A StuG from Finland

[cbo]

Panzermuseum Munster has a StuG III G from Finland. Last I visited, they had removed some of the paint, exposing some old markings on the side of the vehicle:



There is a German "Balkenkreuz" but what is the blue and white circle? A Finnish army symbol?

Claus B

[Christian Anker]

It's a post-war Finnish sign. Have a look here:
http://www.andreaslarka.net/ps531004/ps531004.html

I guess the swastikas were not overly popular after the war

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Guys, I will post some photos next week that I took about 8 years ago of a friends Stug.III which came from Finland. It had the paint rubbed back to reveal the original German and later Finnish markings. I believe that the vehicle is now in the USA.
Cheers, Ade.

[Mikko]

von Balken cross

The symbol Finnish armour and aircraft used from 1918 until the end of WWII was von Rosen's cross (the first finnish air force aircraft was a gift from Swede von Rosen and the cross was his own mark). It resembles German swastika to some extent, but if you compare these two, they are not the same at all. In Finland the cross was used as a symbol for vehicles, not as a national symbol like in Germany. It's unfortunatelly commonly thought that Finns had the swastika style symbol because they fought with Germans or because of nazi relations or symphaties, but in fact these things are not related with each other in any extent. However, because of the obvious similarity between these two the von Balken cross was not used as a tank/aircraft symbol after 1945.

From 1945 onwards armour has carried a basic Finnish cocard style markings (these were commonly used before in many other roles in our Army). However, the von Balken cross still appears in a few places, for example all Finnish Air Force units still have the cross in their flags.

[cbo]

The vehicle in question still sports the Finnish swastika on the front and on the other side of the hull.

Claus B

[Christian Anker]

Originally posted by cbo
The vehicle in question still sports the Finnish swastika on the front and on the other side of the hull.

Claus B

I'd guess it is a Stu.G. which has been used both during an imidiately after the war...

[cbo]

Originally posted by Christian Anker
I'd guess it is a Stu.G. which has been used both during an imidiately after the war...

The upper coat with the Finnish "Swastika" is a restauration by the museum, but the vehicle has likely been used both during and after the war. IIRC the Finns used StuGs into the 1960ies?

Claus B

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Guys, here are a couple of photos taken in the mid 1990's of the ex Finnish Stug III then owned by British collector/dealer Bob Fleming. The AFV had just arrived in the UK when I took these photos. I have a couple more if anyone is interested in seeing them?
The Finnish paint was wearing thin with exposure to the weather and beneath this was the original German paint and markings. The vehicle was later sold to the USA.
Cheers, Ade.

[Mikko]

Finnish StuGs

A friend of mine showed me some additional photos of that particular Munster StuG, which showed also a great big swastika on the lower front hull and some other markings. Like on the picture on this site, the overall colour pattern is somewhat looking like it should, but the colours are totally wrong, and also the swastikas are surely repainted in Germany (the Finns couldn't have done the restauration so badly and wrong!). The picture Claus posted shows though some of the original paint schemes used during it's career, from the original German cross, to the wartime pattern seen on the left upper corner for example and a post-war configuration of all-green with a cocard (the green is slightly visible all over but with most of it removed - in reality it was deeper green rather than olive like it appears in the photo).

StuGs were used until late 1960's as they were intended, and right to the end of the 1980's as pillboxes. But after 1945, none of them had any wartime markings, swastikas and such. The cocard was the only one used. Swastikas are later repainted on some StuGs in museums, and in Finnish armour museum the StuGs are really redone with care to resemble the originals.