Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim B.
That's because it would embarrass them. The car was the Staff car of Nazi Luftwaffe Lt. General Martin Fiebig. He was charged with the failed parachute relief effort to the surrounded German 6th Army at Stalingrad in the end of 1942. Gen. Fiebig was turned over to the Government of Yugoslavia as a war criminal for crimes relating to the carpet bombing of Belgrade in May 1941, and was executed by the Yugoslavian government in 1947. Not the sort of history Daimler Chrysler would be particularly happy to impart.
The ebay advertisement for the car showed the original 1941 build plate with the Nazi Adler (eagle) stamped on it. It further stated the car was abandoned with the collpase of the front in Stalingrad in December 1942, and taken as war booty by the Soviets, and later converted to run on the inferior Russian gasoline, and run for 535,000 kms (about 280,000 muiles) by a Russian farmer, and to the next owner after he died. First seen on ebay in March 2006.
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Thanks Jim, reading what you said I've wondered how the car got to Stalingrad - did a little research and came up with the following:
Quote:
Luftwaffe General Martin Fiebig, commanding VIII Flieger Korps, sounded a warning about the looming disaster. In a pointed message to Paulus's chief of staff, Gen. Arthur Schmidt, he warned that the Luftwaffe would be unable to adequately supply 6th Army from the air. Unknown to everyone concerned, this is exactly what Hitler was proposing to do.
At this point, there exists a great deal of confusion as to where the responsibility lies for the ill-advised attempt to sustain 6th Army from the air. Historians almost universally blame Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering for the fiasco. In fact, Hitler does not seem to have even consulted Goering until after the pocket had closed on Nov.23, 1942. Hitler's initial decision to order Paulus to hold at Stalingrad left no other alternative but to attempt an airlift.
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/stalingrad/uranus.aspx
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It sounds to me like Fiebig's staff message to the German 6th was delivered by hand. History of these vehicles means alot. Still I've heard stories of there being a "Haunted Benz" somewhere is Eastern Europe that everybody is scared to own.