Dutch WWII Museum
 

In a recent episode of Rick Steves Travels to Europe on public TV he visited a WWII Museum in the Netherlands where there was an exhibit of Dutch resistance artifacts. There was a quick shot of an open wooden box containing a Luger and a small semi-automatic pistol that looked the worst for wear. The Luger appeared to have ivory grip panels which seem odd to me for a WWII military Luger. There was no explanation as to the origin of the pistols or how they were related to the Dutch resistance forces. Did the Germans carry ivory stocked Lugers?

You'd be amazed by what you find in Dutch museums :)

Many don't have a clue what they have, and since the Netherlands are not exaclty a pro-gun country, most don't care either.

An exception is the Dutch Army Museum, which was located in Delft, but will move to the former Soesterberg airport together with other military collections. They have a very nice, large, well documented collection.

The best material is in private collector's hands, not in museum collections.

Two museums jump out at me, the one in Delft and the Overloon Museum (largest tank battle fought in the Netherlands).

I think Overloon is likely the one that was featured, although I don't remember seeing any with ivory grips. But like Vlim said, most smaller museums (well, most museums) don't know the intricacies of guns and you see the weirdest combinations.


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The worst (or best, depending on one's viewpoint) I saw was a navy holster/stock that was bolted to a wall, by drilling some large holes through the stock.

It was wrongly identified as being an 'artillery holster/stock' as well :)

This mutilation was on display at a small museum on the island of Terschelling.

A possible explanation for the 'pimped up' gun you saw: There was a special arrangement for members of the former resistance, who were allowed to keep their guns, provided they were registered (like all legal guns here). Some decided to 'improve' their guns by adding things like the ivory grips you saw, or by refinishing / restoring the guns, etc... Recently I saw a rare example of a German Kriegsmarine M1934 pistol. The Eagle/M was removed from the slide, and the owner had engraved his initials at the same spot. Other guns survived relatively well. I have several examples of Dutch resistance pistols that survived in their original configuration. But most of these ended up in private collections in the 1960s-70s. The gun in question was probably loaned or donated to the museum by relatives of a former resistance member who didn't want to retain the gun after his passing.

As I said, the country has had no tradition of gun ownership since 1919, when the current gun laws were first introduced as a method to keep firearms away from members of the communist parties (the government feared that something similar like the communist revolts in Russia and Germany could start in the Netherlands as well). As usual, the law fulfilled its purpose and was then left in place for eternity :)