Possible Kü Luger Origin Story

[mrerick]

I'm reading Geoffrey Megargee's excellent book "Inside Hitler's High Command" right now, and have run across an interesting incident that might relate to the origin of the Kü Lugers.

By October, 1942 the Germans were experiencing harsh losses of both personnel and material. The Russian campaigns active since Spring of 1941 were particularly costly.

After sacking Halder as chief of the OKH, Hitler demanded that his replacement Zeitzler scrap a reorganization plan, and instead transfer 200,000 troops from the Luftwaffe to the Army. Goering acted fast to keep his troops, and convinced Hitler to allow Goering to organize ten Luftwaffe "Field Divisions" that would remain under Luftwaffe officers and control.

Already facing extreme shortages, the army was responsible for equipping them.

This could well have lead to the army transferring spare parts to a Luftwaffe armory to assemble into functioning pistols to equip this Luftwaffe fighting land force.

Considering the ratio of officers to enlisted in the ranks, the number of known Kü pistols could well have been enough to equip the officers of these ten field divisions.

It's speculation without any documentation to back it up, but October, 1942 was the timeframe (accounting for Kü receivers dated 1936 to 42) and the need was there.

Should researchers ever access any related records, those high command actions in that timeframe could well help narrow the mystery of the Kü Luger down a bit...

Marc

[John Sabato]

Marc, it is as good as any other theory that has made it to the light of day... I am afraid that the discovery at this late date of any records to support any of the theories about the Kü marked guns is probably very unlikely...

[guns3545]

Marc,

First, your reference provide an interesting insight into what was going on inside Germany during WWII. It is consistent with what I have read in Hans von Luck's book Panzer Commander. Luck was Rommel's protege and fought in Russian, North Africa and Normandy, ultimately taking part in the retreat and being captured by the American's, then turned over to the Russians when the final lines were drawn at the end of the war in Europe. His perspective is different but the message is the same.

But, to the point of the Ku, I think it supports the current theory of a Depot or Repair facility with the Ku identification mark and provides motivation for going through the trouble of gathering all spare parts, excess inventory, etc., in order to make a batch of P.08s for the Luftwaffe.

There had to be a significant driver to go through all this trouble, and the mere shortage of P.38s is not, in itself sufficient.

In any event, I firmly believe that the Ku Committee has proved that Krieghoff had nothing to do with Ku production, although some folks still describe the Eagle 2 as the Krieghoff proof rather than the LWaA proof.

Thanks for the post.

John

[mrerick]

John and John, we have steadily been trying to gain insight into the Kü Luger mysteries (in my case since I started collecting several years ago).

The background in the OKW / OKH at this time was that the severe infighting was just getting legs at this point in the war. "Stealing" staff from each other was part of the power politics being presided over by Hitler. Goering was good at playing the game, but the shortages of men and equipment at that point were severe and real.

The OKH / Army didn't get what they wanted (permanent reassignment of Luftwaffe troops) but they did get temporary help in Goering's formation of ten "Field Divisions". The requirement to arm them was immediate and completely new, and had to be outside OKH procurement or logistics planning. The choice of the Luger makes sense for newly minted field officers (as opposed to the more compact PP and PPK for flying officers).

We're pretty confident that Kü Lugers were built up in a higher level Luftwaffe armory. You can imagine the OKH leadership saying, "OK Goering, here are your pistols... All you have to do is put them together...".

We also can assume that they had to be marked to avoid confusion with Mauser manufactured guns that were warranted by Mauser. That would account for some kind of special marking.

Others here have discussed the likely identity of the Luftwaffe armory and it's relationship to the " Kü" marking.

In any case, the mystery continues...