Posted on 08/12/2007 5:32:55 PM PDT by blam
German farmer demands cash for lost bodies
By David Harrison, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:35am BST 12/08/2007
A German farmer is refusing to allow British families to recover the remains of crew members of a Lancaster bomber shot down during the Second World War - unless they pay him €7,500 (£5,080).
The families of the crew are furious at the farmer's demands and are refusing to pay. They say that the farmer, Horst Bender, must not be allowed to make a profit from allowing them to give their dead relatives a proper burial with full military honours.
One relative described his demands as "shockingly greedy and insensitive".
Four British airmen and two Canadians were in the Lancaster MK1 bomber reported shot down over Germany. The bomber, marked EM-J with serial number PD216, was part of 207 squadron.
It took off from Spilsby in Lincolnshire on August 25, 1944, heading for the German city of Darmstadt, but was shot down before it reached its destination.
Local people recovered body parts of three of the men and buried them in an unmarked grave. When Allied troops arrived in the area they moved the remains to a military cemetery - two in individual, named graves and one in a collective grave.
But the rest of the remains and the aircraft were hidden under farmland in Geinsheim, near Darmstadt, until they were discovered by German historians in 2003.
The farmer gave permission for an excavation in 2005 but then suddenly demanded money. At first he wanted €5,000, but recently he put up the price to €7,500.
The Lancaster was piloted by Flt Lt Maurice Harding, with Sgt Leslie Gower as co-pilot. The other British crew were Flt Sgt Thomas Jones, Pilot Officer Maurice Savage and Sgt Hugh Hamilton. The Candian crew were Pilot Officer Stephen Sims and Flt Sgt Edward Kisilowsky.
The co-pilot's son, Terence Gower, 65, who lives in London, said that he wanted nothing more than to give a proper burial to the father he last saw when he was two-years-old.
Mr Gower said: "It is my dearest wish and on the day it happens you can bet I will be will be standing in that field. I am waiting for the 'yes'."
The pilot's daughter, April Copeland, a management consultant, said she had always been unsure of her father's fate.
"After the war my mother got a ring back from my father, and we were told that his body was probably one of the three that were recovered, but we never knew for sure," she said. "I visited the grave site but I never liked to ask too closely who was in there."
The pilot's widow, Audrey Ewing, who was 21 and three months pregnant with April when her husband died, said: "I visited my late husband's grave a couple of times but I never realised that most of the crew's remains were still buried in the field."
Officials at the British Embassy in Berlin have written to Mr Bender and local officials in an attempt to resolve the problem.
A spokesman said: "The families want a proper burial and we are keen to see their wishes carried out as soon as possible.
"But the farmer is refusing to allow us access unless he is paid. The families would like the aircraft to be excavated and any remains to be placed with the rest of the crew. They are adamant they don't want the farmer to profit from what was a family tragedy."
Mr Bender said he needed the money to cover the cost of returning the field to its original state after the remains had been dug up.
"Everyone wants to come on my land and dig, but no one has offered any money to cover the damages," he said. "I have nothing against giving my permission, but the costs have got to be covered. I can't say how much it would cost without making a thorough estimate, but it will not be less than €7,500."
Mr Bender said that grave robbers had been on the land looking for souvenirs from the aircraft and he was "fed up" with people trespassing.
Those Germans always do the right thing.
Trying to make a profit off others pain and suffering.
I’m speechless about what I think about him and what should happen to him.
I’d hope the government would step in in a case like this.
Their silence would be condemning indeed.
My God touch this farmer’s heart. And if that fails, let the Allies remind him what those bodies came to Germany to do!
The German government must deal with UK directly over this one.
The UK family members must deal with their own government.
Since this is certainly not a new issue, there are probably a book full of procedures laying out each and every step that must be taken.
The farmer probably owns stock in Haliburton
/ s
Oh yea, we still occupy that nation, but it hasn’t been more than 4 years.
Too bad if that farmer suddenly disappeared for a few weeks. Send in the Israelis.
How about on least bombing run just for the fun of it?
Maybe we ought to remind him who lost the freakin’ war and then go in guns ablaze. Oh, but the Brits would never do that, it’s too “cowboyish”.
I don’t see anything wrong with one of the Allied parties - the people or the UK - putting the farmer’s land back the way it was. I don’t see the Allies’ jurisdiction in this.
I wonder who this creep would want to pay for it if it turned out the Lancaster had a few hundred pounds of live ordnance on his farm. I’ll bet he’d welcome in the Brits in that situation.
He's just going about it the wrong way. If he was smart, he would suggest fundraising for a memorial to be placed on the crash site, and get his "costs" added in.
Seems like he's not the sharpest Teutonic Knight in the drawer.
Or he is a closet Not-see.
It is routine practice to repair NATO maneuver damage on German farms. There has got to be a provision in a post-war treaty somewhere concerning the recovery of the remains of war dead and restoration of land damaged by military activity (which remains recovery cerainly is).
Given his attitude, Mr. Bender should not be paid directly. But if digging up the Lancaster and recovering the remains results in significant damage, restoring the damage should be contracted for.
I suppose if I was that German farmer, I would not want someone digging on my land unless they fixed the damages. The German government should reimburse him for whatever damages are done. They started it and it was their aircraft or anti-a/c gunners who shot down the Lancaster.
