Nazi medal found!! Plus other goodies.. update on medal!

viper771 · Sep 13, 2006

Hey guys! Well I decided to go out for a few hours today.. I thought I was gonna get run out of the woods by a local(the spot I was at is close to some trails). He spoke good english and stopped his run to come see what I was up to. He saw the hole I was digging was "too deep", and informed me it is illegal to DIG in this part of germany, but its ok to use a metal detector (go figure right). But I explained to him the forrest guy I came across before didn't mind, and that I always cover up my holes. He said, "well I think what you are doing is ok, just don't cut up roots, etc bec I am a nature lover". So I said thats ok ( i am pretty sure there was a cannon ball under the big roots I uncovered, didn't have a hatchet with me). So he asked what do I expect to find out here, and what have I found. I showed him a musket ball and some grape shot.... and some other junk I found, which helped me since I told him I take any junk I find out of the forest. I showed him the nazi medal, and man did his eyes get big! I asked him to read what it said on it. He said was a medal given to soliders who fought on the EASTERN FRONT 1941-1942! HOW COOL IS THAT?? I was lucky he came along. "A little treasure" he said, so at least the medal was interesting to him. So he just said not to dig tooo deep bec of bombs too. Then he left and I continued to hunt.. here is a list of what I found:

nazi medal
some kind of religious medal (I know the other guys have found these around here, mostly from german soliders who dropped them)
piece of cannon ball (my second piece

)
3 pieces of grape shot
5 musket balls
2 50 cal casings
1 german shell casing
metal pieces
tip of a knife or sword? (not sure yet, could be junk)
misc pieces pf metal
nails
bolt
piece of light bulb
some piece of something I do not know what it is (will take pict)
an old soda can buried about a foot deep

I think that just about covers it. I will get picts up tonight (PROMISE). So check back later if you are interested HAPPY HUNTING!

Bavaria Mike · Sep 14, 2006

Hey Viper, get one of those saws, they rip right through the roots, 2" roots are easy. I also just noticed your religious pendant, I found one like it about a month ago, posted a pic, is it the same one? The date of 1800 can be seen below the heart lower left. Detecting in the Rhineland Pfalz is legal as long as you are not looking for old relics, go figure, you can detect for newer coins and such but not older Roman coins. If you are detecting for old relics then you legally need to have a permit and show the archaeologists your finds. They are very cool about the process as the archies really just want to document the finds to areas and history and they should. You are not allowed to dig below the humous line into the clay even with a permit as a detector hobbyist. Getting a permit, for you, would be a real pain in the butt with the language barrier. Here in Bavaria, I have to request land by the land number/owner on my permit, there in the Rhineland Pfalz I understand they will assign you an area and even tell you where older sites are and where good sites can be found but they may not do that for an American who will be leaving in a few years. I wish I had that support here but I have managed to make a good relationship with our local area officials and land owners. Good luck and HH, Mike

viper771 · Sep 14, 2006

Hey bird! Long time no see! I parked on the dirt road that leads to the soccer field (i think thats the staduim you were talking about).. there is some kind of building/rest area? right by where I parked. matt said you had a cannonball marked out somewhere. Where I found those roots, nobody was digging there.. so i am sure it wasn't yours. I wouldn't claim jump you lol! I need to get a saw too, unless the roots are making the detector go off? I dunno? I walked ALL the woods from where I parked to the main road that runs into morlautern. From where my cannonball piece was found in the woods, there was NOTHING from that point on. Up over 2 ridges away, I found more ww2 stuff..

Hey mike, thanks for the info! Yeah I figured the language barrier would be a problem. I would like to get a license just so I can show ppl I am not trashing their woods (or roots). Why can't you dig into the clay? It is bec of unexploded bombs? Most ppl haven't really seemed to care about us digging, as long as it isn't in a planted field. It is just hard to figure out where I should go, or who to ask. I have a hard enough time talking to germans as it is. The prob is, a lot of the cannonball pieces, or whole ones are about a foot down at least. I may have to keep risking getting run out of the woods or something hehe.

My medal is SIMILAR but not the same. It has writting on the edges on both sides(like yours), one heart on one side has a cross on the top of it, and a crown of thorns around it. The other side has a heart with a sword going into it.. Your medal is pretty cool though! We should go hunt sometime! Ill be here for 3 more years

Sounds like an expedition should be brewing up

Happy Hunting guys!

By the way I found some stuff on the net about the medal. I guess they were not different colors. It is made of Zinc.. thats why I almost didn't pick it up For more info on the medal go here:http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:...WINTERSCHLACHT+medal&hl=de&gl=de&ct=clnk&cd=3

PBK · Sep 14, 2006

The pierced heart is the Immaculate Heart of Mary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Heart_of_Mary

viper771 · Sep 14, 2006

Ah hA! Thanks for the info! Yep, the heart looks just like that one the one side. The german is hard to read, even after cleaning it up. It seems a LOT of soliders, from axis and allied nations had these kinds of medals. It kind of makes you wonder what happend to the ppl who lost them. Thanks again!

Salvager · Sep 15, 2006

viper771 said:
It kind of makes you wonder what happend to the ppl who lost them.

Maybe its better to not know in this case?

NICE finds!!! Must be different comming from a country where you can find 2000 year old coins and relics, major world artifaccts AND all the recent stuff.

But you can keep the bombs!!!

Cheers,

Jesse

Bavaria Mike · Sep 15, 2006

Hey Viper, I believe the Archies will give you an area of farm fields to detect, they will not give you old ruins. The farm fields are plowed and disturbed up to around 15" but they don't usually plow into the clay, thus, the clay layers are intact as they were for hundreds/thousands of years so the Archies do not want you to disturb that layer where artifacts could be. My cannon ball was about 15" down just below the clay line in the forest, shallow humous layer for a forest for some reason I don't know. HH, Mike