Six King Tigers missing in action

[Matthew Jones]

Hello everyone!

I'm looking for traces of six King Tigers, that were employed in certain military operation in late April 1945 somewhere on the territory of what became Eastern Germany in a few years. Since such a large tank group is a rare thing to find, especially in the last days of war. So far, I have narrowed my search down to five or six reignments. However, a few questions still remain:

1. Since it was a clandestine operation, there are no records whatsoever. Combat logs of the reignments in questions are not showing anything special either. One thing is for sure: there was no fighting in that area, as the Germans were quickly retreating.
2. The area of operation is unknown. It could be either south of Berlin or north. The problem is that only two reignments operated in the north, one of them is Paderborn company employing exactly six King Tigers.
3. All of these tanks have survivied and made there way back to... where?
4. The Paderborn tank group... no idea what they were doing at that time. Supposedly, their KT's has never made it to Steiner or Wenk, as their armies were poorly equipped.

Hope you can shed some light on my research and enlighten me on any cases of King Tigers missing from the books or doing something strange.

[Alanmccoubrey]

You do not give enough information in your question for enough information in your question for me (or anyone else I suspect) to make even an educated guess. I would say though that it would be very difficult indeed to carry out a "clandestine" using six tanks the size of the KT.

Here are some questions you might like to answer;
What "area" ?
What sources do you have for this ?
What was the point of the operation ?
Are Steiner and Wenk places or people ?
What is the Paderborn Tank Group ?

Until you answer those questions I'm afraid that you might get more answers like that already given you by Mark.

[Michael Kenny]

Are Steiner and Wenk places or people ?

Felix Steiner and Walther Wenck.
Men central to the myth the Soviets could be defeated at Berlin!

[Alanmccoubrey]

So perhaps the use of their ranks or army commands might have been in order then.

[phillip burke]

Hello all,off the top of my head,could this have anything to do with the six king tigers of schwere ss panzer abteilung 503, who lost six tigers tied to their railway wagons that were lost acting under the orders of Himmler, still tied to railway wagons, i think this comes from Tigers in Combat Vol 2 .

[phillip burke]

Hello all,found the bit about the missing six Kingtigers,from Tigers in Combat vol 2. 28 January 1945, ''One train(690739) with six Tigers stops near Muckenburg;the transport leader is ordered by the local commander, Generalmajor Hauschulz,to detrain as quickly as possible and move to Friedeberg. 29 January 1945;Instead ,the tanks move to Stolzenberg and are taken by surprise by Russian tanks at 0400;all are lost. Still attached to the railcars'', i think Kershaw also mentions this in his book on the battle of Berlin and if i remember clearly they were kept on the railcars on Himmlers orders, will check this out later when i can find the book.thats all.

[phillip burke]

Hello all,here s something else i found out about this subject,place Danzig feb 45, ''to make things easier,the Army staff have asked to load 3-4 Tiger 2 s onto a train,to act as a sort of ;Panzer Train;in order to make a breakthrough to Gotenhafen. This was declined by SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Herzig ,because he found the idea of ''PanzerTrain'' for one breakthrough to be taictically useless''.Anyone else know anything about this subject matter of trains and tigers of sSS-Panzer Abteilung 503.