Hans Ulrich Rudel
Hans Ulrich Rudel, Luftwaffe colonel, born July 2, 1916 in Konradswaldau, commander Stukageschwader 2, winner of the Knight’s Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, flew 2,530 combat missions (one sinking the Soviet battleship Marat), wounded 5 times, shot down 30 times, destroyed 519 armored vehicles, author Stuka Pilot, lived in Argentina for a number of years after the war, died of a brain hemorrhage on December 18, 1982 in Rosenheim, Bavaria, said of himself: “He only is lost who gives himself up for lost.” (2,000 Quotes From Hitler’s 1,000-Year Reich)
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King Tiger 105
SS-Rottenführer Walter Bingert fought in the Ardennes Offensive, beginning December 16, 1944, as the driver for King Tiger 105, company commander SS-Obersturmführer Jürgen Wessel’s vehicle, in the 1st Company of the the 501st SS Heavy Panzer Detachment. On December 18, 1944 American anti-tank fire struck the vehicle on the Rue Haut Rivage in the village of Stavelot, Belgium. Bingert threw the transmission into reverse and the tank crashed into a house, immobilizing it. Walter Bingert died on February 7, 1996. (Waffen-SS Tiger Crews at Kursk: The Men of SS Panzer Regiments 1, 2 & 3 in Operation Citadel, July 5-15, 1943)