Cologne March 1945: Tank Duel at the Cathedral - The film documentary - The source

[@starguard4122]

I've been to Cologne before. Its amazing how that war raged all around that cathedral and yet the cathedral itself survived with very minimal damage. I actually had the privilege to stand in the very spot where that panther tank was destroyed over 70 years ago. One of the priest inside told me that the church was over 600 years old and was actually "protected" by both sides of the war

[@InshushaGroupie]

+Starguard ! The cathedral was very heavily damaged in the war, and was hit by bombs aimed at the nearby railway station in particular. In the 1950s it was comprehensively repaired. You can still see signs of damage, mostly symbolically kept in that state, in small areas today. The cathedral wasn't deliberately protected or targeted, it's just hard to blow up cathedrals with 1940s-era bomber technology unless you really wanted to, which of course the Americans and British didn't. You can see more here: rarehistoricalphotos.com/cologne-cathedral-stands-tall-amidst-ruins-city-allied-bombings-1944/

[@sean.furlong1989]

The cathedral in Aachen also survived despite the city being nearly completely destroyed.

[@SeadartVSG]

My high school physics teacher was bombadier on several raids on Koln. He told us the cathedral was marked to be protected during the bombing, but the bomb aiming was not all that accurate and bombs did fall on the cathedral.

[@harrybeau1712]

That poor guy scrambling out with one foot blown off.

[@Jgasporrap]

The amount of research to bring out this story is really amazing. Painstakingly done, thank you for all your hard work!

[@me.crunchy7181]

There is someone who actually researched the tank duel of cologne.Only the german gunner died the rest of the crew escaped.For the sherman only the loader survived.

[@erasgonehistoricalmolds2400]

There is a McDonald's restaurant at the intersection where the German Panther tanks was destroyed. Very appropriate.

[@sleepyweaselgaming3092]

The tank commander was bitter at the Americans for using a capture German tank. In reality, he didn't fire because he thought it truly was a German tank. The Pershing was relatively new and few at the time. Even American soldiers thought they were captured German tanks.

[@norwayitalo]

i read only 4 came in active fight .....

[@fortnutz-gaming8835]

I thought I am the only one who knows what the link tells you

[@linglingjr]

Tomas K there was only twenty of them in the ETO

[@jwgacey2939]

Spent two days in Cologne in 2018 and stayed at Hyatt Hotel adjacent to bridge across from cathedral. Spectacular history

[@ajsees2608]

Glad to see this. My grandfather was a forward observer and after the lt. He was with got killed he was up in the right steeple alone for several days before other Americans got to the city center. I Got to go back with him and staff let him and my father go up in the steeple after my grandfather spoke to an elder there. He had many interesting stories.

[@bellator11]

Damn, the Pershing crew sure were lucky their tank looked like a German tank or that Panther would've fired first and ended them. I can understand the frustration of the German crew feeling as though they had been tricked afterwards, they had never seen a Pershing tank before and it definitely looked more like any German tank than a Sherman did.

[@kevinyang5926]

The Panther's 75mm would not be able to reliably penetrate the M26 pershing reliabily frontally

[@robertdawson8522]

I read the book Spearhead.I wonder if Clarence got around to asking Gustav why he didnt shoot first since the Panther had the Pershing clearly in his sights.

[@filmschatzarchiv]

I was the one who did the whole research and brought the two soldiers together. Gustav always said they did not see any tanks from their perspective, he thought that their might be some of them only because of the shelling.

[@METALLICARULES11]

Must have been a unique experience being in that Pershing to see a Panther so clearly in your sights. Usually in tank battles you can barely see the enemy tank due to smoke, Flames, Debris and other factors but this Pershing crew had a perfect view of the Panther.

[@scotthulsey8763]

The Pershing had a 90mm and it would have easily penetrated the side armour of that tank .A Sherman 75mm could.

[@RUHappyATM]

All that I have learnt is that war is bad. There are no winners.

[@trevorsizzle3705]

two guy's died one died in the panther and 1 died from wounds the other three lived.

[@froimkatz8214]

That was the biggest city battle? Looks more like a skirmish on the Eastern front?

[@hugbug4408]

Seen the cathedral in 7/1968 , when we visited Germany . My family , and I were inside this spectacular church that dates back as far as 900 A.D.. Europe has a plethora of ancient cathedrals that go back just over a thousand years ago. Fascinating!!!

[@dunruden9720]

What's A.D?

[@Greyswyndir]

Shit! The American photographer called it a Tiger when it was a Panther.

[@TheAsbeth]

+Greyswyndir i read that back then Tigers were so much feared that basically every tank that Allies encountered was a Tiger to them, even panzer III and IV

[@Greyswyndir]

=LSKE= Jampzi Yeah, I've heard the same thing. Sometimes they thought they were being attacked by German tanks when in reality they were being shot at with anti-tank guns.

