Pity it wasn't a French tank
The sight of the German Army would have made it scarper...
The German rozzers raided a villa in a wealthy suburb of Kiel on Wednesday (July 2), and found a Nazi tank from 1943 hidden in the cellar, alongside a torpedo and "other weaponry". The Local reported that the raid took place under the orders of the town's prosecutors, who suspect the villa's owner held the Nazi-era weaponry …
Really? Does not sound like scarper to me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Abbeville
Their performance in the first gulf war does not sound like scarper either. In fact if memory serves me right they were the _ONLY_ ones to engage Iraqi armour directly armour to armour within cannon range and they steamrolled over it by all means. Compared to them yanks just drove down a shooting alley opened for them by A10s without ever firing a shot in anger.
"The sight of the German Army would have made it scarper"
Jeez, not this francophobic historically inaccurate rubbish again! It was actually the Maserati Supremo MkII, the most famous of WW2 Italian tanks, that had one forward gear and four reverse gears. They were actually very well designed, could do 65mph while advancing in a rearward direction.
Ahem. OK I'm outtahere...
> They were actually very well designed, could do 65mph while advancing in a rearward direction.
We proud English would never build an armoured vehicle with the gun pointing backwards so that it could run away faster.
IIRC an Archer wasn't so much a tank destroyer as a motorized anti tank gun with escape capability. Ambush, shoot, scutter away. And, repeat.
AT guns were good at first contact but would not do well against sustained infantry or artillery attacks once they were spotted and were stuck on location. The Archer was meant to avoid that. No idea how well that weird idea worked out but AT guns were pretty much gone by the 60s.
what do you call engagement range? I personally fired 4 swingfire missiles at an engagement range of 3km in my 102 (2 separate engagements), I'd call that engagement range personally so I can attest that brits didn't sit back for A10s. And yes, I missed all 4 times in both engagements so no beer for me (I still say at least 1 was on target but our scorpion had bugged out so no confirmation).
Legal niceties? The probably had a warrant for Nazi memorabilia that wouldn't work on tanks and torpedoes so had to get a warrant for those after tripping over them on the first visit.
They could have adopted a more lax approach and got the whole thing thrown out of court.
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Was he doing anyone any harm? Or is this just the over sensitive German war guilt.
Yes your nation committed genocide on a never seen before or after scale but its over now,If this about your conscious, get over it, believe it or not your history and these preserved items are apart of that history, forgetting your past you may end up making the same mistakes one day we wont have these looked after relics, that day will be a sad one
This sort of like the guilt and now outrage in the USA about the Confederate Battle Flag* being flown..
There's a big difference. The Confederate battle flag had all but vanished from sight until the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s, trying to desegregate schools in the South. That's when the battle flags re-emerged, coincident with brutal violence against civil-rights activists, especially blacks. Surely it was the intent of those who raised the battle flag over government buildings across the South to symbolically declare their belief in White Supremacy. The Civil War was fought over slavery. Anyone who tries to mush-mouth it into a fight for "states rights" is a GD liar or a fool. And the Confederate flag was the symbol of those who fought to continue enslaving black people. Your German collector isn't flying a Nazi flag, is he?
Regardless of what many white Southerners say -- and some of the less-enlightened ones may believe it -- the Confederate battle flag has become inextricably tied to racism, White Supremacy and violence against blacks. That's the "legacy" and "heritage" of the Confederacy. It's become a symbol far more powerful than a Panther tank, and it's past time for it to go back in the cellar.
Sounds like the nuthead 2.5 miles down the road (next village) from me who has a Churchill tank parked in his yard. AFAIK nobody is bothering him. He is not paying road tax on it and as far as I know it does not have a valid MOT and insurance :)
Nobody bothers other nutheads either. I nearly crashed into a wall of an old house in the Czech republic last year. I was driving peacefully down the road and from behind the bend came out a WW2 Willis with a twin Erlicon 50 cal mounted in the boot barrels pointing straight at me (the incoming traffic). I nearly lost control there and then.
My granddad used to own a WW2 BMW bicycle with a sidecar (it was supposed to be mine when I grow up, but my older cousin destroyed it by smashing in it). In full SS regalia with markings, nazi crosses, etc (AFAIK it was abandoned after a mechanical problem by the guys assigned to arrest him and execute him on the spot in 1944 - two weeks before the country was liberated). The only thing the milicia (on the other side of the iron curtain) made him do was to remove the machine gun and hand it in.
And so on. They should just leave the history buff alone. He is harmless.
