Posted on 10/22/2022 7:11:12 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
The Pensioner Who Hid a WWII Panther Tank in his Basement
Collecting war memorabilia is nothing uncommon, but rare are the people that have collections as impressive as the elderly German gentleman we are going to talk about today. Under German privacy laws, his identity was kept a secret, being dubbed as Klaus-Dieter F. Klaus was a millionaire and he loved collecting Nazi Germany memorabilia. Guns, uniforms, medals, the things in his collection grew in both number and size and included things like torpedoes, 8.8cm flak cannon and, as a crown jewel of his collection, a partially functional demilitarised PzKpfw V Panther tank, which he kept in the basement of his villa. He had that tank for over 40 years, even taking it out to clean snow during winter, but in 2015 the authorities from Berlin found out about his collection and they immediately took action, seizing his tank and, under pretext that he violated "War Weapons Control Act", putting him to trial that would last for the next few years. Even though he had proof that the tank lost its weapon status, in the end Klaus was forced to either donate or sell it, along with the flak cannon.
8 min 28 sec
(Excerpt) Read more at youtu.be ...
BAD NEWS, it WILL be ready for inspection tomorrow, noon.
Driving in snow, his favorite riding time would minimize scratching the roadway.
From Comments:
1 day ago "hey even tho you have paperwork saying its not active and you bought it with your own money and you're almost 80 and haven't had any incidents in the 35+ years you've had it, this is mine now" -German government
John DuPont had a tank.
Though he did end up murdering Dave Schultz...
Yes, but what if he......snaps....?
(this is from 2020; I guess they made a movie about it!)
“GRANBY, Colo. — Tucked in the mountains between Winter Park and Grand Lake sits a small community of 2,000 people that was thrust into the national spotlight when one of its residents turned a bulldozer into a makeshift tank and went on a rampage, destroying much of the town in 2004. Now, a full-length documentary, ‘Tread,’ about that incident...”
If you owned such a beast would you be the driver or the TC?
I kind of liked that guy. Reminded me of Michael Douglass in Falling Down...
My dad worked with Jacques Littlefield at HP in Palo Alto in the seventies. His collection of armor made this pensioner’s look totally insignificant.
Kinda miraculous that no one was killed.
That’s what the FBI/IRS/BLM/LGBTXYZ want for all of us to do, now: Go crazy and start shooting, suicide, mass murder. Colorado is a terrible place.
“If you owned such a beast would you be the driver or the TC?”
I would want to be the driver but Mr K (not the one on this forum) would probably end up doing that because he’s nuts about WWII and in particular the tanks are a fascination for him. So I wouldn’t fight him over it. Give him a few drinks and watch him work.
—”John DuPont had a tank.”
Not exactly!
I have a bit of experience with APCs and the scars and the gong to prove it from it being flipped after hitting a mine.
Local legend had it that an AK projectile would whizz through the first side and bounce around inside an APC.
That should never happen with a tank.
“John du Pont, who is facing charges of murdering Olympic wrestling champion David Schultz, liked to tool around his Newtown Square, Pa., estate in an armored personnel carrier. He called it his “tank.” It was really an M-113 armored personnel carrier.”
That is just a beautiful sight!
Ok, Scarlett, you’ll be the commander.
Of course, you can always steal the real thing and go on a rampage, like this guy in 1995.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Nelson_(criminal)
I don’t know of anything that has a rougher ride than an M-113. It seemed like you could feel every pebble along the path, let alone the real bumps.
The Panther obviously is the bigger story, but having a feared 88 was pretty impressive too. Best/most famous antitank weapon of the war.
Thank you for the correction. I just remember them saying he had a tank on the news.
Those grounds are no longer the DuPonts.
They donated the land and it’s now where Episcopal Academy sits.
M.Night Shyamalan
Only $40K per year of high school...
https://thsindex.org/2019/11/01/eas-campus-a-recent-history/
Correction - I think they sold, not donated the land.
Anarcho-tyranny.
This man was a collector, why was he punished and ordered to sell his tank to a museum or another collector? If he sold it to a collector, wouldn’t the government then go after that collector?
I’d have a heck of a time getting that down my basement stairs.
—”Give him a few drinks and watch him work.”
Hopefully, in a very large flat and open area, impaired tank driving may not be the best of plans.
A friend driving an M88 Retriever, probably the largest of beasts in the Army at that time, TOTALLY CRUSHED an MP jeep
at Ft Hood Texas!!!
A known troublemaker and did not care.
Moving along in a convoy crested a hill to be greeted by an
MP flagman and a jeep blocking the road at the bottom of the hill. AND HE HAD PREVIOUSLY REPORTED BRAKE PROBLEMS IN WRITING.
They brought him up for a court-martial, not his first but he prevailed.
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