[Guntoter]

Hi there. I was in the Air Force and issuance of pistols was most sought after, but tended to be officers and security police mostly. As to the WW1 German Military, they must have issued a boat load of Lugers since we have so many thousands in collections here. Apparently the German's saw the pistol as what it really is, a purely secondary weapon (as the US military also does), but gave it a much higher rate of issue than we do. Of course, the German Military in WW1 was incredibly large.

Most reference material I have seen state that the German Officer was required to purchase their own sidearm and I believe initially it would most likely have been a 7.65mm pistol. I think status had a lot to do with this, as a smaller pistol seemed to indicate an "important" person who did not need a large pistol to fight, but purely for a last ditch self defense. Also, large pistols are heavier and get in the way of administrative tasks. (The nature of American Officers sometimes is just the opposite, the bigger the pistol the more powerful and important they think they are..lol) Also, pre-war German Officers were much more sword conscious and this was the true sign of rank for them, a pistol would only be for field use, but secondary to the sword, at least initially.

I do not know this for sure, but I believe that by the later stages of WW1, pistols were being issued to Officers in addition to enlisted. The German Military was a much different organization near the end than it was originally and class distinctions were much less by the end. Also, the 7.65mm pistol, the many versions, were seeing widespread issue also, not just to Officers. Available photos, in addition to many 7.65 Imperial German marked pistols, prove this out. We can only imagine the huge rate of loss of weapons in the brutal and violent conditions of the First World War so many pistols were needed.