as some of you might know, have thieves stolen military equipment from several camp sites at the Tanks in Town MV Event at Mons (Belgium) last year. I was "slightly shocked", because this issue was completely new to me. The sad thing is not that much the loss of equipment, it's more the "moral damage": the loss of confidence in such Events for the future.
But it seems, that this negative personal experience was only the beginning of a sort of avalanche of similar criminal incident's...
So a collector-friend informed me a while ago on fake WW2 Wehrmacht items. Not a big surprise, if you see the pricetag's of German WW2 artefacts. = If the price is high enough, you will find allways someone "clever" that is starting to sell fake medals and uniform parts. So this issue is not really new.
But now it seems that there are specialized Gang's operating in Europe, that are stealing Wehrmacht medals and memorablia directly from the owners, German veteran's, using a member list of the "Ordensgemeinschaft der Ritterkreuzträger" (OdR), an honorable vets organization.
So members of this Gang are visiting those veterans, ask for their medals and their time with the Wehrmacht and are stealing during the conversation parts of those private collections. Up to now 5 similar cases have been reported to the German Police, but it are maybe more, because some of the vetrans might not have recognized the loss because of their age...
In addition are there reports around on the web, that other organized criminals are specialized on stealing during Militaria fairs.
So the last issue of the well known La Gleize militaria fair in the Ardennes and the Waffenbörse at Kassel, the largest of it's kind in Germany have been in focus of those specialized Gang's.
At La Gleize a German Fallschirmjäger helmet was stolen from the Dutch trader Mark van Thiel. In addition was equipment from a parked traders car stolen and bag's from visitors have been cutted to get access to what was carried in them.
It seem's that even tombstones are not any longer safe: the tombstone of the German destroyer tank commander Michael Wittmann was stolen from the military cemetary at La Cambe (Normandy) on the 20.07.2015. I remember this grave from my 2013 visit in Normandy and was impressed by the amount of fresh flowers on it at this time.
An German Reichsadler has been stolen from an abandoned building of the former "Glyn Hughes Hospital" at Bergen-Hohne (Germany) on about the 16.06.2015 - leaving an massive hole in the building.
The full report on those incidents can be read at the German collectors site "Forum Historicum":
http://www.forum-historicum.de/achtung-diebstahl.html
So if you get items like that offered by unknown "suspicious" persons, please make sure that they are not stolen and report stolen items directly to your local Police.
If you are visiting militaria fairs as La Gleize (Belgium), Waffenbörse Kassel (Germany) you should be alert.
Sad to read thing's like this...
Keep 'em Rolling,
Joakim