"Pensioner forced to hand over Nazi tank kept in cellar" Topic

A German pensioner who kept a Second World War Nazi tank in his basement for over 30 years was given a 14-month suspended jail sentence and fined €50,000.00 EUR (£43,000) on Tuesday.

The 84-year-old, named only as Klaus-Dieter F under German privacy laws, admitted breaking the country's War Weapons Control Act in a plea bargain to avoid being sent to prison.

He also agreed to pay a further €200,000.00 EUR (£170,000) to charity under the terms of the deal.

As well as a 1943 Panther tank, he also kept an 88mm anti-aircraft gun, a torpedo, a mortar, 70 assault rifles and over 2,000 rounds of ammunition in the basement of his private villa in Heikendorf, a wealthy suburb of Kiel in northern Germany.

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That's quite some "lead pile"…

Well, there will be room in his basement for a really nice wargame table now.

Still, I hope he's OK. There are residential areas where a Panther and an 88 are about what you need for self-defense.

I hope the tank etc get a good home in a museum so everyone can enjoy them!

Wonder if the authorities were more concerned about the small arms and ammo than the tank?

Can't read it without joining !!

I couldn't help but think of the scene in Father Ted…

The story is on the BBC website as well.

Gary

All of that "booty" should be in a museum ! I hope that is where it goes in the end …

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A German pensioner who kept a Second World War Nazi tank in his basement for over 30 years was given a 14-month suspended jail sentence and fined €50,000.00 EUR (£43,000) on Tuesday.

The 84-year-old, named only as Klaus-Dieter F under German privacy laws, admitted breaking the country's War Weapons Control Act in a plea bargain to avoid being sent to prison.
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He also agreed to pay a further €200,000.00 EUR (£170,000) to charity under the terms of the deal.

As well as a 1943 Panther tank, he also kept an 88mm anti-aircraft gun, a torpedo, a mortar, 70 assault rifles and over 2,000 rounds of ammunition in the basement of his private villa in Heikendorf, a wealthy suburb of Kiel in northern Germany.

Prosecutors stumbled on the remarkable trove of weapons when they searched his home looking for stolen Nazi artworks after a tip-off in 2015.

Laywers for Klaus-Dieter F initially argued the weapons were a collection of memorabilia and were all deactivated and could no longer be used.

But the judge rejected that line of reasoning and urged the defence and prosecution to agree to a plea bargain to spare the 84-year-old jail time.
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Klaus-Dieter F is understood to be wealthy. But he will have some help raising funds to pay the fine and charitable donations after the judge rejected calls to confiscate the weapons.

Instead he ordered Klaus-Dieter F to sell the tank and anti-aircraft gun to a museum or approved collector within two years.

A museum in Seattle is understood to be in negotiations to buy the tank, while a private collector in Germany has expressed interest in the anti-aircraft gun.

Prosecutors alleged they also found extensive Nazi memorabilia in the basement, including swastikas, SS runes and mannequins in Nazi uniform, but these claims were not examined during the trial and Klaus-Dieter F's political views were not discussed.

Under German law it is illegal to display Nazi symbols or artefacts in public, but they can be kept for scholarly or museum purposes.

The German army had to be called in to help remove the tank and anti-aircraft gun from the cellar when they were first discovered.

The Panther, considered one of the most effective tanks deployed in the Second World War, weighed over 44 tons.

At the time of the discovery, Alexander Orth, the local mayor, told German media he was not surprised.

"He was chugging around in that thing during the snow disaster in 1978," he said.

The post German pensioner forced to hand over Nazi tank he kept in cellar for decades appeared first on The Telegraph.

Looking at the photo, the Panther was a pretty late one, with flammvernichters over the exhausts. These didn't appear until pretty late in the war. Pretty interesting stash of artifacts though!

Damon.

I feel for the guy actually

He bought them with his own money , when was legal to own a tank. It was found in a scrapyard in England and ship back to Germany. Why is ok to take someone Property in Europe?

Because owning it violated the law?

The tank was removed several years ago. This probably the formal court hearing on the matter which must have just ended. I assume the tank was kept in storage pending trial.

Yeah, it is a recycled story from 2015. I guess it has finally been adjudicated.

Sounds like he was better armed than the current German army… ;-)

"He was chugging around in that thing during the snow disaster in 1978"

Which is interesting because it suggests he'd owned it for longer than 30 years, that it came to him in driveable condition, and that it wasn't illegal to own a Panther in 1978…

I hope it ends up in a collection of driveables rather than on static display. Up close the Panther looks absolutely menacing and the Jagdpanther even more so.

If it was all deactivated as per vinceoramas comment above I can't see why the authorities were so concerned. I guess it was ruled that they classed as Nazi artefacts as they were originally produced / owned by the state at the time. I wonder is it illegal to have stamps, coins, banknotes, etc. from the same period?

And my wife complains about my Tamiya armor stash in the closet.

Apparently he had Hitler's bronze horses in his garden too and this all came to light when he offered them for sale. As they count as Nazi memorabilia they can only be put in museums, whereas he was trading them as an art dealer.

