1914 DWM Question

[mauro]

Hello Big Norm,
As I mentioned before, the Kriegsministerium ordered that all the Mauser pistols were marked with a red nine on the grips to avoid confusion with ammunitions. This is not an hypothesis, this is a fact. A copy of this document is available at page 277 of Gortzâ??s book â??Die Pistole 08â?�.
Mr. Gortz stressed the fact that arsenals confused the DWM acronyms as Deutschen Waffenwabrik Mauser with Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken.
For that, also the Artillery Lugers were marked.
I would like to highlight that in the aforementioned document is not written that only the Luger Artilleries made in the 1917 must be marked. The fact that it is more common to find Luger Artilleries with red 9 grips made in 1916-17 is only an opportunity reasons. In my understanding this directive was applied starting from the last production, maybe still available in the arsenal, and then to the other pistols, when possible. The fact that a few months later the Kriegsministerium directive (dated December the 14th 1917) the WWI ended, justifies that only a little subset of LP08 is red nine marked. But assuming that a 1914 LP08 was sent to the arsenal for maintenance purposes can happen that also this pistol was red nine marked. This is only my opinion but I guess it is very realistic.
Ciao