The "elusive" Luger Lanyard

[Milt Keller]

Dear All,


Got this e-mail from a friend in Essen Germany who is a SERIOUS German military collector, as a response to "The Luger Lanyard Question" Hope it helps to foil any pending "Luger Lanyard" purchases:


Dear Milt,


Thank you very much for your mail! I hope you and your family are doing well

and despite of the electricity crisis in California you don't have too much

to suffer from.


Yes, you are right to wonder, because no German army ever used an official

lanyard to secure their pistols. If you take a close look at your holster,

you'll see, that it is impossible to carry the pistol within fixed with a

lanyard. On pictures from WWI or WWII you can see several ways, how soldiers

improvised a lanyard with a cord or anything else to have the pistol fixed

at their belts or uniforms - but there never has been any officially issued

lanyard. I'm sure, the soldiers considered it a good idea to improvise

something to prevent them from losing their pistols in the battle, but the

army didn't offer any official help.


Now you can ask: when there was no lanyard, why did the pistols have a

lanyard ring? The truth is: I don't know. Maybe the Prussian army took the

lanyard ring over from the Navy pistol 04. Because the early Navy holsters

are differnt, seamen on duty used to carry their 04s with an improvised

white cord as a lanyard - but even the Navy never issued any official

lanyard, as I have one for example for my Colt Government M1911 pistol or as

the British army had. So, if anybody tries to sell you an official German

lanyard - be sure, it's a fake!


Frank