My first ever review after many years or rating things but I couldn't resist for this. It's interesting to watch as a fan of ww2 history but it's very amateur. A bit pathetic that they have their little arguments. The style is a bit like a bad reality tv show. The American guy is so arrogant whilst being wrong a lot. He's the worst kind of American. Too much self belief with no skill to back it up. Some interesting things here but wish it had been done by some interesting, intelligent, humble, respectful professionals.
23 Reviews
What a Great Show!
splumer17 August 2016
As a WWII history buff, I was intrigued when I saw this on Netflix. I tried the first episode just out of curiosity, and ended up watching three episodes in a row. (Possibly four as I'm still watching) The series follows four historians as they track down and excavate WWII battle sites on the eastern front. It stars Craig Gottlieb, who has appeared on "Pawn Stars" and "American Restoration," and three Brits for whom this is their first TV show. Each brings their unique area of expertise into play as they investigate battle sites, talk to locals and eventually put shovel to dirt finding relics from World War II. They recover a lot "stuff," bits of uniforms, weapons, personal items, but they've also recovered a few bodies, which they turn over to military cemeteries for burial. I would like to have seen them match up the bodies they've found with living descendants, but so far they haven't.
While it's produced in the familiar "reality TV" style, the show eschews the interpersonal drama to focus on the recovery not just of old stuff from the ground, but a part of history that is often overlooked: the personal slice of life for the average soldier in history's largest conflict. I love this show and really hope it continues.
While it's produced in the familiar "reality TV" style, the show eschews the interpersonal drama to focus on the recovery not just of old stuff from the ground, but a part of history that is often overlooked: the personal slice of life for the average soldier in history's largest conflict. I love this show and really hope it continues.
One day they'll dig up programmes like this to show just how bad TV can be
malcp8 March 2018
Warning: Spoilers
"I'm Craig and I know tactics". "How personal is that?" Vacuous "experts" dig up sites in Latvia where there is a 90% chance of finding WWII relics with the kind of reckless abandonment that invites disaster and really deserves prosecution. Leaping gleefully like children whenever some tangible find comes to the surface. "hey its a bayonet", "Let me see" "wow that's sharp". this is treasure-hunting at its worst with some vague allusions towards preserving the sites from plunder by the sort of dreadful people who are just down the road doing exactly the same thing as our "experts" without a camera crew to excuse their actions. Watch what happens when they set fire to unexploded ordinance! Oh gosh is that a grenade pin? This is the TV you get when the only thing that drives TV programming is viewing figures and how cheap it is to make. Total crap made by people who think it's all you lot deserve filling channels that need stuff to fill them up that doesn't cost much because there are too many channels.
I personally enjoyed the show
candybiker25 April 2018
Difficult to watch.
gurtol26 October 2018
The show starts and you're instantly beaten over the head with an air of smugness and superiority as you're introduced to 4 deeply unlikable individuals each claiming to be an "expert" in some particular area. Craig in particular I just want to slap in the face every time he opens his mouth.
From the very first episode they constantly bang on about "black diggers" people who dig battlefields without permission and sell the finds for profit which I agree is wrong but I genuinely get the impression that these 4 care more about demonizing these people and painting themselves as the good guys because "we get permission from the government and give our finds to museums" than they do about the actual recovery of bodies and artefacts. Its honestly pretty disgusting.
Other people have complained about certain other aspects of the show like the shooting of weapons ECT. I'm not going to complain too much about things like that because I know they're trying to make a tv show and they're trying to make it as interesting as possible. Also the disrespectful nature of which they conduct their digs which personally i dont really agree with but I do not recommend this show to anybody regardless.
Despicable netflix grave-robber show pulled after actual historians and archaeologists condemn it
random-7077813 April 2019
Wow. Looting war graves? Scooping out remains with a backhoe??
No wonder why this show was canceled by every major broadcasting company. netflix ought to be ashamed. This team has no actual archaeologists associated with any institution because they would be dismissed from any reputable institution. Can you imagine a show going to the american battlefield commission cemetery at Normandy and just scooping out graves with a backhoe? going along and taking all the dog tags? tossing the bones around to get at the belt buckles???
No wonder why this show was canceled by every major broadcasting company. netflix ought to be ashamed. This team has no actual archaeologists associated with any institution because they would be dismissed from any reputable institution. Can you imagine a show going to the american battlefield commission cemetery at Normandy and just scooping out graves with a backhoe? going along and taking all the dog tags? tossing the bones around to get at the belt buckles???
