What About George Luger?
 

In 1962 Fred Datig amened his earlier 'The Luger Pistol' after visit to George and his family. Facinating!!These are his personal pictures. Sorry so many!

I'm pretty sure he didn't meet Georg himself, as he was quite dead at that time :)
He did meet his son, however.

It must have been an interesting meeting, as Datig didn't speak a word of German and the Luger family and August Weiss didn't speak a word of English :)

We are continuing to rewrite the history of Georg Luger and his relationship with DWM, Loewe and Mauser. All I can say is that old Georg was not who many think he was. In his defense, we are also unearthing interesting material that will shed a whole new light on the developments by Paul Mauser and Fidel Feederle.

Missed one! "jr" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Luger

Vlim, Dear Sir;

Would please elaborate on the "old Georg was not who many think he was". Thanks

He was a corporate rat, thriving on the theft of ideas developed by others.

Another player? Who was 'Fidel Feederle' ?

Feederle brothers, the inventors of C96. Obviously, capable people.

Feederle probably was as capable as Luger. But on "Mauser Archive", these brothers gave readers impression that they were more technical oriented, and did not have any business ambition, simple characteristics. The description on Luger,,,, gave reader different impression,,,, this was not an easy figure, he was much more aggressive, had lots of desires that he wanted to achieve by many methods.

Let's say that the 'invention of the C96' by the Feederle brothers is also being disputed by newly surfaced literature ;)

Surprised to hear that. Besides the feeding system, were there other elements specifically from Paul Mauser? Will wait new articles...

Did anyone hold a patent??

It's a relatively complicated story. The patent was issued by Mauser, and it's called "Mauser Pistol". In 1960s, Belford and Dunlap published the first collector book in this domain. They referred words from former Mauser manager, "Paul Mauser was very closely assisted by the three Feederle brothers on development of 7,63 pistol". In this description, Mauser was still the main inventor, but he was "assisted by ...". Feederle Brothers played assistant role. Feederle's son's statement was more straight forward, probably due to he's less diplomatic on this, "Among Mauser workers, this pistol is still referred to as Feederle Pistol"..... Expressed in this way, then,,,, different story.

The forward placed feeding system is almost a miniature version of Mauser rifle. There is no doubt on Mauser's contribution on this gun. But, who designed that screwless lock frame is still a myth, and who designed that bolt lock is unclear.

I'll never be as knowledgeable as you, Gerben, on the history of the Luger, but isn't your judgement of GL perhaps a little harsh?
Was he not responsible for re-engineering the Borchardt from an awkward, unwieldy device into a truly usable pistol, or was the actual work done by others, and he claimed credit?

Readers of "Mauser Archive" easily built up this impression on Mr. Luger: very capable, but a shady character.

Not surprised. Many capable people had shady character :) After 100 years, he's shady or shiny does not matter any more. People remember him by the gun.

Basically, Paul Mauser patented the C96 in his own name, against company policies (company invention patents are registered to the company, not to the inventor himself) as a manner of getting back at Luger and Loewe.

Georg Luger started as a consultant/representative for Mauser after being introduced by Mauser main share/stakeholder Isidor Loewe. Luger worked as a representative, using all dirty tricks in the book, but with little succes (bribery, etc..). Mauser broke with Luger after Luger took a patent on a Mauser design that was still under development. This patent trick meant that Mauser had to pay a license to Luger for any modified rifle they produced. You can imagine that this ticked off Paul Mauser severely. He subsequently used the C96 patent to get back at both Loewe and Mauser and to secure some additional deal about Luger and Loewe's shady patent practices.

On the other hand, Paul Mauser was not afraid to use patenting for his own purposes, severely limiting any developments by competitors, this includes designs that predated the C96 design on which the Mauser patents were made...

Regarding the development of the luger pistol, it is much more likely that a research and development team at Loewe / DWM did most of the field work on the redesign of the pistol and that Georg Luger merely acted as a project manager, patenting any financially relevant improvements in his own name.

This behavior of Georg Luger, which cost DWM a fortune in license fees, was the basis of a long lasting conflict between Georg Luger and the later DWM manager Paul von Gontard. Von Gontard has long been presented as the vilain of the story, trying to separate Luger from his patent rights. In fact, I think that Von Gontard recognized Luger for what he really was and took the chance to get rid of him when he could. Luger had been a protege of Isidor Loewe, who died just before WW1. So after 1914 Georg Luger was on his own, without any protection from the (old) company management.

Paul Mauser actually accused Isidor Loewe of using Georg Luger and his patent scheme in order to limit the corporate value of Paul himself. This was extra bitter to Paul because he was plagued by one important limitation all his life: lack of funds to remain independant. Mauser had to work with external financial backing from the start, and this in turn led to a loss of control over his own business.

