..DWM to Mauser - reason ?..
 

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was there a reason why the manufacturing went from DWM to Mauser in the '30s ?

After WW1, the Allies wanted to disarm Germany and part of that was disassembling their major production plants at DWM and Erfurt. DWM had made its living off of military contracts so they sold all their inventory as commercial model pistols to remain solvent through the 20's and then sold their equipment to Mauser. Basically boils down to French greed and the Mausers having very popular acclaim around the world for hunting as well as military rifles.

Uh, not that direct....

DWM made lugers until about 1929 - 1930 - the so-called Riff contracts - Mauser and DWM were like sister companies and the contract did go to them.

Get Mauro and Gerbens book on the Parabellum is Back and it goes into detail :)

Ed

Both DWM and Mauser were owned by a parent "combination" company Ludwig Loewe and Co.

The decision was made by management to move the Luger manufacturing from Berlin Charlottenberg to Mauser's Oberndorf am Neckar facility in about 1929. The move, including August Weiss the manager of Luger manufacturing, was accomplished starting in 1930.

This involved moving supplies, parts in progress, finished parts, tooling, gauges and key staff to Oberndorf. An inventory of the train that everything shipped on was documented by Weiss at the time.

I suspect that it was an expedient move to where there was more available space and where the Allied commission had fewer prying eyes concerned with enforcing the treaties signed at the end of WW-I. Mauser had already been able to ship a number of otherwise prohibited C-96 handguns because of lax enforcement and ambiguous documentation.

In any case, after the demise of the Weimar government in 1933, Mauser began producing the first of the "K" dated Lugers.

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interesting stuff there - thanks for the replies