Amazing & Intriguing!!
riossti-4518311 June 2019
I'm not sure why there is so much fuss on here in regard to the show or the methods used. Yes they stumble across bodies. They also ensure they get a proper burial and try to provide closure for any family that they can find. They have govt permission and permits. They hand over relics to the countries they are found in per their contractual agreements with said countries. The bodies are better off somewhere where they can be visited and not lost in the mud somewhere. Grow up and stop being babies. It's a shame the show doesn't have more episodes!!!
Cast
durkinmasonry29 November 2018
Completely crazy controversy
zbrzjgb8 November 2021
Great but kinda bad
jacobnnz17 September 2023
The show is great, but the guys are horrendous, they are each "experts" but, one of the guys is only on the show because he has polish heritage? If you can get past their arguments, and constantly trying to one-up each other, then I recommend this show. I would say Episode 1 is the worst because of their arguments the whole episode. I wished they'd put aside their "expertise(ego)" and made another season, or at least more than a 4 episode season, but nearing the 7 year its obvious that isn't gonna happen. Also the audio is horrendous, like in some parts you can't make out the narrator because they are blasting old war footage. But overall, the editing, structure, and finds are good, just the constant reoccurring arguments they kept putting the episodes was bad.
The worst possible portrayal of battlefield archaeology
Kazabazua21 January 2018
Battlefield Recovery, as seen on Netflix, where only 4 episodes are available (dating from 2016), purports to be about the history aspect of the metal detectors' hobby, but really it is all about finding and collecting.
Episodes 1 and 2 are horrendous examples of battlefield looting, with absolutely no guided archaeology portrayed, although we are assured by the producers in an onscreen overlay message that proper techniques were observed.
There are a couple of truly distasteful light weapons demonstrations, with the hosts whooping and laughing as they spray machine pistols and assault rifles into the bushes.
The recovery of buried human remains is done with no sensitivity and with no preservation of the dignity due the dead.
Having watched the true archaeologists on Time Team and Battlefield Detectives sensitively and meticulously deal with other theatres of war, I cannot recommend this series. It is on a moral and ethical par with the Jerry Springer Show.
Episodes 1 and 2 are horrendous examples of battlefield looting, with absolutely no guided archaeology portrayed, although we are assured by the producers in an onscreen overlay message that proper techniques were observed.
There are a couple of truly distasteful light weapons demonstrations, with the hosts whooping and laughing as they spray machine pistols and assault rifles into the bushes.
The recovery of buried human remains is done with no sensitivity and with no preservation of the dignity due the dead.
Having watched the true archaeologists on Time Team and Battlefield Detectives sensitively and meticulously deal with other theatres of war, I cannot recommend this series. It is on a moral and ethical par with the Jerry Springer Show.
Not the right facts
zandazack7 December 2018
Not only bad, they should be prosecuted
Styopa20 February 2018
Little more than graverobbers with videocams.
NO archaeological rigor, NO site preservation, NO attempt to glean any actual science of historical information - just doofuses jamming their shovels into the ground, hoping to dig up some corpses with crap they can sell. (Note, they vaguely suggest that some of their stuff goes to museums but have not really clarified what they do with the relics they find.) They DO apparently give the remains to the local authorities after manhandling them with no dignity or grace.
Amateurish, immature boors treating what should be resting places of the dead with disgrace.
NO archaeological rigor, NO site preservation, NO attempt to glean any actual science of historical information - just doofuses jamming their shovels into the ground, hoping to dig up some corpses with crap they can sell. (Note, they vaguely suggest that some of their stuff goes to museums but have not really clarified what they do with the relics they find.) They DO apparently give the remains to the local authorities after manhandling them with no dignity or grace.
Amateurish, immature boors treating what should be resting places of the dead with disgrace.
