Nazi Panzer Trooper Document Grouping

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NAZI PANZER TROOPER DOCUMENT GROUPING

AN EXCELLENT
GROUPING OF
FOUR NAZI
IDENTITY
DOCUMENTS
OF A LONGTIME
WEHRMACHT
PANZER TROOPER

This document grouping consists of a Soldbuch, a Wehrpaß, a Führerschein (driving license) and a civilian identity card that belonged to Leopold Horky, born 13 November 1915 in Wien-Mödling, a suburb of the second largest city in the Grossdeutschland of Adolf Hitler.

Horky, an auto mechanic, entered the army in the autumn of 1936 for an obligatory year of military training. He must have liked the service or disliked civilian life, because entries in his 52 page Wehrpass show that on 29 August 1938 he returned to active duty as a member of the Werkstatt Kompanie of Panzer Regiment 4. Over the years he rose through the ranks as Gefreiter, Obergefreiter, Unteroffizier, Vorhandwerker, Unterfeldwebel, and on 1 May 1945 as Feldwebel. All his service was with Panzer Regiment 4 until he joined Werkstattzug I (Panther) Panzer Regiment 26 later in the war.

Traditions Badge of the 26th Panzer Division

His military service took him to Czechoslovakia, Poland, Luxembourg, Belgium and France, right to the water at Dunkirk. His armored outfit traveled south to Lotharingen (Alsace Lorraine) and right up to the Swiss border before returning to Germany in July 1940 for refitting.

The war had just begun for Horky. By mid 1941 Panzer Regiment 4 was thrown into battle on the Stalin line deep in the Soviet Union as part of the 13th Panzer Division.

He fought at Kiev and across the Dniepr and Don rivers to Maikop and the lower Kuban region of deepest Russia.

In April 1943 Horky went back to Germany to be retrained for new equipment - the Panther Tank. That training included instruction at the Henschel Works and at the Maybach Engine Factory in Friedrichshafen in late 1943. By January 1944, the newly outfitted unit was defending the area around Nettuno (Anzio), south of Rome, Italy. They fought a delaying action back up the Italian peninsula to Monte Cassino, Abruzzi, Tuscany, to beautiful, ancient Rimini in September 1944.

In the process Leopold Horky was awarded the Commemorative Medal of 1 October 1938 with Clasp, the 1941/42 Winter Campaign in the East Medal, the War Merit Cross II Class with Swords and the Kuban Shield. A sheet pasted on top of page 23 in his Soldbuch states that by Order of the Führer, Horky was authorized to wear the Traditions Badge of the 26th Panzer Division (a Grenadier’s head) on the left side of his service cap.

By any standard Horky saw a lot of service in his seven years in the German Wehrmacht. So much service, that he either wore out, lost or otherwise destroyed his first Soldbuch. This one is a replacement issued to him in early 1945 while serving in Panzer Regiment 26 and bears their Feldpost stamp and the signature of the Oberleutnant and Einheitsführer.

One of the nicest aspects of the new Soldbuch is that it contains an up-to-date photo of Horky stapled inside the front cover wearing a black Panzer wrap tunic over his Panzer “Rollpulover” or turtleneck sweater. The sweater is even listed in the clothing issue shown on page 7 of the 30-page Soldbuch.

Leopold Horky’s drivers license was issued on 27 January 1939 in Wien and the photo shows him in a very traditional Niederösterreich jacket. The eight-page, four-language civilian identity document was issued to Horky on 4 January 1952 (presumably when he was released from a POW camp) in Wien when the city was being administered by American, British, Russian and French troops just as Berlin was.

Together these four documents are a nice a Panzer grouping as one is apt to find today. All four are complete and fully readable, have great photographs, a full combat record and include the very rare permit to wear the 26th Panzer Division Traditions-Abzeichen on the uniform cap. Splendid history, nice condition.

This rare Nazi Panzer document grouping is **SOLD**.

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