An historical question.
 

My older brother captured a German enlisted soldier late in WW2. On the soldier was a WW 1 era Luger in a repaired holtster, held by a belt. On the back of belt buckle was a double runne stamp.

Now for my question: Did the Germans issue Lugers to enlisted men?

My contention to my brother is that he captured an officer in an enlisted man's uniform.

Thank you for any comments.

Hoyt Weathers

Hoyt,

The short answer is that the Germans were very practical about pistol use, and issued them to anyone whose normal duties generally required two hands for something other than direct hostilities. This includes noncoms and enlisteds (and some civilians!) as necessary.

The longer answer can be found in German Pistols and Holsters 1934-1945 vol. IV by Bob Whittington. This volume is translations of the German Army equivalent of the U.S. "Table of Organization and Equipment", a detailed record of manpower strength, weapons issue, and transportation by unit-type for the entire German army. A very interesting and exhaustive record of exactly who used sidearms on the German side in WWII.

--Dwight

It is a myth that "only" german officers were issued pistols. As Dwight and Tac pointed out, many, many enlisteds and non-coms were issued pistols.


Ed

Hoyte

It was nice to read in your message that your older brother stated he captured his Luger from an enlisted man. You always seem to hear the "story" that the family Luger was taken from; an army general, a shot down fighter pilot, a tanker, a Gestapo agent, a high raking SS officer [only if chromed] or from the home of a high ranking Nazi party member.

There seems to be no "glory" in the Luger story unless it was captured from somebody important.

The vast majority were issued to the average combat man, not to high ranking officers, as they most often carried the smaller semi auto in .32 or .380 cal [check out period photos]. Also a Luger is a pretty big gun to carry in the tight quaters of the cockpit of a fighter plane, especially when your trying to bail out.

Good point about the fighter plane. The ME109 had a particularly small and uncomfortable cockpit. I could see a sidearm becoming a hinderance, even a small one. Perhaps they used shoulder holsters?

Issue?
 

If I have it straight, officers were not issued side arms at all; they were expected to buy their own. For the top brass it was more a badge of rank than a practical weapon, hence the prevalence of mouse guns.

I seem to recall that there was a program that allowed non-coms to buy their issued side arm when promoted to officer ranks.

The Luftewaffe issued drillings to some aircrews in Africa as a survival weapon. I'm not sure what the thinking was on just how you would end up on foot with the drilling. These drillings had two 12 ga barrels and a 9.3x74R barrel so were suitable for protection against four legged critters.

As for capturing generals, my mother worked for a guy who was in the underground in the Baltic states and actually did capture a general at the tail end of the war. How ever, in this case the general had a sword and no pistol at all. The general came down the road on horseback at dusk and our guy jumped out of the bushes with a rifle. The general surrendered without a fuss. This was close enough to the end that things were getting pretty confused.

As an adhunct to my pistol collection, I also collect scrap books. I have in one Luftwaffe pilot's scrapbook a photo of him in full flying kit including parachute, standing alongside his Avarado with a Luger holster bucket portruding above the belly band of his parachute harness.

I am fairly certain the cockpit space in this old bird was considerably larger than in the fighters such as the Me-109, which may be why all of the pictures of armed fighter pilots I have seen depicted much smaller holsters, notably the FN 1910/22, HSc and PP/PPK.

The drillings were almost exclusively issued to Junker cargo/transport crews.

Tom A

Old photo's are always good for reference.
You will see lots of EMs with Luger holsters.
In combat or field use, especially as the German systems broke down, any variation would be possible.
I have my dad's 101 Abn unit book with a good picture of an American cook in Bastogne stirring a big pot wearing a Luger over his apron.

I wouldn't call a 380 a mouse gun either. But I've ran across mention of smaller being carried by German officers. Everybody draws their own line between mouse guns and service guns. In Europe the 380 and 32 enjoyed more popularity for open carry than here in the US.

I wouldn't knock mouse guns either, sometimes for concealment you are obliged to go to a 32 ACP, like it or not. But if it's open carry, then you might as well step up to at least a 380. If you expect any reasonable probablity of actually using an open carry gun then I'd say 9 mm Parabellum is the minimum. During WWII there wasn't much available between a 9 mm and a 45 in the self loader line, so it would boil down to a 9mm or a 45.