Wehrmacht Porcelain & a Toothpaste Hoard
- Inka
- 21 hours ago
- 5 min read
Despite warnings from the weather report about rain Baard and I went out for searching and digging on Tuesday. We had a fresh permission to a site we had been wondering about for many years and began the day meeting up with the landowner who gave us some additional info about the place. His father, who grew up during the war and remembers well, had pointed out the spots on their huge land where barracks had stood.
The camp had housed approximately 300 soldiers, a number that had grown considerably larger from May 1945 when the Germans went into captivity and their long march back to Germany began later in the summer. And the best part about it, nobody had ever been searching here.
In the morning the weather was still nice, the vegetation was barely wet from last nights rainfall and we began doubting the weather reports bleak promises, so we left our rain gear in the car. Perhaps an unwise move.
The detectors swept in front of us as we moved towards a birch forest. The signals we dug along the first few meters were mostly related to old Nato exercises, but that seemed to be concentrated only along the road.
A little into the forest I spotted several of the triangular shaped barrack stoves, and a large cast iron kitchen stove. They were clustered together and had probably been stashed there when the barracks in the woods had been dismanteled.
It was around those where I dug up the first interesting find, one half of a military binocular. I searched around and soon found the other part of it.
Other bits began popping up. Crate parts, rifle casings, rusted food tins, cutlery, cream tubes and a nice brass casing from a 2 cm Flak.
I was digging through a small dumping ditch when I heard a happy shout from Baard, "Wound Baaadge!". I ran over to have a look, and sure enough, the old bugger had dug up a quite nice badge.
In my ditch was only junk, but a meter away it was another half meter long trash signal which I began digging on.
Here my luck kicked in.
I pulled out two rifle cleaning kits, a pair of K98 ammo pouches, a green plastic cigarette case, two canteens together with a bakelite cup, a gasmask canister, a table lamp, an entrenching tool with its ersatz material hanger, and lots of other bits.
The best thing to come out of the ditch was a big and nicely Heer marked porcelain bowl.
Meanwhile Baard had proceeded to uncover a large coinspill and filled his pocket with German money.
He also dug up a very well preserved inner kettle from a soup container and a field kitchen ladle, and a large haul of 9mm and 7.92 rounds with two respective excercise rounds together with it.
Between the ferns I discovered another small burn pit where I had my second stroke of luck. First was a small axe head and a göffel, lots of melted glass, a close combat knife scabbard, gaming pieces and rusted tins. But together with the garbage was also a porcelain dinner plate with Heer markings on the bottom, a fishing lure, and the best find, a belt buckle!
At first I thought it was a Finnish buckle, but then I saw the eagle in the center of it. It was a denazified brass buckle from the Reichsluftschutzbund.
A quite unusual buckle to find here in the North, but which I had found one of before, many years ago, also together with Baard.
Circa mid day the weather turned on us and the promised rain came down by the buckets and I regretted not having put on the rain clothes earlier, but now it was too late, one just had to embrace the wet.
I could feel the water finding its way down my legs, into my shoes, soaking my until now dry socks.
I was again searching in the field of waist high ferns when I felt the detector hit into something, and in the same exact moment loud flapping noises accompanied by a screech burst out from the ground below me. Starteled I took a step back and let out a defensive scream as from the depths of the ferns a large brown bird erupted in fast angry motions. Apparently I had smacked a large Black Grouse in the head with my detector.
Baard stuck his head out of a dumping pit he had discovered - "Did you find another buckle?".
The pit he was digging turned out to be very interesting. In the corner he had opened up, and dug for many hours, was a large hoard of Blendax toothpaste. We had found a couple of those spread out in the forest, but here he was digging up nearly 150 of them, all full and in good condition. Together with those was also the biggest pile of different tools I have ever seen coming out of a single pit. Probably 40-50 kg worth of wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers, hammers etc.
Three meters away from the Blendax pit I struck upon another little garbage dump. This one was filled with broken glass from bottles and windows. Tons of it. But also a few other relics. It had the third rifle cleaning kit of the day, another gas mask canister, a very interesting bottle I have never seen before, a half rotted K98 ammo pouch and a pair of goggles. And a very interesting find to me, a tin that normally would be nothing but rust which had survived with its label intact. A coffee tin from a Norwegian company, a really nice little treat.
After some eight-nine hours searching and digging time had come to carry all the finds back to the van, which took several trips. I was soaked to the bones and my clothes had so much added weight in water. It was very uncomfortable and I was hours away from home. Luckily the GirlfriendWifes thinking is somewhat clearer than my thinking, and she had snuck into the car a bag with dry clothes, socks and shoes for me, in case I would be silly enough to not wear my rainclothes ;) So after a quick change I felt like a new person.
This had been a spectacular day on a very interesting site. Baards Hoard pit still has two thirds to be dug and we are very excited to find out what more it might hide in its depths, but we won`t know before next summer, because he only had a short holiday this year and has already arrived to his home. But it is good to have something to dream about and look forward to.
Yesterday me and the GirlfriendWife went for a biking in one of our favorite woods, which of course had a lot of Gebirgsjägers, and spotted two-three dumping pits and barrack foundations I hadn`t seen before, so first chance to go outside again I have some work to do.
Thanks for reading, and Keep Smiling :)
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