Feldgrau.net

All, as a result of a number of criminal charges having been laid against this person, his membership of Feldgrau as been suspended pending a resolution of legal proceedings. The Forum and its members take a VERY dim view of the sort of illegal activity alleged, and in no way condone it on any level whatsoever

I was shocked to hear the news about what Mansal Denton had allegedly done. I found all manner of negative information about the incident on the Web, even from the World Jewish Congress. It is behavior such as this that causes other researchers to have to endure major security obstacles when visiting archives. I have removed Mansal Danton as a "Feldgrau Published Author".

John

Shameful.

I am glad he was caught with his pants down; on the other hand i cannot help feeling bad that such a waste of youth and talent went down the drain.
He offered to translate my writing for me in Dutch, and even find me a Dutch publisher. I don't understand why, because if I wanted it to be published in Dutch, I could have done it myself. But it seemed like a nice 'friendship" gesture.
Goes to show that you can't judge a book by it's cover.
H.N.

Although I am glad this alleged documents thief has been caught, I am saddened by two facts :

1) that there are people who would want to buy obviously stolen documents and
2) the fact that Mansal abused the trust in him by stealing from the archive.


It is a sad fact that in every Archive documents 'disappear' in some way , and that this has led to a much stricter entry- and viewing policy at the various archives around the world.

I can only hope that Mansal sees the wrong in his actions in time , but he will bear with him the knowledge , that he can not be trusted in this respect for a long time (if not for life)

nico

From what I've been able to ascertain, only via the net, is that Mansal was charged/arrested back in mid January. It is now late March. What has happened since?? Does anyone know exactly?

Yesterday morning I contacted Mansal Denton by PM right after another forum member brought the adverse Internet reports to my attention. Mansal Denton replied less than an hour later and could offer no explanation and said that the case against him was still open. It’s just a guess, but possibly the local authorities have given him some time to recover the documents that he allegedly removed from the archive without authorization. The prospect of spending up to 20 years in a Texas prison would motivate most people to do whatever they could to lessen their prison time. He can probably also reckon with some unwelcome contact from the Internal Revenue Service as they will be interested in collecting taxes on any income from the reported sale of thousands of rare Holocaust documents.

Is it clear that that is this Mansal D. you is waving around under diverse pseudonyms on many respectable internet foras?

Jan-Hendrik

Anyone can do a Google search against "Mansal Denton" and form their own conclusions.

I am really upset by this story. I had helped him for his Narwa book by providing a number of photographs. I feel a bit shameful now to know that my name is written in the acknowledgements.

Unfortunately, he is not the only one to steal. When I went to Freiburg last year, I felt very angry when I discovered that many Totenkopf pictures from the Vopersal Archives were no more on their support. I also had a long chat three years ago with Herr Möser, from the Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde. He told me that many documents from the SS-Personalhauptamt had disappeared. He remembered to have seen a Führerstellenbesetzungsliste of s.SS-Pz.Abt.503 a few years back and he was now unable to find it again.

I was most annoyed when I heard of this, especially as the suspect betrayed the trust the archive owner had on him. However, it also makes one wonder how much humanity is left in a legal system that can put someone behind bars for 20 years for a non-violent property crime? Not much different from Taliban "justice".

Charles Trang wrote:Unfortunately, he is not the only one to steal. When I went to Freiburg last year, I felt very angry when I discovered that many Totenkopf pictures from the Vopersal Archives were no more on their support. I also had a long chat three years ago with Herr Möser, from the Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde. He told me that many documents from the SS-Personalhauptamt had disappeared. He remembered to have seen a Führerstellenbesetzungsliste of s.SS-Pz.Abt.503 a few years back and he was now unable to find it again.

I've always been amazed by how lax security is at Freiburg compared with other archives, so I am not surprised that things have been taken.

As someone who's been using archives for nearly 20 years, I'm conscious that the material is there for us and future generations to learn from and should be preserved. I remember vividly a 'eureka' moment, finding Rommel's signature scribbled on some document; for me it was a small, but very real physical link with someone who shaped history. Others should not be denied that privilege.

Seems many young people lack of any respect. This reminds me of a visit in the GESTAPO central in cologne.
Unbelieaveble, but the prison in the cellar was used until the 70's as storage. It became a museum finally in the 80's,
our city is slow with such things.
On my visit few years ago, they showed several items, which had been found during the restauration of the cellar.
One of it was a small blue and white rag, with the text OST for Ostarbeiter/east worker. It had been dug out with
other items of the imprisoned during the restauration, such as rings, papers, a fork, small knifes and much more.

On my last visit, several items were only shown as photographies, with the comment they had been stolen.
What made me even more angry was the fact, that people had written on the prison cell walls. You have to
know, many of the walls still show writings and scratchings of imprisoned, people who were tortured and some even killed in
that house during the war. Some of these writings were overpainted several times in the war, and after the war some cells got a new paint too, when the house was used by cologne city administration.

But a few rooms were not painted, or just poorly, and restaurators could restore the old writings
and scratchings on many of the cell walls. There is an agreement through all instances that the cells will never be
painted again, so that the markings and writings will not disappear. Which means on the other side, more and more
comments from tourists, students on excursion and others were added. Right next to a scratching of a man who send
his family in poland a last wishes, you read a comment from some 18 year old. Unfortunately our city is slow,
and it took them until 2010 to finally install some cameras to the cells.
In that cellar prison you smell urin and sweat until today, and i dont mean that literally. It stinks down there, because
about 10 years there were several hundred people imprisoned simultaneously, up to 33 people in a cell of a few square meters.
And still, in such a shocking place, there are people that lack of the respect and damage not only a piece of history, but
a piece of remembrance of the people who died. Sorry if i got a bit out of hand, and away from topic.

Richard Hargreaves wrote:
I've always been amazed by how lax security is at Freiburg compared with other archives, so I am not surprised that things have been taken.

Agree 100%

That whole place could go up like a roman candle. The access you have to so many documents in a short amount of time is great, but you can't help but wonder about the theft and damage done to the documents over the years.