The retiree who had a WWII tank parked in his garage

When investigators searched the home of Klaus-Dieter F., an 84-year-old retired financial expert, came across a perfectly preserved WWII arsenal.

Assault rifles, pistols, ammunition and uniforms, an artillery cannon and even a tank Panzerkampfwagen V they were in his garage as if they were museum pieces. All items correspond to the period from Nazi Germany.

The discovery took place in Klaus-Dieter’s house, located on the outskirts of Heikendorf, in the German city of Kiel, near the Baltic Sea. The old man had been collecting devotional pieces and Nazi memorabilia for decades, such as uniforms from all divisions of the National Socialist era. However, It was discovered by the police after an investigation to find Nazi art.

The retiree is currently on trial for “violation of the law on the control of weapons of war, the law on weapons and the law on explosives”, which provides for a sentence of 1 to 5 years in prison.

The Kiel prosecutor’s office accuses the retiree of having illegally stored a “Panther” (Panzer) type tank, a torpedo, a 50 mm caliber mortar and an anti-aircraft gun caliber 88 mm type FlaK, as published by the German newspaper Photo.

Klaus-Dieter also had in his garage several mannequins dressed in Wehrmacht uniforms, as well as a number of machine guns, assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols. Ammunition was not lacking. I had more than 1000 cartridges, according to the inventory carried out by the researchers.

After the seizure, there was a first mediation between the court, the prosecutor and the defense to come to an agreement. It happened in 2018: justice wanted the tank to be sold and the retiree to pay a probation of 1 million euros, obtained from this sale. There was no agreement and the trial continued; the sentence is expected to be handed down in mid-July this year.

When 50 officers broke into the retiree’s house, they attempted to seize the entire arsenal, but were unable to remove the Panzer tank, which weighs around 40,000 kilograms.

This is why military personnel from the Bundeswehr (the United Armed Forces of Germany) had to come, who spent more than ten hours and used two armored vehicles to transport the iconic battleship.

As it became known, Klaus-Dieter F. bought the tank in England in the late 1970s and completely restored it to new, both in appearance and mechanically.

Do the tank and other weapons work? This is the question everyone asked themselves during the raid. For the prosecutor Thorsten Cloud, the tank can still be considered a weapon of war, even if the defendant claims that it is a collector’s item. Since it has been restored to be faithful to the original, and its engine is running, the prosecution argues that there was an attempt to manufacture a weapon of war.

But the tank, as well as the artillery pieces, rifles and pistols are not operational, he said. Gerald Goecke, defense lawyer for the former stockbroker.

“The chariot is my client’s life’s work,” Goecke told the newspaper. Photo. And in the case of the 88mm gun, an artillery weapon capable of penetrating armor greater than 153mm, no ammunition was found, and five test rounds would cost 216,000 euros to manufacture, argued the defender. .

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