This is an entirely reasonable request for the farmer. Everyone needs to get past the knee-jerk emotionalism and understand that this is not simply a case of going into a cemetary and exhuming a coffin. They're talking about an archaeological excavation of both the bodies and the plane which will tear-up a sizeable chunk of farmland.
A fair solution which would satisfy the farmer's expressed concerns but prevent him from making a profit would be for the parties to deposit the requested sum in escrow with a reputable third-party arbitrator who would contract and pay for the restoration of the farm property out of those funds, then return any excess funds to the families or their representatives.
As another poster has already noted, this is a common situation in the aftermath of the war and there are most likely agreements between the respective governments already in place to cover this situation.
Come on folks, this is an easy one. The British Gov’t just needs to file papers in Germany stating that the crew was seen alive on the ground, on his (family) farm after crash landing, and that someone on the ground, either him or his father murdered the downed airmen. And quicker than you could say “Guten Tag, wie gehts?” the remains would be turned over.
Worthless Nazi bastard. Too bad the bombing stopped when it did.
):^(
Darmstadt
I do believe that this region of Germany is where the Hessian merceneries who fought against us during the Revolutionary War came from.....
BTW....here’s the wiki:
Darmstadt was the first city in Germany to force Jewish shops to close in early 1933, shortly after the Nazis took power in Germany (at that time, shops were only closed for a day, for “endanger[ing] communal order and tranquility”)[5] In 1942, over 3,000 Jews from Darmstadt were first gathered in a collection camp in the Liebigschule, and then deported to concentration camps[6] where most were killed.
Darmstadt’s old city centre was largely destroyed in a British bombing raid on Darmstadt on September 11, 1944 (Darmstadt had first been raided on July 30, 1940, one of 35 attacks to come). During this worst attack an estimated 11,000-12,500 inhabitants died, and 66,000-70,000 were rendered homeless.[6] Over three quarters of Darmstadt’s inner city area was destroyed in the raid,[7] leading to a relatively architecturally plain style of post-war rebuilding.
Well letting the families retrieve the remains would put an end to that lingering problem, now wouldn't it?
Seriously though, I think the German government really ought to be handling this -- retrieving the remains, with or without the farmer's blessing, and repairing any actual damage to the field associated with the retrieval.
Once a Nazi always a Nazi.
So was Poland.
The whole problem I have with this is that HE’S demanding the money.
I believe that the land should be restored to how it was before the digging, but no handouts. Who knows what he’ll do with the money.
I’d hope the government would step in in a case like this.
That is one of the most frightening statements I’ve ever seen on Free Republic.
Please be careful what you wish for.
I wonder if he may be related to this particular Horst Bender?
Horst Bender was a professional lawyer who spent his later career in legal posts with the Waffen-SS, SS Central Office and SS Legal Department. He ended the war as head of the legal detachment assigned to Himmler’s personal staff and head of the Waffen-SS judge advocate’s department, and was instrumental in the formulation of the policy that provided the powers to inaugurate the Waffen-SS airborne units
I don’t see that anyone has any problem with the guy’s land being restored, it’s a reasonable request.
Him demanding a sum BEFORE he knows the costs is wrong and demanding personal payment from the families of the servicemen is wrong, and that’s what people are ticked about.
He’s being a mercenary about this.
Basically, he’s holding these men, dead though they be, hostage.
This farmer is just following the precedent on general maneuver damages from Cold War/NATO days where tanks crossing farmland during exercises resulted in a certain payment that had already been negotiated. But let a stray chicken be run over by a jeep passing by and you could end up having to pay for more chicken than Colonel Sanders could ever fry because you had to pay for that chicken and all of its potential progeny!
It would be nice if the farmer allowed his humanity to come through to recognize the needs of the families but he has a point about the cost to make him whole after the bodies are recovered.
I was thinking for the purposes of retrieving the remains and restoring the property at their expense. Then it wouldn’t cost him anything.
I see your concern; I didn’t quite think of it that way.
Looks like there are some kind hearted Germans around these days.
Well put. This is a national disgrace for Germany. Can’t their busybody government intervene?
OK, time to firebomb a few German cities just to remind them who won the war and why.
So was Poland.
LOL! Very good!
Was wondering when that would come up. Yeah, he just wants his piece of the pie. Probably hasn't had any good maneuver damage income in about 15 years now.
“The families would like the aircraft to be excavated and any remains to be placed with the rest of the crew. “
I’m pretty sure the families are not going to pay personally for the “German historians” excavations, it’s the British and/or German taxpayers who will foot the bill.
Why should this farmer have to be the one to take a personal financial hit from it ?
This guy should want the remains of the airmen back with the families for proper burial.Send the BBMF lancaster over his farm as a reminder.
Damn good one
You really are a sh*t bird.I hope you know that.I wont even try to explain.
Post number 10 is just the sort of stuff that’s had O’Reilly sporting wood of late. Stupid sh*t shows up everywere.
Does he have a crop growing there or is it just a empty field?
I think the joke about German farmers was that the first born son inherited the maneuver damage and the second born son inherited the farm (because maneuver damages were worth more than the farm).
Would I expect to be paid for the damages created by some New York people whose Civil War ancestor’s remains are found on my property through no volition of my own? Even if they ‘feel’ I should eat the expense? Not just no, but hell, no.
The irksome piety on this thread is revolting.
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