Ghouls with metal detectors
runcap13 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
So are fine team of grave robbers are in Western Poland (Hitorical mixed German/Polish peoples until 1945 or when the last Germans were expelled from ancestral homes) The four man Ghoul team are in a small Polish village digging up a grave pit near the village cemetery ( mixed German/Polish cemetery ) Searching for the remains of German soldiers that were dumped in this pit after dying defending the local bridge against the Russian onslaught in the closing days of WW2. What the Ghouls found were skeletons & fragments of German uniforms ,plus to their surprise the skeletons of women and children that were murdered (bullet between the eyes & crushed skulls) by Red Army & local Poles , killing their German neighbors in a frenzy of ethnic cleansing & revenge (the youngest a three year old toddler wearing booties )
A war crime in the backwoods of this hick village , but since the Ghoul team found the pit with the help of the village elders(that are probably occupying the homes of those murdered in the pit) the remains of thirty two men, women & children were removed & dumped into a another pit dressed up in cold Grey Granite in a hidden part of Poland that has the bones of another 100,000 ethnic Germans that were also murdered...dragging bones of those slaughtered far from ancestral homes to another pit to hide the evidence of Poland's bestial insanity of ethnic cleansing ,rape & murder on par with the worst of Nazism & to erase the guilt of people that now don't have this troublesome nasty reminder of a execution pit next to the local cemetery & can sleep easy in the stolen homes they now occupy. All the while fake Ghoul Crocodile tears are flowing & history books are cooked to make this crime more acceptable & the show easier to digest . Would American soldiers killed in action get the same pawed over treatment? ...You know that answer.
"That maybe they (German villagers )deserved it for being caught on the wrong side of history"
I hope the spirits haunt this village for "Paranormal Recovery"
A war crime in the backwoods of this hick village , but since the Ghoul team found the pit with the help of the village elders(that are probably occupying the homes of those murdered in the pit) the remains of thirty two men, women & children were removed & dumped into a another pit dressed up in cold Grey Granite in a hidden part of Poland that has the bones of another 100,000 ethnic Germans that were also murdered...dragging bones of those slaughtered far from ancestral homes to another pit to hide the evidence of Poland's bestial insanity of ethnic cleansing ,rape & murder on par with the worst of Nazism & to erase the guilt of people that now don't have this troublesome nasty reminder of a execution pit next to the local cemetery & can sleep easy in the stolen homes they now occupy. All the while fake Ghoul Crocodile tears are flowing & history books are cooked to make this crime more acceptable & the show easier to digest . Would American soldiers killed in action get the same pawed over treatment? ...You know that answer.
"That maybe they (German villagers )deserved it for being caught on the wrong side of history"
I hope the spirits haunt this village for "Paranormal Recovery"
BATTLEFIELD OBLITERATION
rurick24 August 2018
Warning: Spoilers
As a WWII and VIETNAM artifact collector and anateur historian I had high hopes..but like the series on the scripted Thames River archeology, this was a terribly expoitive attemp..
These "experts" blunder around and actually use excavating equipment such as back hoes to dig massive holes in the "sites" to recover artifacts, thus obliterating any provenance or in situ relevance.
They display absolutely no respect for human remains or the historical significance of what they have discovered.
I was stationed in Vietnam for 13 months (Danang), and on the WEST WALL (Spangdahlem/Bitburg), Germany for 7 1/2 years. I personally explored the front from Huertgen Forest all the way south past Trier.
As soon as human remains are discovered the appropriate authorities should be brought in to record and document any further excavations.
I know; My landlord's pastures had bunkers and yes, we found remains. Plus any and all ordinance and explosives should also be reported to the authorities. In Germany around the US bases we called EOD, and they handled it. For one of the actors to actually pick up and examine an incendiary device is just plain stupid given his so called "expertise".
nuff said.
thank God no one was hurt ripping holes in the ground.
Some Historical value but incredibly limited
vikingwarrior-6794912 April 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Like many guys who grew up with a fascination of the Nazi war machine, the hunt for WWII items can be a strong lure to those who love the idea of a treasure hunt. My gut feeling about this show was that a crew of 4 guys found they too had that urge to dig up "cool stuff," and hey, let's make a TV show from it. There is some historical value, as it lightly explores a side of the war that the west for the most part ignored. Finding any artifacts 70-75 years after the fact is impressive, but the digging was certainly not done with much of any archaeological precision. Some interesting and sad discoveries were made that reflect the hate-filled and brutal nature of the end of the war, as Soviets pushed Germans back to their homeland. I'm sorry, but that little historical value, as interesting as I had hoped it would be left me a bit miffed at the ametuerish and almost childish manner in which these guys unearthed human remains. Supposedly they turned over finds to museums and human remains were given proper burials, but curiously, none of that is really witnessed. A professional and historically accurate dig would have been amazing. This guys reminded me of ghouls. Careful what you look for guys....not just bullets and bayonets get dug up! More science and historical background could have made this a better learning opportunity.
This is shocking history
alexbrad-1036223 May 2020
A Controversial and Lazily Formulaic Exercise in Reality TV History
andywbrockman1 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Originally titled "Nazi War Diggers", the first broadcast of this controversial series was canceled by the National Geographic Channel in 2014 after protests from archaeologists and military historians who alleged that it showed the distasteful and incompetent handling of human remains by unqualified amateurs and dangerous practices regarding excavations and the handling of explosive devices found on the battlefields of Courland in Latvia.
