My father- in -law is German, he was a teenager in Germany during WWII. Last night, from out of nowhere, he began to talk about the war. He usually doesn't speak of "bad times", but he wanted to show how good his memory remains. So he began to speak of April 14th, 1945, when the Americans came into Sangerhausen, Germany. The Shermans were shooting their cannons but were not damaging any buildings. He said they were shooting blanks. I'd never heard that we had blank rounds, maybe they just were not aiming to do any damage. He talked about how the American soldiers collected most of the men of a certain age group, put them in a compound for a while then let them go. Then he started talking about the Tiger tanks. He said there were two of the "super Tigers". When they came into town they were so large that they didn't fit on the streets and crushed the curbing and the sidewalks. Later the crews blew them up with explosives put underneath them. He said they were overall beige, tan or yellow. On further questioning he said they had no camouflage colors, but that they were not red primer. That was my question to him.
He knows I build German armor models, but has ignored my models when he comes to visit. He has never answered any questions I have had for him in much detail. He was a member of the Hitler Youth, but he said all the boys were. His mother buried his pistol and uniform in the backyard when the Americans came. He had Uncles who served in the Army, Waffen SS and Wehrmacht . He then became a smuggler of cigarettes and people from East to West Germany. Then later became a Dr. Ing and immigrated to America in the late 50's. Very interesting stories, if you can keep in the subject. He tends to wander about in conversations.
His knowledge of German weapons is more for the aircraft. He knows about SuGs, but didn't know that they armed them with the longer gun. But the Tigers did impress him.
Anyway, I thought I'd throw this out there. I can't find any information on Tiger units sent to Sangerhausen. I have most all the books on Tigers that are in print and I haven't found anything on the web. So, in spite of trends to the contrary , I'm going with overall Dark Yellow on my late war German tanks Maybe some camouflage as well. I never really believed that the Germans, with their obsession with doing things by the book, would send out unpainted tanks. Yes, I know there were orders for a period of time to use the primer color as a camouflage color along with the others . Primer red models never look very good to me. Sorry. I've tried it, but then just had to add other colors to them.
Of course, maybe these were earlier built ones, used in training, and then employed at the end. Perhaps even rebuilt ones, just given a repaint of the Dark yellow. Ahh, the possibilities are endless, are they not?
Doug