Hi Ed!
[quote]Originally posted by Edward Tinker:
<strong>
So, those weapons that weren't issued to Vopo were used by?? Stored in big warehouses or arms rooms (can't spell armories today)?</strong><hr></blockquote>
There is, to my knowledge, no published primary source information on the uses to which the East Germans put their rebuilt Lugers. Hopefully that will change with the demise of East Germany, the Reunification, and the fading of both the need and perception for secrecy in the former DDR.
And so we know only that which we can observe, and the conclusions (really speculation, albeit informed speculation in some cases) we can reasonably draw from those observations. So far these observations and conclusions include:
1) Some East German rebuilt Lugers (and P.38â??s, PP, PPK, Kar98k, and other weapons) were used by the Volkspolizei, this conclusion based on the presence of inspection and acceptance marks associated with the Volkspolizei.
2) Some East German rebuilt Lugers (and other weapons, as above) were supplied to Warsaw Pact surrogates in the form of military aid; this conclusion based on the capture of such weapons from said surrogate forces.
3) Some East German rebuilt Lugers were given a high polish salt blue. and generally refurbished to a very high standard, and sold on the commercial market, this conclusion based on the observation that such Lugers were imported into the States briefly in the late 1980â??s.
All that said, identifying an East German rebuilt Luger can be very easy, or very hard. Lugers were given the attention they needed - and no more. The presence of East German commercial proofs are a dead giveaway, as is the presence of the Abnahmebauftragten and/or the Volkspolizei stamps. But barrels may or may not have been replaced, and generally were not replaced if the bore was in acceptable condition. If the original barrel was not replaced, it will retain its original German military proof if that proof did not contain a swastika.
For some time after the War the East Germans used the pre-swastika commercial proof marks; the C/N, C/U proofs. If a Luger is marked in all respects as a Third Reich military Luger but has what appears to be pre-swastika commercial proofs, and is not Third Reich police marked, itâ??s time to at least consider whether it might be an East German rework. Lugers with the characteristic â??bulls eyeâ? plastic grip panels and post-war East German magazines numbered in the police style also must be at least considered to possibly be East German reworks.
If an East German Luger has renumbered parts, the style of renumbering can provide a clue as to whether it is an early, middle, or late rebuild. Early rebuilds had original numbers carefully and completely removed from replacement parts, and the correct number carefully applied in the traditional location and in the traditional style. Late rebuilds had original numbers on replacement parts â??Xâ?ed out (or crudely ground off if the space they occupied was needed) and the new numbers struck adjacent to the old number (or in place of the old number if that number had ben ground off). The new numbers were about twice the size of the old numbers. Mid period rebuilds will show a mixture of these refurbishment styles.
East German Lugers are, I think, a rich collecting field - that few have discovered just yet :-)
Warm regards,
Kyrie
|