The tank graveyard: German depot that has dismantled more than 15,000 armoured vehicles built for the Cold War but now sit waiting to be stripped and melted down




With conflict in European soil in east Ukraine, Russia allegedly massing her forces at the border, it may seem odd that many of the continent's nations are actually dismantling their armed forces.

These pictures show dozens of Marder light tanks that once belonged to the West German army's mechanised infantry, waiting in the yard of Battle Tank Dismantling GmbH in Edeleben, Germany.

Since the early 1990s the company has dismantled over 15,000 tanks and other armoured vehicles, from German, Austrian, French and other European arsenals. They are complying with Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, an agreement from the final years of the Cold War which placed limits on key types of military equipment.

But critics say that with the end of the Cold War and the shifts in the balance of power in Eastern Europe, the terms of the treaty are out of date. Russia in 2007 refused to meet its treaty obligations out of anger at the westwards expansion of Nato and plans to bases U.S. ballistic missile defences in Poland.

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