High-ranking Nazis and revolvers ? - Page 2

max2cam · 12-01-2002, 12:04 PM

All true.

But a semi-auto ("selbstlader") like the Luger or P.38 can NEVER be a revolver.

max2cam · 12-01-2002, 12:17 PM

quote: Browsing other sites, some people claim Stack took the credit for Shapiro's capture, others deny Shapiro's involvement.

I wonder if Shapiro could have been the interpreter on the scene during Goering's capture?

I say that because that's what happened to my father during WWII in Europe.

My pop captured a Luftwaffe officer with a chestful of medals. During interrogation with his captain there was a US soldier "a Jewish guy from Brooklyn" (pop's words) present who served as interpreter. My dad said that as being the one who captured the "Luftwaff'' (his pronunciation) officer, he had rights to those medals.

But my dad said that he felt bad about taking the German's medal's in front of his captain. (I would have done it!) But he also said that the Jewish interpreter had no such qualms and demanded them in front of the captain. When he got to a certain medal the German started crying and said, "Nein nein (not that one)" because he was personally awarded it by the Fuhrer -- Adolf Hitler.

My point is that there are lots of twists and turns in how somebody ends up with a war souvenir. The story that goes with it is another matter and must always be taken with a hefty dose of scepticism esp. when BIG BUCKS and "gotta have" emotions are involved.

I am no expert, but Nazi pistols (Lugers) seem to be notoriously boosted (spurious) in this respect.

My 2 cents.

Orv Reichert · 12-01-2002, 09:23 PM

My German friends tell me that they often use the term "Revolver" to mean a handgun in the same way that many Americans use the term "Pistol" to mean any handgun.

Orv Reichert

When Solomon said that there was a time and a place for everything he had not encountered the problem of parking an automobile. --Bob Edwards

max2cam · 12-03-2002, 10:25 AM

I wonder if that could be because the Germans often learn British English?

Certainly sounds odd to me...

unspellable · 12-03-2002, 02:16 PM

Someone from Wales is Welsh. Someone from Cornwall is Cornish. Someone from the Isle of Man is a Manx. From North Ireland, Irish. From Scotland come the Scots. We have Guernseys, Shetlanders and my pardons to those I have omitted.

Now what do I call some one from the middle of England if not English?

The term British includes all of them as far as I know. I used to work with a Welshman who made great pretense of being English.

As for pistols, if a revolver is chambered for 9 mm it must be a Luger. The local classified ads had a plastic Luger. (I think it must have been something like a Glock.)You've all heard of newspaper accounts of "automatic" revolvers and they were not talking about a Webley Fosberry.

How many times in the movies have you seen somebody screw a supressor on a revolver and call it a silencer? The last thing a supressor will do on a revolver is silence it. In the movies I've seen scenes taking place in the thirties in which the bad guys carried P38's.

As for Goering's pistol, I have that. It's a 1920 chamber dated DWM, nickle plated. Everybody knows the Nazi bigwigs had nickle plated Lugers and they are very rare.

More seriously, I have heard that Hitler shot himself with a Mauser Zig-Zag revolver. The one in which the bolt moves forward and back to rotate the cylinder rather than using a hand or pawl as most revolvers do.

John Sabato · 12-03-2002, 02:23 PM

Gosh unspellable...

most folks only put the tip of their tongue in their cheek... you managed to put the whole tongue in there! <img src="graemlins/roflmao.gif" border="0" alt="[hiha]" />

George Anderson · 12-03-2002, 03:34 PM

In Literary, common usage, usage up through the forty's, Europeans referred to multi round pistols as revolvers; that is to say, more than the standard single or double shot of an earlier era.

As for war trophies, I grew up in the 50's the son of a career army officer. What I learned was that R.E.M.F'ers and occupatioon troops gathered the trophies...witness the percentage of full matched rig police lugers to army pistols. It's because the police didn't go to the front. They were local and followed the dictates of the military governor; they turned in their arms. These arms dumps (which included sporting guns), were subsequently made available to occuping troops prior to rotation, to shop.

My father fought the Japs in the Phillipines, New Guinea and again the Phillipines and mailed only two trophies home. The first was a personal studio photo of a Jap officer, on the back of which he noted to my grandmother "he's a good jap now" and the second, a Jap officer's stamp album, which he sent to FDR, who was a stamp collector. My mother was mortified that Dad would send anything to FDR (she was a Republican and still trying to deal with the trauma of income tax). Dad brought nothing back except himself. All his friends, who got me started collecting guns, collected all their booty,not when in combat, but rather as occupiers. These guys were West Pointers, VMI types and mustangs.