[@rossmum]

+Greyswyndir Allied tankers would commonly misidentify basically anything on tracks as a Tiger (or a Ferdinand/Elefant, if it was a rear-casement self-propelled gun like a Nashorn or similar). Any combat report describing action against Tigers should be taken with a grain of salt. More often than not, a skirted Panzer IV was the culprit, or perhaps even a Panther as seen here. Interestingly, it seems the Panther's commander misidentified the Pershing - which presumably he hadn't heard of before - to be one of their own. Taking the testimonies of the men involved as indisputable fact leads to enormous unintentional distortions; combat is stressful and chaotic.

[@Greyswyndir]

rossmum Right on, I've read about that myself.

[@nogibertv4824]

+Greyswyndir shameless americans...copying the looks of there tiger tank..which led to the commender of the panter to think it was there own..but still the pershing looks too sexy looking tank.

[@sergio_grez]

Where can I find the entire documentary?? PLEASE!

[@fadzilsaad3530]

I have a lot of respect for them because they managed to get through their lives after returning from the war. It is not easy for them to return to normal life after seeing so many deaths, destruction, misery, cruelty and how horrible the situation was during the second world war.

[@fortnutz-gaming8835]

The panther thought that the Pershing was a German tank because its new and it looks like a German tank also the Americans are confused when they thought it was theirs

[@sparrow9990]

5:34 im pretty sure what had accually happened to the crew was if im not mistaken the loader is the only one that died inside then the rest of the crew accually escaped. If im not mistaken the gunner of the Pershing and commander of the panther accually met up after the war and became pretty good friends. Just old ww2 era solduers have so much pride and are so old and short on memory that they dont entirely remember correctly or in many cases especially with German soldiers that happen to be on the documentaries are just very bias or the narrator is translating wrong to make them sound bias.

[@filmschatzarchiv]

This documentary/research is the only source telling first hand the common thread of the plot that had been repeated and retold on the net for so many times including the story how the german crewmembers of the cathedral panther were found and identified. No other book/website/video did own research on their identity/perspective. If you find others telling the stories about the surviving german panther crew and their perspectives, or the identity of the previously knocked out american Sherman tank crew, just ask them for a source, they simply have none except: "March 1945 - Duel at the Cathedral" or the previously published german film and book editions: 1945 - Kriegsende in Köln going back to 2008, 2012, 2015 and 2020. You also mentioned the fate of a fourth crew member of the german Cathedral Panther. The truth is, it´s unknown, it´s only the result of a "process of elimination", because I proved and published that the commander, the gunner and the driver definitely survived. It was also this research the german gunner Gustav Schäfer was found and brought him together with Pershing tank gunner Clarence Smoyer after my visit in the US back in 2007 and they became friends. But Gustav Schäfer was no member of the german Cathedral panther tank. Smoyer and Schäfer shared the incident at the Ringstreet when both fired on a civilian car driving between the frontlines and asked me to search for the young women. The full research as a printed book with all the unique photos and valuable documents of that research is now for the first time available in english. Take a look into the 360 fully illustrated book: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rmbcmKaoqtqBfMk

[@NotM3li]

Last month I was at a some kind of museum in cologne that was actually the only building without damage standing and they told us that that building once became an office where other people of other countries were imprisoned at that time and tortured, we even got to see the chambers, they had sentences written on their walls that can be seen till today aswell it’s interesting and sad to know how they lived back then. The museum told us much more stuff but I just wanted to tell a bit abt it. Tho it’s sad to see that the Kölner Dom will never be rebuilt to it’s previous glory, it will always fall apart and there will need to be always things to be rebuilt :(

[@greglaplante1553]

The pershing does look like a panther or tiger tank from a few hundred yards. They shot again because they did not know if there was a crew man or 2 left to fire the gun at them.

[@peterson7082]

> *_"They shot again because they did not know if there was a crew man or 2 left to fire the gun at them."_* Or to assure it couldn't be put back into operation.

[@jean-francoissaliou690]

Les photos de ROBERT CAPPA, sur OMAHA BEACH, ont faites le tour du monde. Mais, réussir a filmer un char allemand être détruit, avec l'horreur que cela implique, pour l'équipage, mais surtout le danger que cela provoque pour le cameraman, je suis vraiment époustouflé. Chapeau bas......

[@williamh3823]

Panther commander had more than 20 armor kills...deadly predator

[@williamh3823]

Pershing had advantage of ground support forward observation Rounding the blind corner they had the terminal "second" that the panther lacked

[@MrDaiseymay]

Big Battle for the Rubble, wasn't it

[@NapoleonGarcia23]

1:47 it was "Katharina Esser" who was killed 1:48 Anna Lettau her sister "Katharina Esser"

[@aidanconvery7460]

It wasn"t a "Tiger" but a Panther. And 3 crew of the Panther survived .