Slightly re-edited and re-titled "Battlefield Recovery", while the makers claimed that the series was fully compliant with local laws and safety rules, the series remained controversial when shown in the UK in early 2016 attracting over one hundred and thirty complaints to the UK regulatory body Ofcom.
Critics, including many archaeologists with experience of excavation on battlefields and the scenes of war crimes, attacked the use of three untrained UK based metal detectorists and an American dealer in Nazi memorabilia, to portray the emotive subject of the exhumation of human remains from the politically sensitive battlefields of the Eastern Front. It was also claimed that the show's portrayal of weapons as big boys toys to be fired amid whoops and yells was distasteful, and that the valuing, by artifact dealer Craig Gottleib, of some of the objects found by the team acted to encourage the growing trade in illicitly recovered artifacts from World War One and World War Two battlefields.
Essentially "Battlefield Recovery" adopts a standard cheap reality history format which majors on a group of "characters finding stuff", to the extent that most of the events in three of the four programs are completely interchangeable, and anyone looking for insights into World War Two on the Eastern Front, let alone the practice of battlefield archaeology will be disappointed. "Time Team" it is not.
The only exception to the ultimately repetitive formula is the last two thirds of the programs set in Poland which examines the site of a possible war crime which took place in 1945, involving the execution of civilians. However even here, what was already a painful watch becomes more so as the team are taken out of their boys own adventure comfort zone and confronted with the evidence for what the toys they dug up in the other programs actually do to innocent human beings.
Here the viewer gets a sense of what the series could have been, had it been blessed with producers who were prepared to tell a historical story rather than embark on a lazily formulaic travelogue to look for sexy military stuff, and presenters with genuine curiosity who actually knew about the human and political context of the history they were surrounded by. It is also worth noting that in the Polish episode the actual digging was done by an experienced local team, Pomost, under the direction of an archaeologist.
Slightly re-edited and re-titled "Battlefield Recovery", while the makers claimed that the series was fully compliant with local laws and safety rules, the series remained controversial when shown in the UK in early 2016 attracting over one hundred and thirty complaints to the UK regulatory body Ofcom.
Critics, including many archaeologists with experience of excavation on battlefields and the scenes of war crimes, attacked the use of three untrained UK based metal detectorists and an American dealer in Nazi memorabilia, to portray the emotive subject of the exhumation of human remains from the politically sensitive battlefields of the Eastern Front. It was also claimed that the show's portrayal of weapons as big boys toys to be fired amid whoops and yells was distasteful, and that the valuing, by artifact dealer Craig Gottleib, of some of the objects found by the team acted to encourage the growing trade in illicitly recovered artifacts from World War One and World War Two battlefields.
Essentially "Battlefield Recovery" adopts a standard cheap reality history format which majors on a group of "characters finding stuff", to the extent that most of the events in three of the four programs are completely interchangeable, and anyone looking for insights into World War Two on the Eastern Front, let alone the practice of battlefield archaeology will be disappointed. "Time Team" it is not.
The only exception to the ultimately repetitive formula is the last two thirds of the programs set in Poland which examines the site of a possible war crime which took place in 1945, involving the execution of civilians. However even here, what was already a painful watch becomes more so as the team are taken out of their boys own adventure comfort zone and confronted with the evidence for what the toys they dug up in the other programs actually do to innocent human beings.
Here the viewer gets a sense of what the series could have been, had it been blessed with producers who were prepared to tell a historical story rather than embark on a lazily formulaic travelogue to look for sexy military stuff, and presenters with genuine curiosity who actually knew about the human and political context of the history they were surrounded by. It is also worth noting that in the Polish episode the actual digging was done by an experienced local team, Pomost, under the direction of an archaeologist.
"Reality Television"
mytkllt20 September 2018
Another "reality" show, where the camera man is positioned ahead of the cast... yet the cast still gets surprised by what is ahead of them. Nonsense. Just show the helmets n bullets n tell us about em. I dont care about your pretend troubles.
When You Try To Make Something Out Of Nothing...You Get This Show
nebohr11 June 2020
Tasteless, stupid, boring. For some strange reason I can see, in my mind, these "adventurers" sitting around a dumpster fire in their trailer park wearing torn and stained wife beaters; cooking hot dogs and drinking beer.
Amateur imbeciles
dairm17 December 2020
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