Kurt Kniezpel was born in 1921 in the Sudetenland of what was then Czechoslovakia. He belonged to the German minority there. After the occupation of the region by Hitler's Germany, he took German citizenship and thus, in 1940, joined the German army. He was assigned to the armored weapon, never being able to imagine how he would develop into the best charioteer of all time, retaining this title to this day.
After completing his training, in June 1941, Kniezpel was assigned to the 3rd Ill, 29th Panzer Regiment, 12th Panzer Division and was assigned as a gunner on a Panzer IV tank. The crew chief was Lt. Hellman. With this tank, Kniezpel took part in the initial phase of Operation Barbarossa.
He continued to fight on the Eastern Front, with particular success, being promoted to lieutenant colonel. In 1943 he returned to Germany for further training on the new Tiger I tanks. By that time he had destroyed 12 enemy tanks. With the famous Tiger, however, everything would change.
In the summer of 1943, attached to the 503rd Heavy Tank Division, he fought in the famous Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle of all time. In 1944 he returned to Germany and retrained on the new Tiger II heavy tanks. With such a tank he fought in France and then again on the Eastern Front. There he excelled again. In a battle in Hungary he destroyed 24 enemy tanks in a few hours.
However, he was not supposed to survive the war. He was killed on April 29, in Czechoslovakia, just seven days before Germany's surrender, during a fierce tank battle, having previously destroyed 10 Soviet tanks.
In total, throughout his action, he destroyed, confirmed, 168 Allied tanks (another 27 hits were not confirmed), more than 100 anti-tank guns and hundreds of other vehicles. It is said to have managed to destroy a Soviet T-34 from a distance of 3,000 m.
He was honored for his action with numerous medals. But most important of all was that Kniezpel was a soldier and not an assassin, not hesitating to clash even with a high-ranking SS officer who mistreated Soviet prisoners . And the SS in question was not a random person, but a member of the infamous extermination squads, which are responsible for the most horrific war crimes humanity has ever seen.
He was not a fan of Hitler and this resulted in him, although he was the best tankman in the German army, only reaching the rank of sergeant. If he had not been such a good warrior he would have, no doubt, had a different fate.
However fame saved him. He was generally liberal in spirit, and to demonstrate his opposition to German militarism, he always had long hair and a beard, disregarding the provisions of military regulation.
His body had not been found. But in 2013, the Czechs discovered a grave containing the remains of 15 German soldiers. Among the piles was one that bore the well-known, metal military ID with the name Kniezpel. The Czechs carried and buried the body of the old, but honorable, enemy, with full military honors.
