A German OAP who had kept a World War II Nazi tank and an anti-aircraft gun in a huge arsenal of weaponry in his cellar has been fined more than GBP 200,000.

Retired financial broker Klaus-Dieter Flick, 84, kept the 1943 Panther (Panzer) tank in his villa in the town of Heikendorf in the district of Plon in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

Flick claimed several times that he bought the tank as scrap in Great Britain in 1977, and had even collaborated with the Bundeswehr that helped him repair the engine and charged him EUR 28,317 (GBP 24,336) for it.

However, according to the court, the man broke the War Weapons Control Act and as well as being fined EUR 250,000 (GBP 213,000) who was also given a suspended prison sentence of 14 months.

The 45-ton Panzer, in addition to a whole arsenal of World War II military equipment including ammunition, a mortar, a 3.5-inch anti-aircraft gun, and a torpedo were seized from Flick’s basement by the military police in 2015.

A police officer who visited the property as part of the search for Nazi art gave evidence before the trial saying he was amazed when he switched on the light in May 2015, and saw illuminated SS runes hanging on the wall and the huge Wehrmacht tank in the basement. He had immediately reported it and notify prosecutors, which weeks later resulted in the raid that made international headlines.

Local media reported that it took 20 soldiers around nine hours to recover the Panther from the 84-year-old man’s home six years ago.

The then Mayor Alexander Orth, who reported that Flick was seen driving the Panther around town decades previously, said: “He was chugging around in it during the snow catastrophe in 1978. I took this to be the eccentricity of an old man, but it looks like there’s more to it than that.”

Flick’s trial where he had to answer for violating Germany’s War Weapons Control Act began at the Kiel District Court on 28th May.

His lawyer Gerald Goecke argued that the seized weapons were no longer functional and they should not be restricted and added: “There are no legally binding demilitarisation requirements.”

He added that the man who previously had a perfect record and had this trial hanging over his head since 2015 like a “sort of Damocles” and it had been merely a collection created for “military historical collection purposes”.

However, the presiding judge threw out the lawyer’s argument and agreed with the public prosecutor Torsten Wolke according to whom “all things on the war weapons list are forbidden per se.”

Flick was thus ordered to sell the tank and the weaponry within the following two years to a museum or a suitable expert collector, and was forbidden to store them on his property again.

According to the man’s lawyer, they had already had interest from a museum in the US in Seattle and also collector from North Rhine Westphalia was apparently also interested in buying the tank.

The judgment which was announced on Tuesday (3rd August) is not yet final, and both the accused and the public prosecutor have the right to appeal within a week.