I just wanted to vent my spleen here. I have come across too many old geezers, supposed combat troops, who say they took this or that off a German officer they killed. As I learned from those who knew, when I was in the army 69-73, combat troops seldom strip the dead.

To demonstrate my point, I once was directed to a seventy-some year old vet in West Virginia who had a luger to sell. When I found him, he offered a super ac41 P-38 in a luger holster which had been embellished with a Nazi Police hat eagle mounted on the flap. He affirmed to me that that was the way the officers carried them and that was how you knew it was an officer's pistol. He also had a super PP which had remained loaded since 45 or 46 and the mag spring was shot as well as the load indicator pin.

When some achieve or sacrifice, others perhaps due to unwarrented guilt, find it neccessary to pretend.

By the way, when I was in the Army 69-73, I was stationed in the FRG defending the other frontier of freedom.

John -Melb · 12-03-2002, 05:22 PM

Regarding combat troops stripping the dead, my experience (not personal, but from speaking to veterans) is that combat troops generally only strip weapons from enemy dead (apart from moving the weapons away from the body in case the sod is playing possum) when there is a need to.
There is a fairly well known picture of Australian troops in New Guinea using a Jap Type 96 light machine gun (the reason being is that there was no ammo available at the time from the Bren)
A fellow I know who served with the Israeli Army in the late forties and early fifties put it this way "You shoot an Arab at fifty yards, all you've got is a dead Arab, you shoot an Arab at five yards and you've got a good Number 4 rifle and fifty rounds of ammo."
There was also a report from the Boer war in which some of DeWet's Commando waited until Britsh troops were nearly on top of them before springing the ambush because they needed the ammo in the British bandoliers so desparately. Deneys Reitz who was quoted writing about this particular ambush stated that prior to this ambush he only had two cartridges left for his Mauser! After the ambush he had a Lee Enfield and two full bandoliers.
Bugger that for a game!

12-01-2002, 09:23 PM	#23
Orv Reichert RIP Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: SW Washington State Posts: 339 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	My German friends tell me that they often use the term "Revolver" to mean a handgun in the same way that many Americans use the term "Pistol" to mean any handgun. Orv Reichert When Solomon said that there was a time and a place for everything he had not encountered the problem of parking an automobile. --Bob Edwards __________________ ORVEL L. "ORV" REICHERT

12-03-2002, 02:23 PM	#26
John Sabato Lifer Lifetime Forum Patron Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: The Capital of the Free World Posts: 10,150 Thanks: 3,003 Thanked 2,304 Times in 1,096 Posts	Gosh unspellable... most folks only put the tip of their tongue in their cheek... you managed to put the whole tongue in there! <img src="graemlins/roflmao.gif" border="0" alt="[hiha]" /> __________________ regards, -John S "...We hold these truths to be self-evident that ALL men are created EQUAL *and are endowed by their Creator* with certain UNALIENABLE* rights, and among these are life, LIBERTY, and the pursuit of happiness..."*

12-01-2002, 12:04 PM	#21
max2cam User Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: USA Posts: 97 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	All true. But a semi-auto ("selbstlader") like the Luger or P.38 can NEVER be a revolver.

12-01-2002, 12:17 PM	#22
max2cam User Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: USA Posts: 97 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	quote: Browsing other sites, some people claim Stack took the credit for Shapiro's capture, others deny Shapiro's involvement. I wonder if Shapiro could have been the interpreter on the scene during Goering's capture? I say that because that's what happened to my father during WWII in Europe. My pop captured a Luftwaffe officer with a chestful of medals. During interrogation with his captain there was a US soldier "a Jewish guy from Brooklyn" (pop's words) present who served as interpreter. My dad said that as being the one who captured the "Luftwaff'' (his pronunciation) officer, he had rights to those medals. But my dad said that he felt bad about taking the German's medal's in front of his captain. (I would have done it!) But he also said that the Jewish interpreter had no such qualms and demanded them in front of the captain. When he got to a certain medal the German started crying and said, "Nein nein (not that one)" because he was personally awarded it by the Fuhrer -- Adolf Hitler. My point is that there are lots of twists and turns in how somebody ends up with a war souvenir. The story that goes with it is another matter and must always be taken with a hefty dose of scepticism esp. when BIG BUCKS and "gotta have" emotions are involved. I am no expert, but Nazi pistols (Lugers) seem to be notoriously boosted (spurious) in this respect. My 2 cents.

12-03-2002, 10:25 AM	#24
max2cam User Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: USA Posts: 97 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	I wonder if that could be because the Germans often learn British English? Certainly sounds odd to me...

