Friday, October 28, 2011

Archaeologists in France Discover Underground Remains of 21 German Soldiers from World War I

At Der Spiegel, "WWI Grave Find Tells Story Germans Want to Forget":
Archaeologists in northern France have unearthed the bodies of 21 German soldiers from World War One in an elaborate underground shelter that was destroyed in a French attack in March 1918, and hasn't been opened since.

Individual war casualties are still frequently found during construction work on the former Western front battlefields of France and Belgium, but the discovery of so many soldiers in one location is rare.
The tomb, poignant and grisly, sheds light on the lives of the soldiers who died in explosions from heavy shells that penetrated the tunnel.

"It's a bit like Pompeii," Michaƫl Landolt, the French archaeologist leading the dig, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Everything collapsed in seconds and is just the way it was at the time. This is an extraordinary find."
Fascinating. It turns out Germans don't really like digging up the past, so to speak. German newspapers buried the story on the inside pages.

RTWT.

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