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General => Armed Forces => World War One => Topic started by: ev on Monday 15 March 21 08:30 GMT (UK)
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This may be of interest -
Not since the 1970s has there been such an important discovery from the Great War in France. In woods on a ridge not far from the city of Reims, the bodies of more than 270 German soldiers have lain for more than a century
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56370510
ev
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Wow! So many thoughts reading that. First one as a family historian is to think about the descendants of those lost and how they may be feeling. Second one I have to say is to despair at humanity for the looting.
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Fascinating. Thank you for sharing that ev. :)
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Hopefully, their descendants will be able to have personal items that belonged to their relatives returned to them, and also to have their final resting place acknowledge and the soldiers commemorated.
War...what a pointless waste of life :-\
Carol
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Hi
Diane Tempel-Barnett, spokeswoman for the German War Graves Commission (VDK), told German radio "to be honest we are not very excited about the discovery. In fact we find it all most unfortunate". It is hard to imagine the Commonwealth War Graves Commission taking a similar line if the bodies of 270 UK troops were found.
I think this sentence was misunderstood, I think she meant that the way this discovery happened was very unfortunate. As far as I know you have to get in contact with de VDK if you are aware of the location of a (yet unknown) German War Grave instead of doing some digging by your self, and you shouldn't make it public via a newspaper.
By the way I'm a member of two German Genealogy Forums and I don't remember that I've ever read about this Winterberg tunnel discovery. I know some people there who could be of great help to identify some soldiers who died in this tunnel. As the article mentions a regiment of the Baden army it is possible that the service records of this soldiers are online.
Regards
Svenja