12-03-2002, 02:16 PM	#25
unspellable User Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Iowa Posts: 768 Thanks: 0 Thanked 18 Times in 10 Posts	Someone from Wales is Welsh. Someone from Cornwall is Cornish. Someone from the Isle of Man is a Manx. From North Ireland, Irish. From Scotland come the Scots. We have Guernseys, Shetlanders and my pardons to those I have omitted. Now what do I call some one from the middle of England if not English? The term British includes all of them as far as I know. I used to work with a Welshman who made great pretense of being English. As for pistols, if a revolver is chambered for 9 mm it must be a Luger. The local classified ads had a plastic Luger. (I think it must have been something like a Glock.)You've all heard of newspaper accounts of "automatic" revolvers and they were not talking about a Webley Fosberry. How many times in the movies have you seen somebody screw a supressor on a revolver and call it a silencer? The last thing a supressor will do on a revolver is silence it. In the movies I've seen scenes taking place in the thirties in which the bad guys carried P38's. As for Goering's pistol, I have that. It's a 1920 chamber dated DWM, nickle plated. Everybody knows the Nazi bigwigs had nickle plated Lugers and they are very rare. More seriously, I have heard that Hitler shot himself with a Mauser Zig-Zag revolver. The one in which the bolt moves forward and back to rotate the cylinder rather than using a hand or pawl as most revolvers do.

12-03-2002, 03:34 PM	#27
George Anderson Lifer Lifetime Forum Patron Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: VA Posts: 3,592 Thanks: 1,772 Thanked 2,527 Times in 786 Posts	In Literary, common usage, usage up through the forty's, Europeans referred to multi round pistols as revolvers; that is to say, more than the standard single or double shot of an earlier era. As for war trophies, I grew up in the 50's the son of a career army officer. What I learned was that R.E.M.F'ers and occupatioon troops gathered the trophies...witness the percentage of full matched rig police lugers to army pistols. It's because the police didn't go to the front. They were local and followed the dictates of the military governor; they turned in their arms. These arms dumps (which included sporting guns), were subsequently made available to occuping troops prior to rotation, to shop. My father fought the Japs in the Phillipines, New Guinea and again the Phillipines and mailed only two trophies home. The first was a personal studio photo of a Jap officer, on the back of which he noted to my grandmother "he's a good jap now" and the second, a Jap officer's stamp album, which he sent to FDR, who was a stamp collector. My mother was mortified that Dad would send anything to FDR (she was a Republican and still trying to deal with the trauma of income tax). Dad brought nothing back except himself. All his friends, who got me started collecting guns, collected all their booty,not when in combat, but rather as occupiers. These guys were West Pointers, VMI types and mustangs. I just wanted to vent my spleen here. I have come across too many old geezers, supposed combat troops, who say they took this or that off a German officer they killed. As I learned from those who knew, when I was in the army 69-73, combat troops seldom strip the dead. To demonstrate my point, I once was directed to a seventy-some year old vet in West Virginia who had a luger to sell. When I found him, he offered a super ac41 P-38 in a luger holster which had been embellished with a Nazi Police hat eagle mounted on the flap. He affirmed to me that that was the way the officers carried them and that was how you knew it was an officer's pistol. He also had a super PP which had remained loaded since 45 or 46 and the mag spring was shot as well as the load indicator pin. When some achieve or sacrifice, others perhaps due to unwarrented guilt, find it neccessary to pretend. By the way, when I was in the Army 69-73, I was stationed in the FRG defending the other frontier of freedom.

12-03-2002, 05:22 PM	#28
John -Melb User Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Melbourne, Peoples Republic of Australia! Posts: 145 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Regarding combat troops stripping the dead, my experience (not personal, but from speaking to veterans) is that combat troops generally only strip weapons from enemy dead (apart from moving the weapons away from the body in case the sod is playing possum) when there is a need to. There is a fairly well known picture of Australian troops in New Guinea using a Jap Type 96 light machine gun (the reason being is that there was no ammo available at the time from the Bren) A fellow I know who served with the Israeli Army in the late forties and early fifties put it this way "You shoot an Arab at fifty yards, all you've got is a dead Arab, you shoot an Arab at five yards and you've got a good Number 4 rifle and fifty rounds of ammo." There was also a report from the Boer war in which some of DeWet's Commando waited until Britsh troops were nearly on top of them before springing the ambush because they needed the ammo in the British bandoliers so desparately. Deneys Reitz who was quoted writing about this particular ambush stated that prior to this ambush he only had two cartridges left for his Mauser! After the ambush he had a Lee Enfield and two full bandoliers. Bugger that for a game!