He was investigated due to (potential) involvement with "Art from the Nazi era", that typically means stolen art. Thats why the police turned up at his place. He had a shitload of other weapons and now they are simply checking if everything is properly disarmed.
Until then it is locked down. After all you do not want a (right wing?) nutcase with a gun that can kill anything short of an MBT at 500+ meters.
Would love to have a tank with a gun able to blast things apart... just imagine how much fastrer the M25 would be if you could blow the overtaking lane hoggers and the 3 abreast lorry drivers from here until kingdom come... What fun, problem would be with such a prolific number of targets fitting the criteria which would you choose?
"I've seen the odd Spitfire or Hurricane in private gardens/grounds too.
Seems the fickle finger of fate foretells that the losers armour has not to be seen?"
We have one flying around our village most weekends. Guy that owns it is the same guy who flew the spitfire in most of the 80's/90's war movies (most famously the scene from Empire of the Sun). He bought an industrial park near where I live because it still had the aircraft hangers from the 2nd world war.
Ok, you got me with those folk on the genocide, but the Germans were kind enough to document it, Stalin and co just made folk vanish, its doubtful if we would ever know the full story with that lot, and if we include all the civilian and military dead over the two wars, they have to be ranking up in the top 5 causes for world population reduction events surely!
Stalin also documented it. The big ERASURE of the tracks is Chrushov's job.
If you pick the 1952 edition of the World map printed in any Warsaw pact state you will notice an interesting anomaly - there are 16 Soviet republics, not 15. Stalin had no qualms to put his Super-Getto on the map. There is a 16th republic - the Jewish Soviet Republic which is beyond Kazahstan on the Chinese border. You can even see why too - the map shows rare earth, etc being mined in the area (what is missing is the Uranium mines and supporting industry, but that is an expected "detail").
If you pick the 1956 edition (I have both) that is missing. NEVER EVER HAPPEND Товарищ. Понятно? Chrushov and Co disappeared it from history completely (along with quite a few other things).
"genocide on a never seen before or after scale"
...its like Rwanda never happened. Over 800,000 of the countries population of 7 million were murdered in tribal genocide - but nobody ever seems to remember this happening, despite this being only 20 years ago.
http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/genocide_in_rwanda.htm
The uncomfortable fact is that the world stood by and watched it happening.
>Mutter ficker?
Mutterficker, no space.
As for WWII regalia, personal possession is forbidden in Germany if it sports NAZI insigna.
The only "battle" the British Empire and French won over the Germans was the race to Dunkirk, and then again, the German army let them win ... All battles won by the allies included Soviet or "troops from other places of the world".
Then again ... "Listen, don't mention the war! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right." Basil Fawlty
The German for "motherfucker", is, in practice "motherfucker".
Something like "mutterficker" would probably be taken in a literal sense as someone who has sex with a mother.
English seems to be the preferred language for obscenity in Germany (and the Netherlands too, apparently).
(I'd like to sit a German down with a copy of the profanisaurus one day, and see how seriously they take it.)
> What is a 'Nazi tank', anyway?
It's a description by someone who doesn't know (or can't be bothered to know [cough]Quentin Tarantion[/cough]) that there was a difference between the German people as a whole and the Nazi Party and its sympathisers.
"It's a description by someone who doesn't know (or can't be bothered to know [cough]Quentin Tarantion[/cough]) that there was a difference between the German people as a whole and the Nazi Party and its sympathisers."
Sadly my grandfather was an officer in WWII and "I" had to explain it to him.
" a difference between the German people as a whole and the Nazi Party and its sympathisers"
To put the boot on the other foot.....according to my father, who went into France on D-Day +3 and then travelled though France, Belgium, Holland and North Germany, ending up in Bremen, none of the Germans were Nazis. Or at least thats what they all claimed when forced out of a building at gun point.
"Ein nicht nazi...ein nicht nazi...." repeated time after time, even by those in SS uniform.
From what he saw, in reality most Germans of the time were supporters of Adolf, only losing their belief when the tanks rolled in
"searching for Nazi art and finding a Nazi tank."
Mechanical engineering such as tanks and aircraft is the only Nazi creations capable of being considered as "art", because at the time many of their products WERE state-of-the art technical excellence, whatever purposes they were put to.
On the other hand Nazi art was boring, depressive, censored and unoriginal. Except for the "depraved" stuff they stole and hid for themselves.....
So-so. Packed snow/ice is not the strong side of the old MAN since it has no ice cleats (unlike say the Leo 1). Add in the tempramental final drive and it is not really a winter tank.
Heating is decend from what I have been told and the engine has a "cold weather starter" rated for "Russian Winter"