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Well he's a "war profiteer" …

I have followed this sad episode since the beginning and collected a certain amount of information, some of which may actually be true.

This tank had a VERY interesting history, from what I have been given to understand. It was apparently not a wartime-built Panther; it is said to have been one of about a dozen Panthers built under the auspices of the British occupation forces by former German factory technicians (for evaluation by the British Army) from uncompleted vehicles found abandoned in a bombed out factory in Hannover, Germany at war's end. Supposedly, each of these vehicles bore a brass plaque attesting to its special provenance. That is likely why the tank in question is a "very late model".

Supposedly, this German gentleman (who unfortunately is not named Jacques Littlefield) rescued the tank from a British scrapyard and had it shipped back to Germany where it was restored to running condition (supposedly with assistance of technicians from the German Bundeswehr).

The German owner had possessed this vehicle for some years and, considering that he was known to drive it down public streets of his town on occasion, it was hardly a secret to anyone. My impression is that its sudden (and WELL publicized) seizure by the German government was a politically driven act inspired by motives that will likely not be shared with us "hoi polloi".

Mark Felton has posted a YouTube video on this particular tank, if anyone has an interest.

B

@ Blutarski

Very interesting. I believe the Panther at the Bovington Tank Museum may be another example of the same post-WW2 batch built under allied supervision for evaluation.

It is instructive that none of the differentiating features of WW2 German armour – bulk, heavy frontal armour, outsize gun, limited mobility – was adopted by western nations afterwards. The USSR perhaps felt they had nothing to learn because they'd won. The west anticipated, in any future war, being outnumbered and on the defensive, like Germany had just been. Despite being in a similar tactical situation, they saw little that was worth copying in German tank design, other than high-velocity guns. Other German innovations, such as the assault rifle, the throwaway RPG and the 1,200rpm machine-gun, were adopted by NATO, so it wasn't some doctrinal distaste for German ideas.

I think you can look at the British Conqueror and Chieftan tanks and see a lot of the Tiger tank philosophy – big, heavy, hard-to-kill with a big gun. The Abrams seems like a really advanced Panther, again being optimized for killing enemy tanks.

The most startling thing about the Centurion is that it weighed less than a Tiger but was better on pretty well every measurement.

Perhaps by 1944 all the required lessons had been absorbed.

IIRC the French army had a battalion of Panthers until about 1950.

More details about the Panther. His and the one at Bovington have something in common:

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Supposedly he drove it on the streets of his town to get around in a big snowfall in 1978 as a snowplow.

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Wolfhag

I believe the Panther at the Bovington Tank Museum may be another example of the same post-WW2 batch built under allied supervision for evaluation.

There's no need to just believe that, it's a fact.

+1 Wolfhag.

B

This entire episode has an distinctly unpleasant political aroma orbiting around it.

When do the German authorities propose to finally demolish those "NAZI" flak towers in Berlin? These wartime architectural relics have been polluting the minds of everyday people with their national socialist auras for more than 75 years, "nicht wahr"???.

Why hasn't the Fuehrer bunker been buried/razed?

B

4C wrote – It is instructive that none of the differentiating features of WW2 German armour – bulk, heavy frontal armour, outsize gun, limited mobility – was adopted by western nations afterwards. The USSR perhaps felt they had nothing to learn because they'd won. The west anticipated, in any future war, being outnumbered and on the defensive, like Germany had just been. Despite being in a similar tactical situation, they saw little that was worth copying in German tank design, other than high-velocity guns.

Dunno 4C,
If you compare the detailed specifications of the MkV Panther versus the M26 Pershing, they are awfully close to one another.

> M26 is ~7.5pct lighter than the Panther: 46st vs 49.9st.
> M26 has bigger (but less effective using the standard APCBC ammunition readily available at the end of the war) gun: 90mm vs 75mm.
> M26 had thicker armor in all aspects: front, sides, rear, top.
> Panther had better hp/wt ratio: 103.8 vs 10.8hp/t.
> Panther had better ground clearance: 22in vs 17.2in.
> Both had same ground pressure: 12.5lbs/psi.
> Panther had a faster road speed: 28mph vs 25mph.
> Both had same grade climbing ability: 60pct.
> Both had same trench crossing capability: 8ft.
> Panther had greater cruising range: 124m vs 100m.

FWIW.

B

When do the German authorities propose to finally demolish those "NAZI" flak towers in Berlin? These wartime architectural relics have been polluting the minds of everyday people with their national socialist auras for more than 75 years, "nicht wahr"???

I believe at least one has been remodeled.

Why hasn't the Fuehrer bunker been buried/razed?

Mostly, it has. link

Why hasn't the Fuehrer bunker been buried

It is buried. It was buried when it was constructed. They built a car park over it.

AIUI the trouble with the flak towers was that, being designed to remain standing through heavy bombing, they are very hard to demolish without prejudice to adjoining buildings. There's one in Vienna (that's now a torture museum IIRC) and that is why it still stands.