Stalingrad: excavations near the city., my finds

You know... coins or dog tags are not "rubbish". Soldiers just don't throw them away or lose them without a care. Others also said before that Romanian soldiers were clumsy idiots who kept losing their dogtags. THAT is childish!

It is also childish to expect us not to question such things.

Radu

I wouldn't also like the idea that some people dig the graves of some romanian soldiers from ww2, take the items found and throw away the bones. But, unfortunatelly, there is no evidence that one who digs is automaticaly a grave digger. Sometimes not only romanian soldiers, but other nationalities too, throw away or lost military items (or even coins, which is by the way not a very much value and on front line means nothing, especially in another country, were special "ocupation" money were issued for legal transactions). Let's not forget that almost 80% of romanian army was illiterate in ww2 and a peasant give little or nothing to some items, not understanding the meaning of an item, or to the army, were they not even intented to be.

Anyway, in some places maybe there were really some trash dumps, were army colected unnecesary items.

To be a real "democratic", people must have the "prezumtia de nevinovatie", otherwise everything turns to a dictatorial system, with suspicion, paranoia and so on.

Just an example, guys from Romania maybe know the case of live artilery shells found on iron scrap deposits from Romania. They were sold as "iron scrap" by citisens and accepted by the deposits and is hard to believe that some 80 kilogram artillery shells passed unobserved by those who buyed them .... It is not an unique case.

Once again, I dont want to keep with one or another side, I just say that anything have to be demonstrated in order to be acused and charged as guilty.

Here we go again... Romanian soldiers were not idiots or stupid peasants. It is true, we do not know anything about the bona fide of these people who show us their finds. We can only make logical assumptions based on what they show us.
What we know is that "black diggers" are a scourge in Russia. We must also consider the following: one forlorn dog tag may be a sign of carelessness, a pile of dogtags is a sign of a tragedy. These guys find way too many dogtags.
Radu

There was also the Orthodox cross - and I doubt that a "believer", which is even more common in times of war, would carelessly part with his protective amulet/cross; not by his own free will, I'd say!

This post has been edited by MMM on October 22, 2010 09:08 pm

My point, exactly!

Gen. Dénes

Today again
I dug up a Romanian dog tag, without body)))))))))

before clean




after clean



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Guys,
I wanna make a point here...
While I was in medical school 1985 we needed skulls.
From the disection room ,we use to buy from the man in charge .
The guys from germany came with very beautiful exempalrs.
The price was 1000 DM and were bought legaly from the university of Dusseldof.
The most interesting fact that all skulls were perfect.Especialy the teeths.No cavity,perfect aranged.All of them belonged to young people 18 years old males.All were from asians.
Where would people get so many perfect skulls of so young people?
I'll let your imagination work.
Just let those people who dig in forgoten places alone.
At least they have a hobbie,or need for money or maybe just bored.
Not much left from dead bodies after 60 years.At least some artefacts are saved.

I agree with you.
I guess "proDigger" is trying to avoid hurting some feelings, and of course he would not mention the eventuality of removing belongings from corpses or skeletons.

On a personal note, I found very interesting that one "tag" has "SUTU" printed on it, big and clear. It was always a rare family name in Romania, and I do not recall to have close relatives who ended dead on the Eastern Front.

This post has been edited by Florin on October 26, 2010 04:03 am

I agree with you.
I guess "proDigger" is trying to avoid hurting some feelings, and of course he would not mention the eventuality of removing belongings from corpses or skeletons.

On a personal note, I found very interesting that one "tag" has "SUTU" printed on it, big and clear. It was always a rare family name in Romania, and I do not recall to have close relatives who ended dead on the Eastern Front.

Thank You!!!
Can you still know something about the other dog tags?

I agree with you.
I guess "proDigger" is trying to avoid hurting some feelings, and of course he would not mention the eventuality of removing belongings from corpses or skeletons.

On a personal note, I found very interesting that one "tag" has "SUTU" printed on it, big and clear. It was always a rare family name in Romania, and I do not recall to have close relatives who ended dead on the Eastern Front.

Thank You!!!
Can you still know something about the other dog tags?

Maybe I was not clear when I mentioned the tag with "SUTU" stamped on it. My believe is that the tag was found as belonging to a corpse, but that corpse seems to not be a former close relative of mine, as far I am aware of it.

On your behalf, "proDigger", you should not feel anger against me. In this kind of activity (your activity), even if you are saying the truth, you'll always face suspicion unless you are doing it under official supervision, or document you findings with a continuous video camera recording.

Nobody was accusing the guy or charging him as guilty.

There was some logical concern about where these items can be found. And it still is...

Oh come on, a hobby? Make me laugh... those items belonged to people, some of them maybe died wearing them... who knows.
Many of us have military hobbies probably, though I doubt many of us would actually buy or even collect say - US Vietnam war dog tags... found in the jungle.

One thing is to find panels of various vehicles or related parts, another is to constantly find and then sell (?) personal items of MIA (?) soldiers.

But, whatever, he is free to dig up in valleys and do whatever, we can only voice concern since in there at one point he may find personal belongings of our relatives... I am sure then we would be thrilled to have those on eBay?

Actually... in Russia you need a permit to dig battlefields.
Also... there are very strict permit regulations in place for metal detectors.
Are these rules enforced? That is a different story.
These people must think we are idiots to believe that there are no human remains in Stalingrad. In fact, this whole tread is a case of "s-a intalnit hotzu cu prostu" and some fall over themselves to prove they are "prostu".
Radu

Have you guys ever seen the Russian rocket attacks in the Battle for Stalingrad ? Have you ever seen the photos of the Day after? The ground was littered everywhere you walked. Later after the war, the ground eventually was plowed under and left or used for farming. Most bodies were never found. Blown to pieces. So it really does not surprise me that one would find many relics right on the surface of the ground today or even a few feet down. Finding a handful or several hundred dog tags in a command post is not uncommon either as they were collected by officers to send back home. When these post were overrun by the soviets, people left in a hurry leaving their belongings behind. However, it is suspicious when one finds so many items in one place due to the reputation Russians have for grave robbing for profit. Does that mean every Russian digger is a grave robber ? No. Some do have ethics. However, there are good and bad people in every country. One comment I will note about communist Russia at the time that puts them apart from Germany and Romania was we buried our dead, the Russians left theirs in the fields. There was a story about a forest in the Ukraine off limits to the public until the 1980's. When locals entered the forest, they found Russian bodies littered everywhere and still hanging from trees from were they were blown.

Hat badge for Air Force ground troops.

As a first impression, the link from YouTube attached below seems far away from this topic and from the objects shown here. But when I hear the words of this Romanian song (the music of the videoclip) I remember these findings, and when I see the photos shown here I remember the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rup9DPT0jZw