East German Lugers?

[Dwight Gruber]

Luke's thread http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthre...threadid=12282 has brought to the surface something I have been wondering about. I am starting a new discussion rather than hijack his into unsupportable WAG territory.

I recall reading (can't find the source now) that the East Germans actually produced a small run of Luger pistols. I'm led to believe that there weren't very many, that their quality was poor.

Can anyone here authoritatively tell the story of these guns? Does anyone have one? Can pictures be posted so we can see their characteristics?

--Dwight

[Edward Tinker]

It is in Dieter Marshal's book, from memory, he says that around a 1000 guns were made, I beleive put together from parts...

ed

[Lugerdoc]

Buxton's Vol3 on DDR P38s also goes into the lugers a bit. The E.Germans reworked many thousands of earlier PO8s, but the best info I have found, is that they only made about 150 new ones from scratch (no lanyard loop or stock lug and lots of C/n proofed parts) in the N1000 to N1150 serial number range. Since there were also newly made P38s in this serial range, it is still up in the air, whether there were 150 of each, or only 150 total of both. TH

[Edward Tinker]

Tom, I remember hearing this also, but it is hard for me to beleive that they made up "only" 150 from scratch.... why bother?? Too much work to do that when parts were around?

Ed

[MarkC]

Gentlemen,

There were about 120 AB9 P.38's newly manufactured in East Germany (Suhl) possibly around 1953. They may have made this run of pistols to start testing a "tooling up" process to produce new guns. Many P.38's were reworked at this time as well.

Here is a link to my AB9 gun, I have since found out that the grips are not correct but you can see the hand fitting and assembly of the smaller parts.

http://www.p38guns.com/AB9.htm

And a link to several East German reworked pistols from WWII parts.

http://www.p38guns.com/EastGerman.htm

NEW INFORMATION:

On page 4 of Dieter Marschall's book "Handguns of the Armed Organizations of the Soviet Occupation Zone and German Democratic Republic"

"About 100 Luger pistols were newly manufactured in 1953 in the VEB Ernst Thalmann facility in its "Special Production" section. This was military production under the code designation of "1001". These pistols were given the prefix letter"N". (for Neufertigung, new production) to their serial numbers."

So there you go! They had the same green-brown grips that my P.38 should have..... Ya learn someting new everyday!

If anyone out there has a set of those P.38 grips let me know!

Mark@p38guns.com

Mark

[MarkC]

Guys,

New information added to my previous post.....

Mark

[Vlim]

Hi,

Goertz mentioned them in his 'Die Pistole 08'. Reinhard Kornmayer has material about them. He mentions about 100 were made, indeed with an N prefix.

They had small parts like the safety lever and the sideplate made out of pot metal.

1001 was the production code designated to the old Haenel plant. It can be found on the infamous DDR magazine tubes and also in the name of the Walther clone they produced under the name Pistole 1001:

From 'Die Kleine Waffenkunde' produced by the DDR Ministry of Interior in 1966.



Interestingly enough, the 1966 DDR weapons manual only mentions the Pistole 08, the Makarov and the Pistole 1001. Nothing at all about the P38. I believe this manual purely mentions those arms on which no other useful data was available at the time.

[Dwight Gruber]

Does anyone know, where did VEB Ernst Thalmann get the tooling to make their Lugers?

--Dwight

[Schupo]

Dwight,

I don't know if VEB Th�¤lmann used new tooling or old wartime tooling to produce the new construction P.1001-2 Lugers. Probably a mix of both. This plant was located in the old Haenel Werk in Suhl but I suspect the tooling consisted of whatever was salvaged elsewhere and brought to this location. Of course, they had the ability to make new tooling and I suspect the short run of new P.08 and P.38 were not only to make needed spare parts for the rework program but to test the capability of making completely new weapons from then available tools and dies. I would think that at least one complete set for each was then put away for the future after the few hundered new pistols were completed. These tools and dies may well still exist somewhere in the old DDR. An interesting thought.

