88mm Flak & Panther tank seized from villa basement!

[Thomas_M]

This was in the news here in Germany today: http://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/schleswig ... nd124.html
German only, sorry.

German Bundeswehr sappers needed 9 hours and two recovery tanks to get a 8.8cm Flak and a real Panther tank out from the basement of a villa at Heikendorf, Germany. A 78 years old financial manager had those in the basement of his villa. German prosecution asked the German army to help to take those and a torpedo (!) away. Case is pending.

I hope our officials are not this dumb to destroy those items. But I would not be surprised to hear...

[Stikpusher]

I truly hope that those are bound for a museum somewhere! Just curious, but is it a crime in Germany to own such items?

[Thomas_M]

You bet!

Law on such stuff obviously is much different than to the U.S.. I am no expert but I guess it is almost impossible to collect or own weapons of war as a private person. Maybe, if you have the right connections or membership book...

[BlackSheep214]

Just how big was this basement of his??? How the heck did they get it out? Did they have to destroy half of his villa down? Better yet, how did he managed to keep it hidden and stored in the basement? From looking at the pictures, they look almost brand new.

[BorgR3mc0]

My German is pretty rusty but is this guy telling that they are going to scrap them?

http://www.ndr.de/wellenord/Er-wurde-sc ... er100.html

I am struggling with "erworben".

[mostrich]

Erworben is the past tense of 'to acquire'. He's just telling that most of the items were in bad condition when the collector acqired them (Schrottreif means they were fit for the scrap heap before the restaurations).

[BlackSheep214]

Too bad there isn't a translation hot key for those who don't speak or read German. I would have liked to read the article.

[Manny1943]

[KSaarni]

Too bad there isn't a translation hot key for those who don't speak or read German. I would have liked to read the article.

I used (and use) Google-translator, pretty impressive and translates well


- Kari

[BlackSheep214]

I had found a related news article elsewhere a long while back.