German 84-year-old hit with massive fine over WWII tank

An 84-year-old German man has been handed a A$400,000 fine after a World War II-era tank was found in his garage.

The unnamed man was also handed a suspended prison sentence of 14-months over the tank, as well as a cache of other Nazi-era weapons.

Investigators raided the man's home in 2015 acting on a tip about art potentially stolen by the Nazis.

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The German man was fined $400,000 over the Panther tank.

Under German privacy laws, the 84-year-old cannot be named.

Authorities found a 1943 Panther tank, a flak anti-aircraft cannon and assorted assault rifles and pistols.

The tank was missing its tracks, and it took authorities nine hours to get it out of his basement garage.

The tank weighs 50,000 kilograms and measures 6.7 metres long

The man's tank was not considered a mystery to locals in Heikendorf, his home in Germany's north.

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A German Panther tank in action during World War Two.

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"He was chugging around in that thing during the snow catastrophe in 1978," mayor Alexander Orth told media.

His lawyer has argued the tank was not functional and was bought for scrap metal.

But he was found in breach of Germany's War Weapons Control Act.

A US museum is now interested in buying the Panther tank.

A Panther tank on the Eastern Front during World War II.

Panthers were considered one of the most fearsome tanks of World War II, with US and British tanks often unable to penetrate the thick armour.

The Germans' problem was they simply could not make enough Panthers to counter the sheer numbers of Russian T-34 tanks and American M4 Shermans.

But the Panther was riddled with mechanical faults, a problem that proved immensely costly in the Battle of Kursk in 1943.

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German 84-year-old hit with massive fine over WWII tank
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