Beer mug from the Wünsdorf Army Driving School, 1935

This beer mug was awarded to Richard Streibel on August 14, 1935 at the end of his training as a non-commissioned officer in Wünsdorf. It depicts two armored vehicles: A six-wheeled armored reconnaissance vehicle and a tracked vehicle with a skull and crossbones forming from its gun smoke. The vehicles still bear the RW license plate for the Reichswehr. The picture is framed by a quote from Adolf Hitler: “One will must rule us, we must form one unit.” The lid of the tankard is adorned with an M35 steel helmet with Nazi insignia surrounded by oak leaves, which had only recently been introduced.

Previously, Richard Streibel had been a member of the cavalry, in Rider Regiment 11, which was disbanded in 1934 and its personnel divided between two rifle regiments. However, Streibel was sent to the driving school, where he obtained his car and motorcycle driver’s license and was responsible for organizing the training courses in Wünsdorf as part of the staff company. The military base in Wünsdorf was constantly expanded, new barracks buildings were built and in 1935 a tank regiment, an anti-tank division, the motor driving school and the experimental department for army motorization moved in.

Wünsdorf is considered the “birthplace of the Panzerwaffe” – the training and testing departments were the forerunners of the Panzertruppenschule. In addition to the test sites in Kummersdorf and Döbersitz, the new technology was mainly tested in Wünsdorf with regard to its operational capability in the troops and personnel were trained. For example, the Heereskraftfahrschule tested new engines and rubber tires made from the substitute material Buna. As early as 1938, tanks and armored reconnaissance vehicles from Wünsdorf were used to occupy border areas of Czechoslovakia as part of the “Sudeten Crisis”.

At the end of 1942, Streibel, latterly a sergeant major, was sent to Stalingrad to accompany personnel reinforcements. The Red Army closed the cauldron around Stalingrad and Streibel died there under unexplained circumstances. His family kept this jug as a memento of him and even took it with them to West Germany when they fled the GDR in July 1956.

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