Hoarder- or just prudent precaution against home invasion? This happened earlier this month but just heard about it. Too lazy to post the photo- but check out the link- that Panther and the 88 look pristine. http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-33381772 Police in northern Germany have seized a World War Two tank which was being kept in a pensioner's cellar. The Panther tank was removed from the 78-year-old's house in the town of Heikendorf, along with a variety of other military equipment, including a torpedo and an anti-aircraft gun, Der Tagesspiegel website reports. It wasn't an easy job to get it all out - the army had to be called in with modern-day tanks to haul the Panther from its cellar. It took about 20 soldiers almost nine hours to extract the tank - which was without its tracks - and push it onto a low-loader, the report says. As the surreal scene unfolded, local residents gathered at the end of the driveway to watch. Prosecutors in the nearby city of Kiel are investigating whether the man's military collection violates Germany's War Weapons Control Act. But his lawyer says the weapons are no longer functional, therefore shouldn't be restricted. Local prosecutors were tipped off about the cellar's contents by colleagues in Berlin, who searched the home for stolen Nazi art earlier this year. It seems the tank's presence wasn't much of a secret locally. Several German media reports mention that residents had seen the man driving it around town about 30 years ago. "He was chugging around in it during the snow catastrophe in 1978," Mayor Alexander Orth was quoted as saying. But he later added: "I took this to be the eccentricity of an old man, but it looks like there's more to it than that." The man had also been keeping an anti-aircraft gun in his basement
A working Panther tank is a real rarity. He could sell it for millions. But I imagine that the current liberal German government will take everything he has. He could have been an 8 year-old Hitler Youth member or possible death camp guard during WW2, so more investigations are needed into possible war crimes.
How many of you think this is right, authorities breaking into an old man's home and telling him what war collectibles he is allowed to own?
This occurred in Germany, they have rules about Nazi paraphernalia. No working weapons for one thing.
I think it's wrong. The government littered up the landscape with this stuff and he gets prosecuted for cleaning it up?
LOL ... I love these kinds of stories. The Germans state is being a giant asshat here, the old guy shouldn't have had his basement torn up by those jackasses. They could have just left him alone til he passed away and then hauled the stuff off to a museum. My son and daughter-in-law live in Rhineland Platz; maybe he can express some outrage and finger wagging or something at the bureaucrats.
I wonder what happened to the tracks though- apparently 30 years ago he was driving the beastie around. That 88 looked in fantastic condition- if it was in working condition with ammo, that would worry me more than the Panther.
Tracks didn't last long in those days; didn't take much to wear them out or break them compared to today's, which was why railroads were so important and built as close to the fronts as possible. Don't where he could have gotten repair parts when one link or two broke. He probably sold them for scrap or something. Obviously his neighbors weren't worried about him or his collection, so no scandal here that I can see.
Well, it wasn't 'Nazi paraphernalia' really, just an old tank and some other stuff. Military collectables are popular in Europe, as they are nearly everywhere. It's just that some collectors are more extreme than others. lol ...
I'm not German, so my opinion is worthless, but yeah, I would have left the old guy alone if it were my call to make. He didn't exactly indicate he was planning to seize Bonn with his hobby collection, or he would have done something with that stuff a long time ago.
Honestly I have personally zero understanding for the officials in my country and their actions. Also action of the public prosecutor at all is hard to be illegal at least, because this man has documents that allowed him to buy the wreckage in the past and to import them. But this troll of prosecutor is ignoring it and confiscated everything because highest dangerous weapons ... and even these German soldiers involved to recovering the things out of the basement could only shrug their head about. But most shocking for me are comments about in matter that it was highest time to recover this Nazi junk and at best it should be scrapped. With one of these guys I got in hard trouble and he showed to be a dumbass at all. I asked him "So OK, it is German WW-2 material = for you Nazi junk which has to be burned and scabbed, simply because Nazi stuff?" Answer was Yes! And so I asked him if it would be OK, if he had an US Sherman in basement ... and answer was "for me a lesser problem as this Nazi homage of Hitlers weapons" ... Such idiocy makes me speechless at least!
Ah, so he indeed have permits and the like. That is certainly new light. Wag a finger and a tsk tsk at the asshat prosecutor and tell he/she/it/mutant to get a fricking life for me, if you get the chance?
An acquaintance of mine has a pretty large collection of cars. He has one of the first Volks Wagens built with a serial number in the single digits. He has Hermann Goreing's personal Mercedes Benz. He allowed me to sit in the driver seat. What was interesting it was a two sticker, it had two transmissions with two stick shifts on the floor. Would these two vehicles be illegal in Germany today ? Wasn't Hitler personally involved in designing the VW Bug ? What's scary is that we have some in America who are rewriting history or are erasing our culture and history in the name of political correctness like going after a battle flag.
BBC forgot to mention, as they oftenly do, that it was not just a tank and an AA gun, but also a WW2 torpedo found out there.
They did leave out the WW2.... The Panther tank was removed from the 78-year-old's house in the town of Heikendorf, along with a variety of other military equipment, including a torpedo and an anti-aircraft gun,
Give the Germans credit. They seem to have a remarkably liberal definition of the word "eccentricity." I understand he originally tried to store it in the attic, but for some reason it didn't work out. Tank, torpedo, and anti-aircraft weapon. Sounds as though he was prepared to defend his home against just about any conceivable threat, although I can't help wondering how he planned to launch the torpedo. My 12-gauge and my Colt .45 suddenly seem rather inadequate. Anyone recognize the model of the anti-aircraft gun? Was that an 88? If he has working ammo for an 88, that would perhaps be a matter of considerable concern to local authorities, not to mention the neighbors, I was shocked by the condition of the tank. Did y'all notice the photos? It looked like he just rolled if off the showroom floor last week. I wouldn't be surprised if that turns out to be the best-preserved Panther left in the world. I sincerely hope he winds up finding a way to keep it, but if for some reason he can't, some museum is going to be extremely fortunate (not to mention thrilled). I can't help wondering where he managed to find them.
There are many people in the U.S. who collect and restore old Tanks. In fact there was and might still be a show on a Cable TV channel that was all about Old Tank restoraton as I watched them restore a Panzer as well as a Tiger and they had in their yard a Sherman and a T-32 Tank. AboveAlpha
It's a 88. One of the most successful artillery guns ever produced. Originally designed as an anti aircraft gun and soon it was discovered it could be used as an anti tank gun. It would be the gun that the Tiger tank would be armed with. It seems that captured German 88's were used by the U.S. Army in 1944.
You would have to be nuts to try and use ammo laying around from WW II; he would have won a Darwin Award a long time ago if he had tried.
