@wittmann:
Good argument KurtGodel. Until Worsham introduced his name, I had not heard of him.
I confess I fell for Nazi propaganda as a young boy and Wittmann has been my tank hero ever since.
That said, I love reading and learning about German tanks, so reading about Knispel has been interesting.
Wittmann deserves his share of the votes too! An absolutely outstanding tank commander. It’s unfortunate that so many brave men like Wittmann and Knispel were killed in action.
To return to the subject of Knispel: he saw a member of the Einsatzgruppen mistreat Soviet POWs. Knispel responded by physically attacking the guy doing the abusing. This same kind of moral courage was also demonstrated by Erich Hartmann. At the end of the war, Hartmann surrendered to the Americans. Like millions of other captured German servicemen; Hartmann was transferred to Soviet custody. His Soviet captors abused him in various ways, including torture, solitary confinement, and threats to hunt down and murder his family. Despite all this, Hartmann refused to fold to “the Soviet will.” In the '50s he and many other captured German servicemen were handed over to West Germany as part of a trade agreement. Upon his return, he helped improve the West German Air Force. He was eventually asked to step down from his position because he’d stood up to corrupt dealings between members of the West German military and an American aircraft manufacturer. West Germany was buying unsafe planes, and German pilots were dying as a result.