... the remains of Friedrich Brandt are now on display in the new Mémorial 1815 museum in Belgium. Very unrespectful. On the Internet there is outrage. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peace-for-Friedrich-Brandt/1451785605121951
Not surprised. Bloody disrespectful. Paul Reed posted here today http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/56496-waterloo-200/page-2#entry671701
Frankly, I'm really not sure about this whole thing. Those on Twatter may have noticed I had a toe to toe with the Belgium Tourist Board and their Director over their attitude... but the bandwagoning here is pretty toxic. Earlier I was called a 'pompous prig' for offering an alternative viewpoint... For those not in the know the display of human remains is a rather contested issue, different guidelines cover different religions - and modern pagan thought has been respectfully addressed. I have first hand experience in dealing with suitable interpretation/engagement in these matters and thus find the zeal behind the 'Peace for Friedrich Brandt' depressingly aggressive and completely blindsided of larger issues. The obvious question stands: 1. At what point is it disrespectful to display human remains. 2. Why is there a cut off? Few of those who claim 'no remains should be shown' would wish mummies concealed, much like burial goods would have to be placed back with the dead - it is an exceptionally tricky area. Frankly I wish all those involved in this campaign had sat down and properly considered their objections first, morally, ethically and on heritage grounds, rather than... the situation that has transpired. Is it disrespectful, entirely possibly - however does it engage youth in understanding that 'real' people were there? Or is it an attempt to harness a warnographic approach to boost viewing figures at a rather lacklustre museum? What was their full methodology behind the public display of the remains? These questions have to be answered, but a blind 'JUSTICE!' campaign is not only sure to fail, but likely to be a complete embarrassment for all concerned.
I'm completely un-bothered by the display too. I'm fascinated by sets of bones from Roman soldier to mummies and assorted other on-display varieties. Nothing quite rams home that we're all dust in the end like a skeleton. Particularly when strongly associated with an artefact, like the musket ball that possibly killed them. Would love to see the great ossuaries, catacombs and Sicilian mummies. Human remains and their myriad methods of post-mortem treatment is a vast and fascinating subject. I do possibly have an unconscious cut-off date, though not one I could justify with anything other than instinct based on a case by case basis. Bones from Waterloo don't apparently trigger my moral radar one iota.
I'm kinda in the not fussed side of the room to. Interesting point made about at what point would it ethically both you -I think 1914 onwards for me probably because 100 year mark and I have some passing interest in WW1 even though I know very little about it compared to the second war. I guess the nationality of the remains may play a part to as to how much someone is bothered although it shouldn't really.
I'm not terribly outraged, yet in a dispassionate way I don't quite grasp any need for display either - apart from it being the big anniversary and some tourists will be fascinated. I think we can get a bit too precious about human remains, throughout history there were all sorts of ways of dealing with them: putting them on display, storing them, venerating them, dissecting them, using them for whatever need at the time*. I'm more than happy to read of discoveries made through scientific study, even that they are placed in storage, but some people would prefer that even this was stopped. Personally speaking and somewhat ambivalently: seen one mummy, one bog body, one shrunken head, one religious relic, one scientific display, one set of crumbling bones ... seen them all. Another skeleton, with an interesting Plan B http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22340193 for which Plan C came into operation http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...y-laid-to-rest-after-more-than-200-years.html . and these, surely invoking the cut-off date mentioned by VP http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...s-of-unknown-British-soldiers-discovered.html . and this, going back to Waterloo, with quite a few links to articles The bones of Waterloo * "After Waterloo, the bones of the dead — Wellington’s Britons and Napoleon’s French and Blücher’s Prussians — were freighted back to Hull to use as fertiliser for England’s green and pleasant land, military mulch from the 1815 battlefields which also yielded fresh teeth to be reused as dentures for the living."
Did they ever identify them Di? It's the second time I have heard/seen that MoD department mentioned in as many weeks. I met a wonderful French lady from CWGC the other week in Dunkirk and we spoke for a hour or so about two chaps who are missing on the Dunkirk Memorial and that I may have ID'd their graves. She was very keen for me to forward the info on to the MoD and gave me the email address and contact for the department mentioned in the report.
I can't help wondering if the fact that he is regarded as an 'enemy' casualty rather than 'one of ours' by the inhabitants of the region in which the museum is located might be a factor. Coupled with the fact that German soldiers are still not popular there thanks to there behaviour on two occasions during the last century. I don't actually understand the reason for displaying a headless skeleton found with few artefacts. It doesn't seem to add anything or help connect with the past in the way that, for example, prehistoric bog bodies do....We know that people two hundred years ago were pretty much like us. The veneration of war dead is quite a recent thing, with little attempt to back-date it when the First World War had such an effect upon British national consciousness that they felt the need to establish huge memorials and cemeteries. There was no clamour to do the same for the South African wars which were less than twenty years before. It's as if a new era began and a line was drawn at 1914.
