[HN Gopher] German WWII Soldier Grave Found with Mesolithic Tool...
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       German WWII Soldier Grave Found with Mesolithic Tools, Roman and
       Byzantine Coins
        
       Author : petethomas
       Score  : 66 points
       Date   : 2024-11-20 05:07 UTC (9 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.labrujulaverde.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.labrujulaverde.com)
        
       | hulitu wrote:
       | > German WWII Soldier Grave Found with Mesolithic Tools, Roman
       | and Byzantine Coins
       | 
       | It is amazing what a bomb does to the surounding landscape. /s
        
       | dvh wrote:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-place_artifact
        
       | Cthulhu_ wrote:
       | Unfortunately, not a time traveler. That would be something else,
       | finding a 4000 year old grave with someone with composite
       | fillings, titanium bone implants, wearing the remains of a
       | smartphone in various jewelry / clothing and, knowing how these
       | things go, having a deeply engraved granite slab with a message
       | to the future, something like "don't invent time travel!" or "do
       | not Awaken the Dreamer!"
        
         | arethuza wrote:
         | Or as the Eschaton puts it "Thou shalt not violate causality
         | within my historic light cone. Or else."
        
           | InDubioProRubio wrote:
           | Raining Telephones and Curators!
        
         | libertine wrote:
         | > Unfortunately, not a time traveler.
         | 
         |  _That 's what They want you to believe!_, for sure some
         | conspiracy theorists will run with this, and probably be guests
         | on Joe Rogan Podcast.
        
       | aquova wrote:
       | Very interesting find. I think it's not uncommon to find many
       | eras of artifacts in the same site, simply because sites ranging
       | back even to the neolithic continue to be used as time goes on.
       | My layman assumption is that this was a decent sized community
       | for a number of centuries that eventually died out, which this
       | German solider happened to die on top of during the war.
        
         | postepowanieadm wrote:
         | It's more prosaic: he was carrying precious artifacts with him.
        
           | cbogie wrote:
           | spoils of war, spoiled
        
       | mossTechnician wrote:
       | I thought there was a more concise way to write "German WWII
       | soldier".
        
         | aleksiy123 wrote:
         | I was kinda curious if Nazi and German WWII soldier is
         | equivalent.
         | 
         | From an academic point of view it seems not. But from a popular
         | point of view it probably is.
         | 
         | Some threads I found on the topic.
         | 
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/40gq95/is_it_fair_...
         | 
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3hw2fv/comme...
        
           | lolinder wrote:
           | > From an academic point of view it seems not.
           | 
           | More than a purely academic point of view, the distinction
           | actually does matter. It's the difference between someone who
           | affirmatively made a choice to join the Nazi organization and
           | someone who simply didn't actively decide to dodge the draft
           | or desert. The level of agency invested into the Nazi cause
           | varies dramatically, and it's useful to have language that
           | can distinguish between those shades.
           | 
           | We can get into philosophical discussions about whether it's
           | worse to affirmatively support evil than to just go with the
           | flow and not make waves either way, but that's more than an
           | academic discussion--it has real relevance for today.
        
             | wutwutwat wrote:
             | Every soldier in the German military at that time was a
             | nazi soldier. They reported to hitler, who was the person
             | who brought the nazi party into power, the party who
             | controlled the government and military. They took orders
             | from nazis. They were nazis.
             | 
             | Their officers had skulls on their uniforms. They were
             | rounding up and slaughtering people they viewed as less
             | than them, they had posters in the streets painting them as
             | rodents and infections.
             | 
             | Nobody saw all of that and said "well, I don't want to
             | dodge a draft, I better just sign up and do this evil shit,
             | it's my moral duty to serve". Nobody was blind to what was
             | happening and nobody accidentally went and did those things
             | without believing they were somehow right. They were doing
             | those things because they wanted to, the same way
             | everything any person does when they have something that
             | they have the power over to choose between.
             | 
             | Edit: not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Downvote the
             | people trying to claim German soldiers in wwII were not
             | nazis.
        
               | aguaviva wrote:
               | You're getting downvoted because what you're saying is
               | just historically wrong.
               | 
               | You can call them all "bad" if you want. But (regardless
               | of whether they committed war crimes) the Nazis and the
               | armed forces were different (though obviously
               | overlapping) subsets. This is not an academic distinction
               | at all, and is extremely important if one is to
               | understand how the dictatorship and the Final Solution
               | actually worked.
               | 
               | See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42276731
        
