Mauser Artillery 1945-6 - #855- French assembled at Oberndorf

[mrerick]

Also, the Mauser factory where Lugers were assembled (Building "D") was never destroyed by the French. The "C" building where K98 rifles were made was destroyed, and a Rhinemetal factory building stands partially in that area.

Back in 2012 when I was filming the Mauser documentary, we walked through building "D", which is now a subdivided industrial space.

One of our friends, the retired market manager for Mauser, gave me a monograph (in German) written by the first post war Mayor of Oberndorf a Neckar in which he describes the post war efforts to save the industrial facilities of Mauser from destruction. That combined with Ott Helmuth von Losnitzer's debriefing by the Americans as part of their Operation Paperclip and post war intelligence work paints a detailed picture of the end game at Oberndorf at the end of WW-II.

The French looted Mauser's facilities of parts, tooling, gauges and in process work, taking much of it to Mulhouse near Strasbourg. Many pieces from the Mauser museum collection (including pattern patent models and firearms Mauser collected for competitive analysis) left with the French, only to be made available later in private sales. I have seen some of the recovered firearms in the Oberndorf Weapons Museum, located in the old Swedish contract factory building.

Don, you have something rare and unique. Congratulations.

A couple of years ago, I purchased this French post-war assembled HsC (star acceptance marked) brought back by one of Patton's aides: