More Photos Surface in Widening German Skull Scand

[der bastler 0]

Well, did anyone care when the mentioned and now bleached skulls where separated from their bodies? No.

Oh, and btw a dozen civilians got killed last week during NATO air strikes. I did not notice a comparable outcry.

Bigotry, hypocrisy, double standard... you name it.

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Worst thing: people are believing B*LD. Instead of awaiting the investigations, politicians condemn some soldiers. It is well known how this... newspaper (B*LD does not deserve the name) treats truth. http://bildblog.de/

Sick world

[denoir 0]

I couldn't agree more.

Sure, it was a stupid adolescent prank, but until BILD published the pictures, it was pretty irrelevant. The bones have no intrinsic value. They're just a bunch of calcium phosphate - and there is no or very little difference between animal bones and human bones.

The value that they hold is for the relatives of the ex owner of the bones. They may attach a sentimental value to them. Before BILD started publishing the photos and the media became hysteric, there was chance of any relatives finding out. So what the soldiers did was a bad thing, but what made it have an actual negative effect was the media.

And indeed, if one wants to be upset over something, there are far worse things happening to living people in Afghanistan.

[Heatseeker 0]

I can understand how being in a war zone "changes" people, soldiers arent exactly trained to be "sensitive" individuals.. after they are exposed to combat and human loss it gets worse.

Holding the skull of a soldier who was problably just someone with no choice in his fate next to you penis is disgusting behaviour imho, what shocks me the most is that the remains of these soldiers were left behind like trash? I would expect the families of these soldiers to get more than a: "he died serving his country, sorry".

Anyone found anything about this?

You dont go to the cemetary to take photos mocking body remains.. i could take photos of these soldiers bones but i would definetly never touch them... a matter of respect.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

So sure, if they needed to be moved, move them. But don't, for the love of all things sacred, treat them disrespectfully.

[earl 0]

sedlec ossuary near prague.. tourist attaction.  mockery? reverence?  space-saving technique? art?

sure, i can see the differences, but we might all choose to measure the distance differently.  and this one?

well, i think there's more important things to worry about right now.  as somoeone already pointed out, atrocities against the living are meanwhile being ignored, it's not interesting news.

[Journeyman 0]

well, i think there's more important things to worry about right now.  as somoeone already pointed out, atrocities against the living are meanwhile being ignored, it's not interesting news.

I agree that everything is relative, but that still doesn't justify this incident with the soldiers! Personally I couldn't give two shits about immature soldiers f*cking around with human remains, but society as a whole does and parading like that in front of a camera and then making it publicly available on the internet is what makes it sick!

As a story your right it is uninteresting but the media will try its best to glorify it, just as they do anything else that they think might be good for their pockets! In fact the press are probably more out of order in this case than the soldiers were!

[igor drukov 0]

Quote[/b] ]The bones have no intrinsic value. They're just a bunch of calcium phosphate - and there is no or very little difference between animal bones and human bones.

The value that they hold is for the relatives of the ex owner of the bones. They may attach a sentimental value to them.

This makes me feel awfully uncomfortable. Exactly the same can be said about bodies and water and DNA:

"The bodies have no intrinsic value. They're just water and a bunch of calcium phosphate - and there is no or very little difference between animal DNA and human DNA. The value that bodies hold is for the relatives of the ex owner of the bodies. They may attach a sentimental value to them."

Sorry, but this sounds like some SS rhetoric to me, it really does.

I can't make a distinction between how one treats people and how one treats the dead. What are the regimes or civilisations that didn't care for the dead at all? The ones that didn't care for the living either.

I really believe one distinctive feature of humanity as opposed to the animal kingdom is the way men treat their dead. Everybody deserves a decent treatment after their death, be that a burial or a ceremonious cremation, or any other rite.

Having said that, I'd like the editor of the Bild to live a soldier's life in a war-zone for a couple of months, and we'll take and publish pictures of how he deals with his fear.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]

I can't make a distinction between how one treats people and how one treats the dead. What are the regimes or civilisations that didn't care for the dead at all? The ones that didn't care for the living either.

I really believe one distinctive feature of humanity as opposed to the animal kingdom is the way men treat their dead. Everybody deserves a decent treatment after their death, be that a burial or a ceremonious cremation, or any other rite.

I like the philosophical approach, but warzones are no places for philosphy.

War shatters around bones, cemeteries, humans rot in open areas unnoticed, you ge tmumified remains, you get torn apart bodies, you have animals dealing with remains and spreading bones on wide ranges. There are regions where you find more bones than alive animals. They do loose the human touch. The reality they are a part of is a reality completely different to the reality the soldiers face in their homecountries. After some time in a zone like that, you get used to things and things loose the value they have in the country of the soldiers origin.

There is a huge difference in both and the soldiers have to be prepared for that and kept in contact with the second world, the world they are coming from.

I hope you can understand what I mean

[igor drukov 0]

Quote[/b] ]I like the philosophical approach, but warzones are no places for philosphy.

War shatters around bones, cemeteries, humans rot in open areas unnoticed, you ge tmumified remains, you get torn apart bodies, you have animals dealing with remains and spreading bones on wide ranges. There are regions where you find more bones than alive animals. They do loose the human touch. The reality they are a part of is a reality completely different to the reality the soldiers face in their homecountries. After some time in a zone like that, you get used to things and things loose the value they have in the country of the soldiers origin.

There is a huge difference in both and the soldiers have to be prepared for that and kept in contact with the second world, the world they are coming from.

I hope you can understand what I mean

Unfortunately, yes, I can understand what you mean. I tried to make allowance for it in the last sentence of my previous post. I'm not blaming the soldiers: if I were their officer, I'd tell them to properly bury the bones and move on.

On the other hand, to become jaded at such sights or at those battle fields you speak of when you're a regular TV-watching, paper-reading John Doe like me is a dangerous drift that I will fight as hard as I can. Civilian indignation is natural, no indignation at all would be really worrying, IMHO. Bild is exploiting it for commercial purposes at the expense of 20-year-olds that put their lives on the line everyday. Now that is the one true outrage for me here in this specific case.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]On the other hand, to become jaded at such sights or at those battle fields you speak of when you're a regular TV-watching, paper-reading John Doe like me is a dangerous drift that I will fight as hard as I can. Civilian indignation is natural, no indignation at all would be really worrying, IMHO. Bild is exploiting it for commercial purposes at the expense of 20-year-olds that put their lives on the line everyday. Now that is the one true outrage for me here in this specific case.

Totally agreed.

[earl 0]

Quote[/b] ]

I really believe one distinctive feature of humanity as opposed to the animal kingdom is the way men treat their dead.  Everybody deserves a decent treatment after their death, be that a burial or a ceremonious cremation, or any other rite.

-edit- removed non-persuasive link

I don't think we need to distance oursevles too much from the animal world to create some kind of self importance.  Taking a photo of yourself with someone else's skull next to your unit as some way to show off to friends is a rather good example of self-awareness, isn't it? I don't think the argument here is about a difference between "human" and "animal" behaviour. But instead just disrespect for the values held by a large majority of people (regardless of ones own opinions) that the remains of the dead are not toys for personal amusement.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

I dont have to add much since most has already been said. But what I find rather amusing is that for germany soldiers are always a bit embarassing. You dont realy talk much about them, media coverage is relatively low and praise is non existant.

And then this incident with skulls. Sudenly all the media jump on the story. Honestly, even if I condemn what they did and would never get such a stupid idea myself.. but if this is the worst of the worst of them do then hell we should be happy!

[ran 0]

sedlec ossuary near prague.. tourist attaction. mockery? reverence? space-saving technique? art?

well, i think there's more important things to worry about right now. as somoeone already pointed out, atrocities against the living are meanwhile being ignored, it's not interesting news.

Been there a couple years ago, prerrt amazing if you ask me.

I'd tend to agree with your last point Earl. Let's remain focused, people who don't know what PERSEC and decency are shouldn't really make it to the news, especially for something like that.

I don't know if those are in breech with forum rules.

This threa has been full of good points and common sense lately, feels nice after having a look the the US and ME politics threads

[igor drukov 0]

I don't think we need to distance oursevles too much from the animal world to create some kind of self importance. Taking a photo of yourself with someone else's skull next to your unit as some way to show off to friends is a rather good example of self-awareness, isn't it? I don't think the argument here is about a difference between "human" and "animal" behaviour. But instead just disrespect for the values held by a large majority of people (regardless of ones own opinions) that the remains of the dead are not toys for personal amusement.

I believe on the contrary that the difference between humanity as opposed to animals must be emphasised every now and then.

Failure to do so leads to the shirking of our responsibilities: we're the only ones to have our fates, this planet's and its inhabitants' in our hands. So it's not a question of creating "some kind of self importance". In complexity and degree of conscience, we are superior to animals.

Human remains are a reminder of both our mortal condition and of the fraternity that unites us all. Treating someone's remains with dignity, regardless of who they are, is ackowledging this fraternity. I can't think of any situation in which the living are well treated and not their dead bodies. War being when murder is legal and rewarded, no wonder its actors toy with bones. Civilians in countries at peace dismissing human bones in the wild as worthless, commonplace or uninteresting send shivers down my spine.

On a side note, I find Rint's works in the Sedlec ossuary totally sick. The same thing applies for the display of petrified bodies in Pompei (I don't know if they still are on display, I went there some ten years ago). Human beings and human remains are not instruments.

[ran 0]

The bodies were still there when I went there rougly 4 years ago. Doesn't actually make me sick, but while bones are just bones, which miss most of the features from which we can differenciate one person from the other, the fact that you see clothes, vague limbs and faces details can make somebody uneasy. While I agree, that the actual trend of Joe Sixpack getting used to guts and generally speaking human remains on his TV screen can pose problems.

This might sound dumb but I've always made a mental differenciation between bones and flesh. Bones are featureless, most if not all of our individuality lays in our flesh, our face, our brain, our physical distinctive details (like scars, hair, eye color etc etc etc). Once the flesh is gone, everything is gone and all that remains as Denoir said is an assembly of carbon phosphate.

We're reminded of our mortal condition every day, when we age, whenn we hurt ourselves, when we feel pain, when we see others go by. And I too had ideals of human fraternity and so on and so forth but that's IMO giving way too much thought in a stupid teenage prank involving lifeless cold and blunt objects.

I can understand opposing points of view but my nature and personnal history tell me to push those aside. I go by the saying live and let live thinking that is there's such a thing as humanity, it will come out from that.

(don't know if all that made much sense hehe still slightly hungover from yesterday)

My only gripe about the guys (back on the original topic) there is that they took pictures, and not so dignifying ones at that