seabed for decades their contents are repeatedly washed up on the region s coasts. beachgoers. there have been frequent cases of people unwittingly picking up explosive gun cottonwood used by the german navy during the war frank rudolf who spent years inspecting munitions finds on germany s beaches and shows us how treacherous gun cotton is he doesn t want us to go for it looks like a perfectly normal stone there s hardly any way to tell the difference if you pick one up your hands will be stained yellow due to a dye it contains called hex a night show defend alarm in and you will not be able to wash that stain off your fingers it s carcinogenic and causes genetic mutations and is very harmful when breathed in or swallowed pretty nasty stuff from pleased. on the left is a normal stone from the sign of h. and next was a similar looking lump of gun cotton paid to phones in his childhood friends used to play around with the explosive materials they found on the beach they