Gerben you never cease to amaze me. You and some collegues are establishing real and a new and accurate history. I encourage you and others not only to record but correct as needed. Freds' writings are are nearly 70 years old. Be it lugers or books written on the subject seem to change with time! History will only stand corrected when truth signs through. To that I commend you and our other luger custodials, protectors of the real story and devotion to accuracy. Eric, B.A. J.D.

Mighty strong words, Vlim. I respect your vast knowledge of the history of the greatest pistol ever made, but aren't you being a little hart auf den alten Mann?

I don't know if GL ever invented anything on his own or not, but many good ideas and inventions go nowhere without good project management and smart, aggressive marketing. It's rarely the "best" product that wins out - it's usually the one with the best marketing.

What's wrong with being 'merely' a project manager? I am one, and I take credit for everything each person who works for me does, and my boss does the same to me - so what?

Right or wrong, it seems we see in history that many times it's always the one who can market the thing is the one who gets the credit. Maybe GL was no different? GL may have been a shady character but without him I doubt the Luger pistol would have been so successful.

Well, I think that because of his 'qualities', Luger was succesful in promoting the pistol design. He was a former army man, knew the routines, was not afraid to use bribes, had a very good technical knowledge and was backed by a relatively large company with a good bank.

But the manner in which he secured an extra income by patenting other people's work is very questionable and his willingness to lend himself for shady business deals was a severe blemish on his reputation and that was the reason he was worked out of DWM in the end.

Before Luger worked for DWM / Loewe and Mauser, he had worked as an assistant for Mannlicher. He left Mannlicher to work for his direct competitor at the time. That is also a sign that Luger was not the most loyal person to work with.

Hiram Stevens Maxim and Hugo Borchardt had done most of the technical work already, and even this work was based on work of others, so the luger pistol, although bearing his name, has not much to do with Luger as an inventing genius.

Luger had special talent. Turning Borchardt to Luger was not only a visual enhancement, it's a very practical, solid improvement. And the super successful 9x19mm cartridge alone could put him on a high position in early self-loading pistol development. Finally, we noticed that he's known for the improvement and inventions made by him. He wasted some time on other paths.

Intriging thread. Almost more than I wanted to know but certainly thankful that so much work has been done to enlighten the collecting community.

Question: I have always been told that it was not the company nor GL that percipitated the name "Luger" for the pistol but rather US importers. Is that correct?

Gary

Where has this been hiding? http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-c...t%20753414.pdf And part 2~~~http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-c...(GunFacts).pdf

This is not meant as a personal attack so please don't take it that way.

"I am one, and I take credit for everything each person who works for me does, and my boss does the same to me - so what?"

And you don't see anything wrong with that??

There's taking credit for the work or ideas of another person and then there's sharing credit for the ideas of others when you as a ( say ) a project manager helped facilitate the cooperative atmosphere and resource acquisition that helps get the job done. If one is just a hands off boss who merely signs time cards ( and I'm NOT saying you are)
that person has no moral right to share anything in my opinion.
Marketing often happens after an idea is born so sharing credit there is questionable.

I've been a developer for years and good managers don't take credit for the work of others; they may benefit financially because they're viewed as successful at what they do based on the success of their teams but unless they're a hands on manager they don't take nor deserve credit for an idea that isn't theirs. The company will own the idea and patent it but credit for it is assigned to the person or team that developed it. That team usually includes the manager but after some discussion.
When a patentable idea was developed in my team all those associated with its development were given patent credit ( I was not part of that development and rightfully was not listed) even though the idea was the brainchild of the head of the business side. Members of my team brought that idea to reality.

Jerry

Eric,

Kenyon presented this patent in an old "Gun Report" column. It was presumably filed to protect an alternate positioning of the toggle knobs. The article profiled a pistol manfactured to this design, although there is no documentation of its construction or evidence of a patent model being made.

I have examined a second pistol (differing in some physical details from the Kenyon example) purporting to be the 1904 patent model, which was clearly a modern modification of a standard Old Model Parabellum.

--Dwight

Jerry,

I see where what I said could be taken wrong way. I'm not in the commercial world, so please allow me to clarify what I meant. I work for the US Navy, we have a thing called chain of command. Essentially that means I am responsible for everything each member of my team does - success or failure, I get the credit and the blame. I don't even have a choice.

Having said that, I can appreciate what you are saying and I think you make good points. I admit I exaggerated just a bit - what I said certainly does not apply to stealing patents, which is where GL may have crossed the line.

Between you and me...
I'm not your typical clueless/useless manager - worked my way up into this for 20 years. I am a "hands-on" manger of Naval Aviation flight simulator & training systems. My team does nothing without my direction and involvement, as I am a control freak. I was thinking GL was the same type of manger and maybe we should cut him a little slack.

- Geo