Name tags of 260 Dutch soldiers dug up

Discussion in '1940' started by smdarby, Oct 5, 2019.

  1. smdarby

    smdarby Well-Known Member

    Story in Dutch News about the name tags of 260 Dutch soldiers being dug up in a garden in Schoorl, just north of Alkmaar. The article states the name tags were buried after the German invasion to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. I'm not exactly sure what this was supposed to accomplish?

    Name tags of 260 WW Two soldiers dug up in Dutch garden - DutchNews.nl
     
  2. Blutto

    Blutto Banned

    Perhaps to make it difficult for the invaders to identify ex-soldiers?
     
  3. High Wood

    High Wood Well-Known Member

    It would have certainly helped the Dutch soldiers to disappear into the wider community. It was probably done at company level when the Dutch Government gave the order to their troops to lay down their arms and surrender.
     
  4. horsapassenger

    horsapassenger Senior Member

    It would not have been difficult for the Germans to identify men of military age. As they occupied Towns and Villages they seized the local population records which contained all this information. It was these records that they later used to identify the men to be sent to Germany for forced labour.
     
  5. Blutto

    Blutto Banned

    The question was as to why the tags might have been buried, not whether it may have been effective.
     
    canuck likes this.
  6. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Name tags are intended to identify a body, dead or unconscious with a link, using the name and number to the official military records. Once separated from that body they are generally useless and, deliberately, contain little information. Unless the soldier had a particularly unusualname it would be impossible to say to whom it had belonged unless one already knew that he had been a soldier and had his number. The only purpose in burying them might be in an attempt to be a little bloody minded in making German administration just slightly more difficult
     
  7. High Wood

    High Wood Well-Known Member

    Or possibly to give the original owners more time to get out of the country to join allied forces and continue the fight.
     
  8. Robert-w

    Robert-w Banned

    Not really as perovided they simply threw them away there would be no ability to connect the tag with the individual except by going back to the original papers
     

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