National Geographic Channel Pulls ‘Nazi War Diggers’ Series

National Geographic Channel said Monday that it would “indefinitely” pull a planned television series on unearthing Nazi war graves after days of blistering criticism from archeologists and others who said the show handled the dead with macabre disrespect.

The channel said that after “consulting with colleagues” at the National Geographic Society, it would not broadcast the series, “Nazi War Diggers,” in May as scheduled “while questions raised in recent days regarding accusations about the program can be properly reviewed.” The show was to have been broadcast globally except in the United States.

National Geographic Channel International had commissioned four episodes of the show, in which two British metal detecting specialists, a Polish relics hunter, and an American, Craig Gottlieb, who deals in Nazi World War II artifacts, hunt for the graves of German and Red Army soldiers on the Eastern Front.