               | wutwutwat wrote:
               | > The German Army (German: Heer, German: [he:a] i; lit.
               | 'army') was the land forces component of the
               | Wehrmacht,[b] the regular armed forces of Nazi Germany,
               | from 1935 until it effectively ceased to exist in 1945
               | and then was formally dissolved in August 1946.[4] During
               | World War II, a total of about 13.6 million volunteers
               | and conscripts served in the German Army.
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Army_(1935%E2%80%9
               | 319...
               | 
               | So far, seems one army existed. The German army. That
               | army was the army of Nazi Germany. that army was Nazi
               | Germany's army.
               | 
               | > The Wehrmacht (German pronunciation: ['ve:amaxt] i,
               | lit. 'defence force') were the unified armed forces of
               | Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer
               | (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe (air
               | force). The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the
               | previously used term Reichswehr (Reich Defence) and was
               | the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm
               | Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles
               | permitted.[11]
               | 
               | Here's probably the most important thing to read, because
               | it directly disproves you
               | 
               | > After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2
               | August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President
               | of Germany, and thus became commander in chief. In
               | February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg,
               | acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving
               | in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate
               | dishonorable discharge.[33] Again, on his own initiative
               | Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into
               | their uniforms in May 1934.[34] In August of the same
               | year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the
               | Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the
               | entire military took the Hitler oath, an oath of personal
               | loyalty to Hitler.
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht
               | 
               | The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to
               | hitler.
        
               | aguaviva wrote:
               | _Here's probably the most important thing to read,
               | because it directly disproves you_
               | 
               | It's not the snippets you're quoting that are wrong.
               | You're just reading them wrong, and drawing plainly
               | broken inferences from them.
               | 
               | For example, the statement "Army X was a manifestation of
               | the Y regime's Z" does not imply the statement "Army X is
               | simply a subset of Y" or even "Everyone in Army X
               | basically agreed with Y". Of course it doesn't. Any more
               | than being a member of the Red Army meant that one was
               | communist, simply because it happens to be true that "The
               | Red Army was the army of Soviet Russia".
               | 
               | Similarly, this idea that people taking an oath to anyone
               | or their platitudes means, in all cases, they actually
               | _believe_ that oath, and that what the oath says
               | describes what they believe. In the context of the huge
               | fact that not everyone who joined the various fighting
               | units did so voluntarily -- in fact a large majority were
               | outright drafted (or shoehorned from civilian law
               | enforcement roles, including many regular policemen).
               | 
               | Does that excuse them of culpability in what they may
               | have done -- obviously not. But to think they simply
               | believed everything they were asked to believe at face
               | value goes against everything we know about human nature,
               | and the basic social reality of was going on in Germany
               | and Europe at the time. And about the fundamental
               | psychological and operational mechanics by which the
               | Final Solution worked.
               | 
               | And then there's this:                  That army was the
               | army of Nazi Germany. That army was Nazi Germany's army.
               | 
               | As if simply calling Germany "Nazi Germany" adds some
               | weight to the point you're trying to make. Of course it
               | doesn't. As a simple, direct proof of this -- let's just
               | drop the unnecessary instances of your favorite word in
               | that sentence:                  That army was the army of
               | Germany. That army was Germany's army.
               | 
               | And ask ourselves how much sense it makes.
        
               | ajuc wrote:
               | I agree we shouldn't let "regular Germans" from that time
               | escape the responsibility for WW2. Be it through voting
               | for Hitler, supporting nazis in other ways, or simply
               | ignoring the threat and not uniting and voting against
               | Hitler before it was too late.
               | 
               | But you wrote "every soldier in German military" which is
               | just wrong. German military had many soldiers forcibly
               | drafted from occupied countries. One famous example is
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Tusk
               | 
               | People downvote you because you were confidently wrong.
        
               | wutwutwat wrote:
               | > I agree we shouldn't let "regular Germans" from that
               | time escape the responsibility for WW2. Be it through
               | voting for Hitler, supporting nazis in other ways, or
               | simply ignoring the threat and not uniting and voting
               | against Hitler before it was too late.
               | 
               | I did not say any of this, ever. Read my comment. Don't
               | put words in my mouth.
               | 
               | > After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2
               | August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President
               | of Germany, and thus became commander in chief. In
               | February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg,
               | acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving
               | in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate
               | dishonorable discharge.[33] Again, on his own initiative
               | Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into
               | their uniforms in May 1934.[34] In August of the same
               | year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the
               | Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the
               | entire military took the Hitler oath, an oath of personal
               | loyalty to Hitler.
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht
               | 
               | The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to
               | hitler.
        
               | bryanrasmussen wrote:
               | As much as I dislike Nazis I'm going to have to disagree,
               | there were Germans who were not Nazis in all walks of
               | life including the military, and even every member of the
               | Nazi party was not necessarily bad - Oskar Schindler was,
               | after all, a member of the Nazi party.
               | 
               | >Nobody saw all of that and said "well, I don't want to
               | dodge a draft...
               | 
               | Nobody saw all of that and said, shit if I dodge the
               | draft they may give me the death penalty, no wait I'm
               | wrong - that's exactly what they said.
               | 
               | You also do not seem to have any particular dividing line
               | between say, soldiers who were underage (later years of
               | war) or actual adults?
               | 
               | This article on American slavery seems to pertain here
               | too https://medium.com/luminasticity/what-makes-you-
               | think-you-wo... - what makes you think you would have
               | been better - not you now, but a you born in Germany
               | during the great Depression, came of age as World War II
               | started, drafted into the Army but because of your
               | character you would be able to stand against your
               | society, your friends, the law and say no, I won't go.
               | I'm not saying that's impossible, but it is rare.
               | 
               | On what grounds of your character do you think you would
               | be better than most of the population at that time? What
               | great wrong have you opposed to your detriment and
               | personal danger?
               | 
               | Again - it may be that you would be better than almost
               | everybody else at the time. But it seems more people
               | think they would be than seems statistically possible,
               | based on nothing other than being born "now" and knowing
               | it is wrong "now", I would like some sterner examples of
               | character to back up the moral self-regard.
        
