"Fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobaun."
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 ...
Keep the tank, I want his basement.
Tony Buzby the lawyer who ran for Mayor of Houston has a restored M4E8 Sherman on his front lawn. The HOA told him his high dollar classic pickup was unsightly so bought a tank.
Would that be an example of a SNAFU...? Or SOP....?
—”The HOA told him his high dollar classic pickup was unsightly so bought a tank.”
NICE!
If you got it, flaunt it!
Good for him. Every HOA is full of nosey d-bags.
Little tyrants wanting to control people...
—”Would that be an example of a SNAFU...? Or SOP....?”
For my friend, it would have been SOP.
For the MP; a SNAFU.
"Fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobaun."
Part of the story (not told here), was that when he brought the bank home...the local authorities knew about the tank and simply looked the other way. As years passed...regulations grew and grew.
New authorities heard the rumor and set about to confiscate the tank...without allowing him to pursue a waiver. So in the process (I believe they had a couple of German Army folks)...the tank would not crank and they had some vehicle (might have been a wrecker) to ‘drag’ it out, and severely damaged the basement in the process. Authorities dragged this episode out and were refusing for months to pay for the damage they triggered.
There was a similar episode maybe four years ago, with a restaurant that had a tank outside on display. Authorities came and did the same ‘trick’. This guy delayed them in some fashion and got a mechanic or two to crank it up.
I’ve been wondering about the two Russian tanks in Berlin at the Russian memorial. Those should have been on someone’s list to confiscate or remove.
You can only push a man so far...
Yep, and now they’re pushing the majority of society.
Either way things go, it won’t be pretty.
Good point. The term “blockhead” for Germans didn’t come from nowhere. Lol.
Perhaps they meant Panzer
I had an Uncle who served in the European theater, he didn’t talk too much to us about it. He did mention however, the 88, he said it was an anti-aircraft gun, but it could also be ramped down to shoot flat, at troops and positions very effectively.
He said the gunpowder used in our ammunition was very dirty, and made lots of smoke, giving position away. The Germans on the other hand had very good gunpowder, making it extremely difficult to locate where fire was coming from (especially when paired with their well known skill at camouflage, they were masters at this).
He also expressed admiration for their NCO corps, claiming they were very competent.
—”Perhaps they meant Panzer”
The German word “Panzer” has the primary meaning of “hard, protective shell” and can be traced to the Middle High German word “panze”, meaning roughly “lower abdomen”. The French word “pancier”, describing a protective harness for the lower abdomen was adopted and the word got its current meaning.
The use of “Panzer” for a tank is a relatively new one. In the early days of tank warfare, Germans called a tank… “Tank”. Basically until the German’s realized how much the reason it was called a tank was a joke at their expense. After that, a tank was called “Panzerkampfwagen” (typical German word), literally meaning “armored combat car”. So the official designations of the German tanks in WW2 were “Panzerkampfwagen I - VI”, with “Panzerkampfwagen” abbreviated in military use to “PzKpfw” (militaries love abbreviations, and German military cranks this up to 11). In general use, “Panzerkampfwagen” was too awkward to use, so it was shortened to “Panzer”. Also note that of the tanks in use, only two had a name: The Panzer VI “Tiger” (with the variation of “Königstiger”, literally meaning “King’s Tiger” and referring to the Bengal tiger) and the cause for your confusion, the Panzer V “Panther”, which would be translatable to “Tank V Panther”.
There’s got to be a law against it...there’s a law against everything in Germany.
—”There’s got to be a law against it...there’s a law against everything in Germany.”
My sister and family lived in Frankfurt for many years and has a million stories about it.
My brother-in-law worked for NATO and often did short trips around Europe. He was flying home and had a few glasses of some wine he liked and said it was much cheaper in the air than buying locally.
As the plane was landing he remembered that he had a car at the airport, a big problem. Impaired driving ticket and a noncitizen, not good.
He did drive home, terrified the entire way.
Because they could.
Yeah, it’s pretty much .000% blood alcohol.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.