Quote:
Originally Posted by Vlim
This again would point towards a Landjägerei marking. The Royal Prussian Landesgendarmerie was originally a military organization, but was 'transferred' to a non-combat organization after 1918, with a name change to 'Landjägerei' in june, 1920.
This could also explain the 'K' as 'Königliche' (Royal). Since the name change took place in 1920, it is not surprising to find it on 1920 property marked pistols.
In old German spelling you sometimes find the use of 'Landiägerei' rather than 'Landjägerei'. In turn, the letter 'i' was substituted by a reversed letter 'j'.
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Gerben,
This is the first time I have heard that a reversed J was used in place of an I. I have not been able to find this in my research of Old German. Could you provide a reference to or example of this?
Even considering the possibility of these substitutions, I very much doubt that these markings are from the Prussian Landjägerei for several reasons:
* The Imperial-era Prussian Gendarmerie used the initials
L.G. (
Landes-Gendarmerie) for property marking (HWIS Chapter 13). I seriously doubt that they would have introduced a
K after November 1918.
* A great deal of evidence strongly indicates that the newly reorganized and renamed Landjägerei did not mark any of their weapons until the 1932 marking orders were issued.
* The Prussian Landjägerei apparently was equipped with LP08s until these were replaced with newly manufactured P08s in 1929. The few Imperial-era P08s I have observed with Landjägerei markings appear to have been issued after the 1929 rearming to units that did not receive P08s until after the withdrawl of French occupation forces in June 1930. By that time, the supply of new weapons apparently had been distributed.
* The Prussian Landjägerei appears to have been the most conformist of the German police in following the 1932 instructions. These markings don't conform to the instructions at all. Even if these markings had been applied earlier, it is almost certain they would have been modified after 1932.
I am not ruling out the possibility that
Lj. and its variations represents
Landjäger or some form of that word. However, I cannot identify a candidate organization. As discussed in HWIS, I believe it to have been a rather small unit with only about 150 men. This makes identification more difficult.