Wehrmacht commander´s cars
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Wehrmacht commander´s cars
In pictures you can often see Generals, not only Field Marshals, sitting in big civilian, often military grey Mercedes, Maybach or Horch, cars which were, compared to today, level with a large S-Class or even Bentley, absolute luxury. And that even during the war, where Rommel is sometimes seen driving in a Mercedes 770K (not in the attached picture), a gigantic car built in microscopic numbers only for the absolute leadership of the 3rd Reich at a price that could buy you a large house (about a million Euros in todays money that would be).
Where did these cars come from? Were these cars bought as new cars by the Army (hardly thinkable, maybe just a handful for the absolute high command), were they bought secondhand from its civilian owners which could not use them anymore anyway in the war (imho very likely), donated (also possible), or some even "aquired" by taking them from Jewish owners?
(photo source on picture, the other is from ahf)
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Re: Wehrmacht commander´s cars
And another General, identified as GL Cranz, in a luxury civilian Horch (picture from ahf).
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Re: Wehrmacht commander´s cars
Source of this picture: unknown website
To the moderators: Maybe its best to move this thread to the axis equipment forum?
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Re: Wehrmacht commander´s cars
Here is a drawing I made showing the Mercedes 770K (W150) Tourenwagen, the most common version of this "Grosser Mercedes". Despite of being a large convertible, some of these cars were armoured. 46 Tourenwagen were delivered in 1938-43 to the government including Hitler and Göring as well as governor´s of occupied territories, but some found the way to become staff cars of the high generalship, like the example of Rommel in my last post. In Remy´s book "Mythos Rommel" there is a picture of that car (seems to be black in colour) in front of Rommel´s home. Finnland´s Mannerheim seems to be the only one outside Germany who drove this car. Most 770Ks differed from each other in minor details, even if of the same variant. Rommel´s car was slightly different to my drawing, which I hope you like.
Re: Wehrmacht commander´s cars
Very large luxury cars of the era were frequently provided with custom coachwork from one of a number of renowned domestic or foreign coach makers--ie the factory built the car chassis, engine, drive train and the like, but the coach maker built the body to custom order or to his own design or taste. Rommel's car for instance was a Horch, as seen in one of the photos in this thread. However, the body could have been made by a coach works that also supplied other auto companies like Mercedes or Maybach, and it is possible to mistake one for the other unless one sees the radiator and emblem. Of course, Rommel may have received a mercedes after his Horch was destroyed by strafing during the Normandy campaign. As a field marshal, he was entitled to a car and driver at state expense.
Anyways your drawing looks very good--like it came out of an advertisement of that era.
Anyways your drawing looks very good--like it came out of an advertisement of that era.