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Navy · 08-11-2002, 06:33 PM

In Costanzo's magnificent work, and yes, I am away from home station on contractor site, so I can't give you page and figure number, but he cites grip strap markings SD with Roman numerals I -VI followed by arabic numerals as being issued by the various dAmts of the Sicherheits Dienst or Heidrich's boys.

Works great as an operating hypothesis and was (and still is) widely believed to be fact.

T'ain't so.

Goertz in his wonderful work on German markings broke the code on these; they are Schupo Duesseldorf, Dusseldorf Municipal police. The Roman numeral corresponds to the administrative district and the arabic numeral is the rack number. To back up his hypothesis, he has copies of Prussian Police documents prescribing the marking and, coincidentally, all known specemins have the Police safety. To further debunk the Sicherheits Dienst theory, there are simply too many of these guns around with numbers that are too high for the size of the relatively short-lived and small S.D.

Oh, in addition to reading and studying Luger books, it helps a GREAT deal if one studies the history, politics, geography and police jurisdictional aspects of Germany. By doing that you can avoid thinking that Potsdam is in Thuringia as apparently some one did some time ago.

My Zwei pfennigs,

Tom A.

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08-11-2002, 06:33 PM	#8
Navy RIP Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Dc 'burbs in Virginia Posts: 2,482 Thanks: 0 Thanked 16 Times in 10 Posts	In Costanzo's magnificent work, and yes, I am away from home station on contractor site, so I can't give you page and figure number, but he cites grip strap markings SD with Roman numerals I -VI followed by arabic numerals as being issued by the various dAmts of the Sicherheits Dienst or Heidrich's boys. Works great as an operating hypothesis and was (and still is) widely believed to be fact. T'ain't so. Goertz in his wonderful work on German markings broke the code on these; they are Schupo Duesseldorf, Dusseldorf Municipal police. The Roman numeral corresponds to the administrative district and the arabic numeral is the rack number. To back up his hypothesis, he has copies of Prussian Police documents prescribing the marking and, coincidentally, all known specemins have the Police safety. To further debunk the Sicherheits Dienst theory, there are simply too many of these guns around with numbers that are too high for the size of the relatively short-lived and small S.D. Oh, in addition to reading and studying Luger books, it helps a GREAT deal if one studies the history, politics, geography and police jurisdictional aspects of Germany. By doing that you can avoid thinking that Potsdam is in Thuringia as apparently some one did some time ago. My Zwei pfennigs, Tom A.