Sixty-eight years ago World War II ended. Excavations continue to this day.
What motivates local residents and archaeologists who come from afar to pick up a shovel when going to the places of former battles? In most cases, this, alas, is greed. Found artifacts - silent witnesses of someone's lives and deaths - have their own market value in our pragmatic age. World War II excavations have become a vital business.
"Black" diggers are looking for everything that can be of material value. The most profitable are the remains of the invaders - primarily Germans, as well as Romanians, Italians, Spaniards, Hungarians and other representatives of countries that participated in the war against the USSR. This is explained by the fact that sometimes amusing items of interest to collectors are found in their duffel bags.
What could a Soviet soldier have? In addition to the star on the cap, perhaps, as the song says, "a letter from the mother and a handful of native land." The charter of the Red Army did not provide for mortal medallions, sometimes the soldiers themselvesthey were made, but this was infrequent, it was considered a bad omen. Excavations of the Second World War in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, unfortunately, rarely lead to the fact that the identity of the deceased is revealed, and if this happens, it is usually thanks to the preserved documents, letters and metal objects on which the owners scratched the name and surname. Often the remains are under a shallow layer of soil, literally decimeters from the surface.
The diggers are especially lucky to find jewelry, including SS rings, awards with Nazi symbols, belt buckles, buttons, cockades, knives with imperial eagles. Helmets, flasks and other ammunition go well at auction.
Unofficial diggers in the nineties sometimes restored the "trunks" found in the ground for sale to representatives of the criminal world. Today, this method of armament has lost its relevance, a modern pistol or machine gun is cheaper.
Excavations of the Second World War are carried out by both "black" and "white" archaeologists. There are two main differences between them: firstly, the availability of documents confirming the right to search work, and secondly, the goals. Official groups are looking for the remains of soldiers in order to report that there is one less unknown soldier. Things found at the same time are transferred to relatives, in memory of the heroically deceased ancestor, with the exception, of course, of weapons.
Of particular interest in the historicalaspect of military equipment, usually flooded. Not so long ago, divers discovered a transport three-engine Junkers Yu-52 in the waters of the Odessa Bay. Among the things on board is a tablet with topographic maps, on which plans for the retreat of the German troops were plotted. How the destruction of the headquarters aircraft affected the outcome of the liberation operation remains to be assessed by historians. Other excavations of the Second World War are also important: tanks, planes, cars, ships. By the serial number stamped on the supporting structure, it is possible, using the archives of the Moscow Region, to determine who operated this equipment.
The mass nature of the "missing" was the result of huge losses suffered by the warring parties on the territory of the USSR. However, the excavations of the Second World War sometimes reveal unknown pages of history in North Africa, in Europe, and in other regions engulfed in flames of those years. In 1998, French experts made a statement about the discovery of a Lightning aircraft in the sea near Marseille, on which the famous writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery set off on his last flight.
