World War 2 Tanks, Museums, Battlefields and Events
This topic has a very wide area of interest. Throughout the years, reading and learning about history, tanks became my main interest - and to be more precise: German tanks. The German tank waffe was in its era the most advanced an quickly developing technology. Therefore my interest goes to the latest tanks as well as the most early types. Besides the tanks themselves I'm also interested in the units and aces of the German panzer armies.
Before finding my main interest it took a lot of exploring world war 2 history. Reading books, becoming to know the objective and the subjective types, and visiting museums are main methods of doing so. And eventually, when knowledge grows, visiting battlefields to 'witness' the area's in which all took place. Later on during my metal detecting hobby I even searched battlefields to find relics - in which I succeeded. A secondary method to visiting museums and collecting artifacts is attending events; mainly tank and vehicle parades, sometimes combined with related markets.
And naturally one can not deny starting collecting relics and artifacts! I bought and traded quite some material, mostly personal items, medals and photographs. I ended up with some very special items which I display in my own showcases. Besides these I also have a large collection of authentic world war 2 photographs and albums of very special and specific tank models and sub-types. Some are even published in books and websites with my permission.
Some websites which published (single known) photographs of my private collection
Villers-Bocage (Normandy France) battlefield trip where panzer ace Michael Wittmann fought one of his finest (final) battles
St.Eduard Preventorium near La Gleize (Belgium) battlefield trip where Kampfgruppe Peiper fought fierce battles against the US 82nd Airborn Division paratroopers