National Geographic TV hits a new low.

slowburner

The most reprehensible public abuse of archaeology in recent years. The channel continues to demonstrate its utter ignorance in regard to what is, and is not archaeology.
This is not archaeology, it is treasure hunting.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2591894/Fury-National-Geographic-channel-historians-digging-Second-World-War-graves.html

Manach

This does seem to cross a moral, given that some family members are likely still alive and that various militaries have specialised units to gather remains in a manner that is both scientific and respectful.

Riamfada

Nat Geo has been going downhill for a very long time.

davycc

absolutely disgusting behaviour:(

they actually dig up graves its wrong at every ethical level and they should be ashamed of themselves I hope the show never gets aired..

The nat geo and discovery channels have been dumbing down their shows a lot and have sunk even further to this :eek:

Sultan of Swing

A little bit more about that Nat Geo programme here on Paul Barford's blog:
http://paul-barford.blogspot.ie/

slowburner

Excellent letter from a concerned osteoarchaeologist.

To Whom It May Concern,
My name is Alison Atkin and I am a doctoral researcher at The University of Sheffield Department of Archaeology. I am a qualified osteoarchaeologist, a member of the British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology, and have researched the identification of victims of mass mortality events, including those from human rights investigations.
I am writing to express my deep concerns about your advertised show “Nazi War Diggers”. I have previously sent an e-mail to ngcdutylog@fox.com, however I feel this issue needs to be addressed promptly and by the appropriate individuals concerned in your UK office.
The (now removed) clip from this television programme that was hosted on your website yesterday gives me great cause for concern. The actions of the individuals filmed demonstrate a severe lack of archaeological and osteological skills or expertise – their biographies on your website also present them as non-specialist enthusiasts and metal detectorists without professional training.
I have serious questions about the legality of the actions shown in this clip (and therefore the programme as a whole). I would request that you publicly provide evidence showing these excavations were undertaken legally and met all of the requirements by the necessary national and international bodies, especially those concerning the excavation and recovery of human remains. I would also like to request that you publicly provide evidence that all artefact finds were both reported to and deposited with the necessary authorities and that none were sold for profit by anyone involved with this programme.
Regardless of whether these actions undertaken in the name of this programme were legal, they certainly were not ethical. The recovery and repatriation of human remains, from any context, requires the presence of individuals trained archaeological and osteological techniques and methods. I will freely admit that I felt nauseous while watching the manner in which the human remains being excavated were treated – callously and without care. These are the remains of a human, who was a son, and possibly a brother, husband, father – who died during an unimaginably terrible war and horrific circumstances – and regardless of their nationality they deserve dignity in death. Anything less is completely inexcusable.
In addition, the actions represented (improper excavation methods, lack of context recording, mis-handling of human remains, and more) contravene various national and international guidance for standards of both scientific and ethical practises in archaeology and osteology. Any individual in good standing within the professional community would not have allowed the actions filmed in the clip shown to have occurred.
Finally, given the context of the human remains and artefacts being dug (I refuse to say excavated) for this programmme, I would also request that you publicly provide evidence that the individuals involved in this programme repatriated the human remains in the appropriate manner and were working with the permission of the various national bodies responsible for the recovery and repatriation of the war dead.
I strongly urge you to reconsider airing this series, as it serves only encourage unethical (and possibly illegal) actions – especially when it has been branded under the well-known and well-respected (although I suspect significantly less so now in the archaeological community) company that is the National Geographic.
In summary, I should not have to tell you how important the preservation of the past is to humanity and that the looting of war graves, even Nazi German war graves, for private profit is just wrong.*
If anything in my above assessment is incorrect, I look forward to clarifying information.
I will also be notifying media contacts about this.
Alison Atkin
BA (Hons.), MSc
–
Doctoral Researcher
Department of Archaeology
University of Sheffield
Northgate House
West Street
Sheffield
S1 4ET

Sultan of Swing

It seems National Geographic have seen the error of their ways and have thankfully decided to drop this series for now: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/national-geographic-channel-pulls-nazi-war-diggers-series/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&

Dr Strange

What a disgrace! National geographic have certainly gone down in quality. How on earth could they go and put together and amateur group to go digging up (it's not excavation what these people were doing) some soldiers remains?

And the pinncale of absurdity is the inclusion on the team of a dealer in militaria collectibles who clearly has commercial interest in this area?

I doubt they received permission to do this in areas of the front which is still part of Germany. Although the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgraeberfuersorge (German War Grabe Commission) does not employ archaeologically and anthropologically trained professionals to carry out repatriation work (I understand that they do not have the funds, apparently - this is quite different to the Allied War Grave Commissions, particularly the JPAC-Cil and their human identification laboratory on Hawaii (just have a look at their website and see how many professional forensic anthropologists, odontologists and archaeologists they employ), they are trying to recover remains in an ethically responsible way.

However, I know that the relic hunters in Germany are causing the German War Grave Commission huge amounts of grief as they are hunting for ID tags, medals, weapon remnants etc, anything to sell or keep. They are not interested in preserving and recording any remains found with the items.

Those groups and organisations in Eastern Europe who work with the German War Grave Commission are for the most part not trained either and the Commission can only hope that the idnividuals involved are genuine. For each genuine individual who wants to seriously help there are 10 who just want to find artefacts for their own gain. Unfortunately, there is not much that can be done about it as the multitude of remains are found in countries that have no real legislation with regards to war graves. And even if they do have some policies they do not necessarily include German soldiers which are regarded as a free-for-all in some situations.

Dr Strange

Here's an article about this by Paul Mullins:

http://paulmullins.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/archaeology-human-dignity-and-the-fascination-of-death/

slowburner

The point to remember about all of this is that the damage done by this group is very real, ongoing and can't be withdrawn - unlike the TV show.

Indeed Gottlieb had been quoted as saying “(I) feel that by selling things that are Nazi related and for lots of money, I’m preserving a part of history that museums don’t want to bother with“, a quote which was quickly retracted by the National Geographic Channel on their website.

http://thesebonesofmine.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/excavating-the-war-dead-of-ww2-the-eastern-front/