[@Tyler-uw9ol]

My great great uncle Julian was in that tank, the one witch the Commander with no leg

[@filmschatzarchiv]

If your late great great uncle was Julian H. a.k.a. "Shilo" Patrick from Kentucky, He was the Driver of the jumbo Sherman tank. The man who lost his leg, was Commander Lt. Karl E. Kellner from Wisconsin.

[@TonyTony1492]

The first part of the documentary was excellent and if it wasn't for the research by Hermann Rheindorf we would never know who were the crewmembers of the Panther tank that parked in front of the Cologne Cathedral to make a desperate last stand. But unfortunately, in the last segment of the documentary, Hermann presents the absolute lunatic conspiracy theory that the tank battle was staged, which had me screaming at the television screen. With the graphic tank battle footage shot by Jim Bates, combined with the personal testimony of the two first hand credible witnesses Jim Bates and Clarence Smoyer, there is no question what happened that day and it was not staged. I met Clarence Smoyer and I was friends with Jim Bates, and I don't know of two more honorable men. I give credit to Hermann for his research and providing that information to Adam Makos to help him write his magnificent book "Spearhead.", but this other crazy theory could have been left out of an otherwise great documentary on the Duel at the Cathedral. If you want' the real story of the Duel at the Cathedral read "Spearhead" by Adam Makos.

[@jeremiahjamesmanacnes2751]

Actually 5 Survived From The Panther The First Two You Have Seen Escaping From The Tank Was The Commander And The Radio Operator And Before The Second Shot On The Panther The Driver Escaped And The Gunner Slumps Back In The Tank And Before The Third Shot The Loader Escaped From The Loader's Hatch But Then The Loader Died....maybe

[@batarasiagian9635]

Disjointed flow. I'm not hearing a coherent story but a series of vignettes.

[@billt7283]

well you need to knw a little bit about the battle to gain fully from this

[@Escobar224]

RIP Clarence

[@williampiergiovanni5227]

Yes it was a Pershing tank which could have easily been discerned as a German tank. it boiled down to who fired first. You have to identify your target for you do not want to shoot your own people.

[@williamh3823]

2 time ironcross recipient didn't earn those by hiding in train tunnels all day...these 2 sherman kills woulda led to a 3rd cross if not for pow capture

[@harv5425]

1/5 Panther Crew died the loader escaped from the back of yhe turret

[@thegt3clickcrash329]

The Germans were pissed cause they got tricked. Kinda strange when Germans started getting there asses handed to them do they complain about the way other forces should have been more noble in there fighting techniques.

[@takirid]

Its not about being more noble in there fighting techniques, Its about what we have been told for the past 70 years. Lying about how the panther was taken out by lone Pershing. And that the Panther crew all died. Whats with that bullshit. Are they saying how great the Pershing is, you don't need to that' just be happy the Allies won the war.

[@zachburleigh3874]

takiri dixon They thought the Pershing was German. There was only 4 that saw combat in WW2 so yea

[@Phalanx11]

The narrator said it was a tiger tank......

[@filmschatzarchiv]

You re wrong, the cameraman said it

[@soupdiver6855]

Only tow German tankers died

[@erlanggaprasetyo1606]

it's a war, a just war

[@stephenKay-su8pw]

Get the pronunciation correct, cullen is how its pronounced.

[@artherr2843]

F

[@marcelosedy4703]

:( :(

[@leesaunders1930]

it's crazy, why do I wish the panther had shot at the pershing when I'm English and back then Germany was our enemy. but I am a big supporter for the underdog so maybe that's it just wish that panther had let a shell fly at that pershing at least.

[@billt7283]

that Panther had killed people in a Sherman that same battle. Look at this photo of Pfc Julian Patrick and tell me that you wish that 75mm gun had fired another shot....bag-of-dirt.tumblr.com/post/50569843230/us-army-pfc-julian-h-patrick-of-salyersville

[@tomthx5804]

Yeah, It's pretty crazy to be cheering for the Nazis. And considering them the "underdogs".

[@jonathancooper474]

well said ... the German crew were just doing their job ... as were the Americans...fastest shooter survives....nasty but thats war.

[@billt7283]

Jonathan Cooper oh i fully agree. i don't hold anything against this crew. they had already lived through the hell of the eastern front too

[@linglingjr]

Lee Saunders what a terribly wrong and ignorant comment to make. Wishing for even more death and suffering for no reason other than your entertainment. I feel sorry for you, knowing that that you can't appreciate this footage for what it really is: a glimpse into the horrors that actual humans on both sides endured in an other worldly environment. But to you it holds no more weight than a scene from some Hollywood action film.