Oliver Smith Jeweler

Panerai 3646/260693

Few vintage Panerai watches are accompanied by a firsthand account of their history. This Panerai 3646 is one of those rare exceptions.

The following narrative was written by Dieter Günter, whose father, Kurt Günter, carried this watch while serving as a German Navy Kampfschwimmer during the Second World War. His account provides a remarkable record of the watch's journey—from wartime service and imprisonment to its preservation within the family for decades.

A family discovery

One day while visiting my parents we talked about my German Navy issued pilot watch (Porsche Military Pilot Watch), when my father mentioned that he still has his diver watch from his Navy days.

That's when he pulled out a small box with pictures and the watch, the Panerai 3646/260693. I got excited over it, and he gave it to me that day to keep, probably late 70's, where it has been in my possession ever since.

My father Kurt Günter was a WWII Navy "Kampfschwimmer", part of his equipment was the Panerai and a Junghans watch.

Kurt Günter's Service

Kurt Günter was born on July 1, 1922, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. He joined the Reichsmarine in 1942 and passed away on January 11, 2017.

There is not much paperwork documenting his military service, aside from a small collection of photographs and the Panerai itself. In conversations with him, however, he revealed several details about his time in the German Navy.

After joining the Reichsmarine in 1942 and completing basic training, he trained as a torpedo mechanic before being assigned to a fast patrol boat unit in the Ostsee (Baltic Sea). He was later transferred to a one-man submarine unit in the North Sea, where he recalled being stranded on the bottom of the sea for more than twelve hours without communication.

Following his rescue, he volunteered for the Kampfschwimmer unit. His background as a torpedo mechanic was likely valuable, as the combat swimmers were also responsible for deploying torpedo mines. He was among one of the last training groups to complete instruction in Sylt, Westerland, an island off Germany's North Sea coast.

Combat and training

He recalled that the training was exceptionally demanding, involving large indoor pools as well as open-sea exercises. His transfer to an operational unit happened suddenly, in the middle of the night.

He remembered that a group of Kampfschwimmer was assembled with almost no notice before being transported by train to the Eastern Front, likely as part of the Keller Group.

During his service, he participated in several combat missions and was awarded the Iron Cross.

One mission remained particularly vivid in his memory. He recalled that six men departed, but only two returned. He never shared any additional details about what happened.

The Watch's survival

At the end of the war in 1945, the entire unit left their camp and moved toward the British lines because they did not want to be captured by the Russians. The group surrendered and was held in a British prisoner-of-war camp, probably near Glückstadt. They were released just a few months later.

This is where the story of the watches truly begins.

My father still had both watches. Knowing that the British would confiscate anything they openly carried, he cut the straps from both watches. He hid one inside the heel of his boot after carving out a small space, and concealed the other inside a bar of soap that he had carefully cut open.

Both watches survived the imprisonment.

What became of the Junghans and the Iron Cross is largely unknown. After his release, my father followed his future wife to Austria aboard an American troop transport and crossed into the country illegally. My parents married in Austria and lived there for approximately seven years, where I was born. After returning to Germany in 1954, my father sold the Junghans to purchase a suit. According to my mother, he also sold the Iron Cross.

"The Panerai, however, remained with him, and decades later, he entrusted it to me."

The preceding account is reproduced from a personal statement written and signed by Dieter Günter on December 30, 2022. It accompanies Panerai 3646/260693 and documents the watch's continuous family ownership from the Second World War to the present day.