               | wutwutwat wrote:
               | Disagree with facts all you want. I don't care. Neither
               | do the facts.
               | 
               | > After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2
               | August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President
               | of Germany, and thus became commander in chief. In
               | February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg,
               | acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving
               | in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate
               | dishonorable discharge.[33] Again, on his own initiative
               | Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into
               | their uniforms in May 1934.[34] In August of the same
               | year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the
               | Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the
               | entire military took the Hitler oath, an oath of personal
               | loyalty to Hitler.
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht
               | 
               | The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to
               | hitler.
        
               | bryanrasmussen wrote:
               | gee, I didn't disagree with any of that - I said that if
               | people did not accept the draft they would be prosecuted
               | and often received the death penalty, although also they
               | could just be sent to a camp and worked to death.
               | 
               | I also said that towards the end of the war Germany used
               | underage soldiers - meaning as young as 16, I did not
               | directly ask but implied that perhaps you did not think
               | that underage soldiers were as culpable of being Nazis as
               | the adults, but I see now by your strong commitment to
               | your moral stature that I was wrong.
               | 
               | I finally asked just what makes you think you would have
               | been good and able to resist the pressure to go in the
               | army, which you didn't answer. You have done an admirable
               | job in opposing every response to you with copy pasted
               | Wikipedia content it's true, but I'm afraid I wanted some
               | more hard-nosed and non-online behaviors to confirm the
               | ability to stand against evil.
        
           | Archelaos wrote:
           | > I was kinda curious if Nazi and German WWII soldier is
           | equivalent.
           | 
           | Try this excersise: Define "Nazi" and then see whether every
           | German WWII soldier fits the definition.
           | 
           | Additional excersise: Define it that way that no Allied
           | soldier fits the definition.
           | 
           | Then check whether the definition makes any sense as a
           | political distinction.
           | 
           | I never came across one.
        
         | aguaviva wrote:
         | Because they weren't all in the category you're referring to,
         | of course.
         | 
         | To misunderstand this (and apply the N-word to all of the
         | regime's footsoldiers and helpers) is to fundamentally
         | midunderstand how the dictatorship worked, and got so many
         | millions of ordinary people to trudge along and do its dirty
         | work. Or to at least shut up and try not to think too much
         | about whatever they saw and heard.
        
       | sandworm101 wrote:
       | >> The first surprise was the discovery of a pit containing the
       | remains of a German soldier, likely fallen in battle in February
       | 1945 during the fights over the Grzybek bridge in the final days
       | of World War II. However, what seemed to be a significant find
       | soon revealed additional secrets, leading the team to an even
       | older and extraordinary discovery.
       | 
       | Contrary to almost all comments so far, the dead soldier and the
       | artifacts are not related. And this is not a grave. This is where
       | a soldier fell. A grave is where someone is buried, not the place
       | where they were killed and lost to history. The soldier may have
       | been wounded and hiding in the pit, or literally fell atop, but
       | would not have been burried there by anyone. The older artifacts
       | were there long before ww2.
        
         | Arainach wrote:
         | In practice, the term grave is often used for any final resting
         | place whether intentionally buried or not e.g. "watery grave".
        
         | tokai wrote:
         | He could very well have been buried. Getting rid of the corpses
         | after a battle is important.
        
           | sandworm101 wrote:
           | A modern battlefield grave is identifiable. Any trained
           | archaeologist would spot such a grave, describe and most
           | likely report it to authorities. There are recognizable
           | signs. We dont dispose of dead soldiers in unmarked pits, not
           | individuals.
        
             | Arainach wrote:
             | By February 1945 the war was going poor enough for Germany
             | that it's unlikely all such graves had full procedures
             | followed.
        
         | romanhn wrote:
         | Literally from the article:
         | 
         | "Popkiewicz believes these coins may have belonged to the
         | German soldier, possibly a numismatics enthusiast, as they hail
         | from several countries the German 73rd Infantry Division likely
         | traversed, to which the soldier may have belonged. The
         | hypothesis suggests that the soldier collected ancient coins as
         | a hobby or perhaps exchanged or acquired them during his
         | military movements."
        
       | codr7 wrote:
       | Given the Nazi interest in ancient cultures I find the hobby-
       | theory to be the least likely explanation.
        
         | thaumasiotes wrote:
         | The Nazis were intensely interested in ancient cultures; why do
         | you think they called themselves "Aryans" and represented
         | themselves with a swastika?
        
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