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We thought that as we had told visitors on an earlier update of the existence of German AFV's in Bulgaria, including showing some of the unique relics in the military museum in Sofia that we should show you all some evidence of the aftermath of these WW2 vehicles and their current state of decay.
To recap, early in 1945 as the Red Army descended upon the Eastern territories of the Third Reich the German attempted to bolster thei crumbling Bulgarian ally with the instigation of a Bulgarian Tank Battalion. The Germans supplied Panther tanks, and also assault guns, now a more common part of the late war German panzer regiment. They were hurriedly trained with the view of being committed to the front early in March.
However, the Red Army had other ideas and the Battalion never fully went into action before Bulgaria was over run.
As a satellite state of the Soviet Union Bulgaria had her border protection enhanced by the emplacing of many of the old German AFV's.
Certainly many of the Panthers were emplaced and as we can now see on this page so was at least one Jagdpanzer IV/70. The engine has been removed from this vehicle and a few of the ancillary external items are missing. However this vehicle would make a superb restoration item - if only it could be removed from its remote location!
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