Why not? In just a few hundred years you wouldn’t say that. So why not now? Where is the time limit for artefact retrieval when it becomes archaeology? Aren’t there some archaeology fields that deal with as recent things as WW2 battlefields or industrial zones?
If I could obtain some early nuclear weaponry research artefacts for sane (read: low) price, I wouldn’t mind at all.
They will now that you have pointed it out.
Archeologists don’t retrieve artifacts, or relics. They carefully record the position and context of artifacts so that they might learn more about the site, and the cultures that used the site.
It would be fascinating to learn how the Nazis used this site and organized their atomic bomb project. But if the quality is limited to–“found a SS uniform, and a few helmets that we could flog on ebay” which is what “relic retrieval” implies to me, that information will be lost to future generations
And of course, it’s a grave site. Tread carefully.
It doesn’t.
Archaeology is about understanding past societies and past events. A lot of the evidence comes not from the artifacts themselves, but from their context: were they discovered in a burial, in a rubbish pit, in a layer of ash and rubble, etc., what were they associated with, what is the stratigraphy, etc.
With today’s photo/video systems and the negligible cost of recording, making a detailed site documentation during artefact retrieval should be a matter-of-course and there is no apology for not doing so.
If that can pay for the project, it’s the cost of getting the recordings and other information to interpret. Better to document the place before somebody gets an idea that the area should be “developed” (and destroys the place), or that the bunker would attract the wrong kind of attention and it should be filled with concrete (and destroyed).
The popular archeology television program Time Team, in order to secure its reputation among professionals who would otherwise criticize its rather hasty dig schedule, has a site full of reports documenting each site. The report for Hitler’s Island Fortress may be of some interest.
Research Aim 2:
2.1.5 To characterise the condition of sub-surface archaeological deposits. Archaeological deposits relating to the Second World War are a fragile and finite resource.
Look at the maps, and appendices. 45 pages of tersely written descriptions and detailed survey maps of a site that’s comparatively small. This is not something you can do by simply waving a video camera about.
Very true, that.
However, when you have enough photos from different angles (let’s assume a video is a sequence of photos for the sake of argument), you can reconstruct a 3d model of the scene. Which itself can be good (or at least better than nothing). More detailed descriptions are of course way superior to that.
The Nazis saw the production of the Messerschmitt Me262 jet fighter as the strategic necessary tool to win the war. In a time where propeller airplanes were the standard a fighter with over 500 mph top speed could definitely make a difference in an airborne war. Although the plane was developed in Stuttgart, the production of thousands of these planes was planned to take place in the alpine region of Austria; in several bunkers all over the land, each one producing a part of the secret plane. Gusen was producing the fuselage. The facility was built in a massive granite and gneiss plateau; the rocks responsible for radioactive radon gas, that can be found in most cellars of northern Austria by the way (it causes lots of troubles in ordinary houses…) That’s the reason for the increased radioactivity that can be found in this bunker as well (double level as normal).
And: as you can see on any Me262 in a museum the planes are marked “RADIOAKTIV”, because they house instruments with noctilucent hands. This also may lead to a false interpretation.
Hitler made a mistake: he wanted Wunderwaffe Me262 to act as a “Blitzbomber”, but the Jet was not precise enough for bombing operations - it was the prototype for all jetflighters that were following…
The foto of the article shows Konzentrationslager Mauthausen about 4 km east of the Bunker, where most of the murdered civilian victims where kept imprisoned. Their only fault was not to be Aryan but having the knowledge to build planes and bunkers…
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