A Dunedin museum hopes to reunite a German solider's identity tag with his family, a century after he was killed in the Battle of the Somme during the World War I.
Reinhold Fätsch's identity tag. Photo: Supplied: The Toitū Otago Settlers Museum
The Toitū Otago Settlers Museum will repatriate the military dog tag to a museum in Hamburg.
It belonged to a young soldier from Hamburg, Reinhold Fätsch, who perished in the infamous battle in 1916.
After his death the tag was taken and traded among New Zealand troops.
It was bought to Dunedin after the war by a solider who hadn't been involved in any fighting, and his daughter gave it to the Toitū Otago Settlers Museum last year in the hope that the museum could help get it back to the solider's family.
The museum's curator, Seán Brosnahan, said it was likely the tag was stripped from the solider's body on the battlefield.
"When he fell in 1916, it was just before the New Zealanders arrived on the Somme Battlefields, and he fell in an area that was just adjacent to where the New Zealanders went into action.
"It seems quite possible to me that they strayed across his body, or someone did, and that's how the dog tag came to be removed from his body, which of course would've meant that it could never be identified, so his family would never have got any closure as to his fate apart from that he just went missing in action, so there's that sadness about it," he said.
Mr Brosnahan said it wasn't uncommon for soldiers to take belongings, such as dog tags, from fallen enemy soldiers.
"The New Zealand soldiers, and the Australians too, were notorious for what they called 'ratting', where if they were to go out during a raid into the German lines, they would strip prisoners, and strip bodies of anything that was sort of colourful or souvenir-like. Whether it was their dog tags, their medals, their unit badges, shoulder patches, binoculars, officer's revolvers, helmets ..."
In a surprising twist, Mr Brosnahan discovered the German solider, Mr Fätsch, lived near the same block in Hamburg, as his son currently resides.
"I've been able to work out that he came from Hamburg and the district of Altona. My son lives there and has done for a long time, so he's done a bit of work on our behalf, connecting up with the museum there, doing a bit of research on this solider, who actually appears to have lived just around the corner from where my son lives."
He said the local museum, the Altonaer Museum, was keen to accept the gift, but he hoped Mr Fätsch's family might come forward and one day be reunited with the tag.
The dog tag is expected to arrive in Germany by 15 September, which marks the centenary of the New Zealand Division's introduction to the Battle of Somme.