A Life Worth Saving?

This is a photograph of Kurt Knispel. He was a German Panzer loader, gunner, and commander. He had 168 confirmed kills. He was from Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, and joined the German army in 1939. He participated in Operation Barbarossa and saw combat in almost every German tank type, as well as combat on most of the fronts in Russia.

His progression up the ranks was rather slow due to his dislike of military standards (notice his goatee and rather long hair) and the fact that he assaulted an Einsatzgruppen (SS death squad) officer for mistreating Russian POWs. The only thing that saved him from a court marshal was his record of successes. Despite many recommendations, he never won the Knight's Cross. He wasn't fighting to win medals. When a controversy over who killed an enemy tank arose, he was always willing to give credit to someone else.

He was wounded in late April of 1945 on the retreat from Russia. He died in a field hospital in Urbau, Czechoslovakia, on 28 April.

Ten days later the war ended.