[Schupo]

Don,

You may well be correct that the pistol was taken out of police service for a time during the NS Zeit. But, another possibility exists.

This pistol could have remained in police service with the sear safety being removed by the Volkspolizei. All the VOPO lugers I have seen to date have no sear safety (or show that this safety was removed), so it seems that it was removed during DDR reworking, if not previously. I also have a 1957 DDR "Waffen- und Gel�¤ndenkunde" published by the MdI that does not mention the sear safety on the P.08 in police service. The sear safety is not shown on the illustrations or mentioned in the nomenclature or text.

The small lot of newly produced East German lugers (model 1001) that were made in 1953 were not manufactured with sear safeties. This appears to be the standard. I would expect the reworked police pistols to be brought into line with this new DDR Volkspolizei configuration by having the sear safety (if still present) removed.