as well I dont know. The diggers say they have found things like this many times in Kurland.

As for being a little "dark", a friend of mine and fellow dealer, Larry Stewart, once said to me that in a sense all militaria is "dark stuff", its all connected in one way or another to men killing each other. From the bayonet and rifle, to the helmet that protected him from being killed, medals he was awarded for killing and even the personal items that made the soldier more comfortable and maintained him, so he could keep his spirits and health up and live another day to kill the enemy...

Thomas

[Sturmpnr]

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