George

[Dwight Gruber]

George,

You begin to get to the crux of my question. We know that the DWM/Mauser tooling was destroyed after WWII, and some of it was converted over to P-38 production, in any case. We have Herr Krieghoff's claim that the Erfurt/Simson tooling was unusable for their production, and that they used it for the pattern for a new tooling set. What happened to the Erfurt/Simson tooling, and what happened to the Krieghoff tooling?

--Dwight

[Edward Tinker]

You always hear that it simply is not worth it to make jigs, machinery, etc., to just make a couple of hundred lugers. Gibson essentially says that 10k was barely enough to break even, but was looking for more contracts for different items.

I am much more inclined to think they used parts (I know, dieter states that they are new manufacturered). They used parts to make up a couple of hundred. Or they are from assorted parts and hand-made in the workshop guns...

I am unsure, and would like to own one of these DDR made lugers...

Ed

[Schupo]

Dwight,

You ask a very good question. Obviously, some new parts were manufactured at the VEB Th�¤lmann. The new Barrels, grips, magazines, etc come immediately to mind. They had to have tooling for all these parts. Where is it now?

Ed,

It is also possible that you are correct that the few "new production" Lugers were hand made or perhaps even made of old unmarked armorer parts. I have never held one of these "N" serial number pistols in my hand. Does anyone have one that they can show or tell us about?

You mention the trouble and the cost of tooling and that is true for commercial sales. But, for military purposes the cost would be simply the cost of doing business. I would not think that the mentioned $10,000 cost would even raise an eyebrow in the military budget committee to ensure the ability to make new pistols or parts for old pistols. I can easily see making a few hundred pistols to test tooling just to make certain that the factory could ensure continuity of the P.08 and/or the P.38 pistols then in use (around 1953). What argues against the hand made or parts construction theory is what would then be the purpose of making up these few pistols? It makes more sense to me that the pistols were made as a test demonstration for the military/police tooling.

Just my musings and an educated guess though.

George

[Vlim]

Hi,

Goertz 'Die Pistole 08' shows that the side plate on the DDR production Luger was made of pot metal.

Note the 'gesichert' marking and the 1001 marking on the frame rail.


(source: Goertz 'Die Pistole 08', Kornmayer archive).

[Lugerdoc]

Dwight, Since tha Ernst Thaumann plant was in the former Haenel plant in Suhl that explains the machinery for the new 2/1001 marked extuded mags. And since Suhl was also the former home of Kreighoff, who was assembling PO8s thru the end of WW2, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some of their production machinery (formerly that of Erfurt & Simson) survived the war. I am the proud owner of one of these N series new production DDR lugers, and can assure you that it is not made up from reworked parts. If so, why would they have bothered to mill off the stock lug and lanyard loop from the frame. TH

[Schupo]

An excellent discussion. It seems that Lugerdoc's pistol, and the pistol cited by G. van Vlimmeren, are both made of newly produced parts. That is what I would have expected for these "N" serial number Lugers.

Here is an example of the new production VEB Th�¤lmann magazine cited by Lugerdoc.

[Dwight Gruber]

There is, by coincidence, a -very- interesting post at http://www.gunboards.com/luger/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5829 which suggests answers to some of these questions.

--Dwight

[George Anderson]

Schupo, are you able to interpret VOPO unit marks? I have a unit marked VOPO that no one has ever been able to interpret for me.

[Schupo]

George,

I will do my best. Post a photo of your unit unit marking (and pistol) if you can. The size of the font, spacing, periods, etc are all important in decyphering German Police markings. Due to the rework program that was in effect since 1919 there are a lot of old designations that were not cancelled as well.

George Wheeler

[George Anderson]

Schupo, I have never been able to post a photo to this forum, if you will PM your email address, I will send you some photos. The markings consist of a big "Daisey" and then "S XVII" with no punctuation.

It's a cool pistol and a part of my permanent collection. It came with two matched 2/1001 mags. Bought it in a little country pawn shop in 1986 for $250.

[Schupo]

George, you have a PM. I will try to post your photos if you like.