The German definition is indeed different. That’s why the German Wikipedia article on “Panzer” (“armour”) links to “AFV” and not “Tank”.
This is a quite common misconception present in the media, as e.g. at the beginning of the Ukraine war the back-then German secretary of defense stated: “The Gepard is no tank. The Gepard is for protecting infrastructure by shooting with it’s pipe [Rohr] into the air.” which a) is a bogus quote and b) did not translate well, as she used “Panzer” to translate “tank” and not “(Haupt-)Kampfpanzer ((main) battle tank)”.
The German definition is indeed different. That’s why the German Wikipedia article on “Panzer” (“armour”) links to “AFV” and not “Tank”.
This is a quite common misconception present in the media, as e.g. at the beginning of the Ukraine war the back-then German secretary of defense stated: “The Gepard is no tank. The Gepard is for protecting infrastructure by shooting with it’s pipe [Rohr] into the air.” which a) is a bogus quote and b) did not translate well, as she used “Panzer” to translate “tank” and not “(Haupt-)Kampfpanzer ((main) battle tank)”.