German lawyers wrangle over pensioner's WW2 tank in basement
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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How do you turn an amp link into a regular link?
Remove .amp
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57965260
Edit: interesting, non vs. amp
Also does this face the same kind of bad Google Accelerated Mobile Pages issues, or could they just internally call their mobile-optimized page amp too?
Since the domain is bbc.com isn't that just the original amp-ified version google caches?
I know the url is no indicator on who actually host that particular but I'm not on a computer now so can't check if they are both actually hosted by bbc.
The man's collection first raised suspicion from neighbors seeing random male visitors coming to the man's house followed by constant giggling coming from the basement.
That is hilarious
At a court hearing on Monday in the city of Kiel, about 100km (60 miles) north of Hamburg, lawyers were trying to determine whether the man's military collection had violated Germany's War Weapons Control Act.
The act regulates the manufacture, sale, and transport of weapons of war.
Since the items were already manufactured, I can't see that definition being met. He wasn't offering them for sale, and the only ones transporting them were the people that seized them from the basement.
It also restricts ownership of weapons of war.
Since the tank was ancient, it did not qualify as a weapon of war anymore and rather as a museum artifact. But, from another article:
This “Panther” was not the only military device there that investigators suspected was illegal: the operation also uncovered a torpedo, a 5-centimetre caliber mortar and an 8.8-centimetre anti-aircraft gun. The resident of the house also owned machine and assault rifles, semi-automatic and fully automatic pistols and more than 1000 rounds of ammunition.
The 84-year-old was ultimately only convicted of possession of a weapon of war in the case of a machine gun barrel and two cartridges.
That's of course only the violation of the War Weapon Control Act. He was also found guilty of illegally owning "regular" weapons and explosives in the remaining cases.
Verurteilt wurde der 84-Jährige letztlich nur im Fall eines Maschinengewehr-Laufs und zweier Patronen wegen Besitzes einer Kriegswaffe.
He was only convicted for one machine gun barrel and two cartridges but sentenced to a € 250 000 fine and a 1.5 suspended sentence.
Germany truly has insane weapons laws (I say as an Austrian). If we had that high fines for people hoarding weapons of war we could abolish taxes.