Heinz Koch

Heinz Koch was born 21 March 1917 in Weimar.
He was in the unit Nachrichten-Abteilung 37 as Funker, which was part of the 1. Panzer Division. The unit was better known as Panzer-Divisions-Nachrichten-Abteilung 37 or as Panzer-Nachrichten-Abteilung 37 and it was based in a kazerne in the city Weimer.

This Militär-führerschein was issued on 30 April 1937, Heinz was 20 years old at the time. It got issued for Verbrennungsmotor klasse II, which is for normal and bigger trucks. It was signed and approved by the Abteilungs commander Oberstleutnant Dr. Berndt. On 11 Mai 1937 Heinz did an exam for a Klasse III licence, which is for cars and small trucks, and passed. On 5 July 1937 Heinz did an exam for the Gleisketten Panzerkraftwagen licence. Which means tracked panzer vehicle, and thats basically just a tank. He passed the exam.

On 24 June 1939 Heinz dit the exam for Klasse I, which is for motorcycles, and passed. Since Heinz did 2 exams before this one, the space to write it down was used up. Normaly a new führerschein got issued with alle the Klassen directly written down on the seond page. But due to unknown reasons the last page of a new führerschein got cut out and stapled into this one. On it the approvement for the Klasse I licence was noted and a security stamp was placed on the edge of the pages to prove that it was legally done and not by Heinz himself.



You don't see these kind of improvisations often. I think it could have been done this way so Heinz wouldn´t have to give a new picture for a new führerschein. Unfortunately the picture has been removed at some time. On the front of this Militär-führerschein someone wrote that this licence is usable till 27 augustus 1945. That was probably done right after the war due to shortages. That happends often with documents. Like Soldbücher being used as ID for example, those got used for quite some time after the war was over. This means that Heinz Koch survived the war.