Pictures Of the Factories

[Puretexan]

I see lots of information here, about every thing about a luger, but no pictures of the factories. Were there never
any taken because of secrecy in the manufacturing process
or all of them lost in time?
If anybody has any pictures they could post, I would appreciate it.
Thanks
Paul

[Vlim]

There are photos of DWM and Mauser.
Will look some up when I get back home.

Both the DWM buildings and the Mauser buildings are still standing today.

[Edward Tinker]

there are few - all in books and copyrighted that I have seen

[Puretexan]

I'm sure with the amount of research that has been done, there are members that have pictures tucked away they could share. Would give you an idea of where they were built.
Could you imagine buying the old Mauser building and redoing it to apartments or something. Would be a historic place . Would beat collecting lugers. lol!

[mrerick]

Actually, the old Mauser buildings are in use.

• The Cloister and Cloister Church are now offices for the city of Oberndorf and a beautify concert hall
• The Swedish Bureau is now offices for Oberndorf and contains a library and meeting hall on the top floor where the C96 pistols were made, and the Oberndorf Weapons Museum on the third floor. This is well worth seeing.
• Building "C" (the K98 manufacturing site) is gone, as are the Upper works and Turkenbau (which is now the site of a school)
• Building "D" where the Lugers and P.38 pistols were made is still standing. It belongs to Rhinemetal now and is subdivided into a series of industrial and office spaces.
• The Outer works are also divided up into a series of industrial and office spaces.
• Paul Mauser's mansion (which he never lived to occupy) stands just over the factory site, and is occupied by the Oberndorf City's finance and taxation department.
• The Research Shop building is still there, but I have not been in it.
• The old original home of Gebruder Mauser & Co. where they made sights for the original rifle contract was there in 2012, but has since been torn down and replaced with a shopping venue.
• Ott-Helmuth von Lossnitzer's home is still standing above the Mauser factory site. He was the technical director of Mauser during and just prior to WW-II. This fascinating man came to the USA after the war under operation Paperclip and worked at Springfield Armory, and then as a consultant in Racine Wisconsin where he died.
• The bases of the cable system installed across the Neckar valley at Oberndorf are still visible above the city within a small drive and hike. These held cables that interfered with planes flying over the valley during WW-II.
• The site of an impressed labor camp is now a memorial to those that died during WW-II, and the site of a RHSA "re-education" camp is marked a few miles from town. Workers during WW-II traveled on foot and by bicycle between a number of nearby camps and the factory each day.

The Mauser Archive book just published by Mauro and Gerben has photos taken inside the C96 manufacturing line and in the Mauser Research shop where many of the prototype designs were made. There is a particularly nice one showing both apprentice and experienced gunsmiths working together. It's also in the documentary.



Oberndorf is a wonderful place to visit. It's about an hour from Stuttgart by fast train. The Mauser family is interred in Oberndorf's cemetery, as are the Feederle brothers and other famous Mauser personnel.

[mrerick]

Here are a few pictures I have taken:

The Swedish Bureau. Added for the Swedish rifle contract. C96 made on the top floor.




Library on the top floor, where the C96 pistols were manufactured:



Overview of Oberndorf centered on the Cloister building. Research office is behind it (creme color building):



Overview of Oberndorf.

[Puretexan]

Thanks mrerick, For all that. Looks like a nice place now. Wonder how it lasted
without being bombed constantly?

[Edward Tinker]

Originally Posted by Puretexan

Thanks mrerick, For all that. Looks like a nice place now. Wonder how it lasted
without being bombed constantly?

rebuilt I am sure.

Pictures of Aachen or Koln show most buildings damaged, but when you go today, they were rebuilt after the war in the style / using bricks or stones (such as old churches)

[Vlim]

Oberndorf was well protected against bombings.
It was hit twice only with relatively minimal damage.

It is situated in a valley over which steel lines were mounted, with steel lines suspended from them, creating giant steel curtains that would shred a plane to pieces.

They also had a decent blackout scheme and fog machines. As well as AA platforms all throughout and around the town.

In WW1 they built a fake factory in a nearby valley. It was bombed by the French several times. When the French discovered the scheme, they bombed it with fake bombs

[Puretexan]

Vlim that was very interesting. Guess I need to schedule a vacation too.
Do they still have lugers around the area for sale?

[mrerick]

Here's a picture of the bombing damage on the cloister building (it was exactly where Paul Mauser's apartment was)...

[Puretexan]

Wow , not much left of that. Guess it messed up lots of pistols too. Maybe that
is where all the spare parts from the VOPO's came from.

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by Puretexan

Wow , not much left of that. Guess it messed up lots of pistols too. Maybe that
is where all the spare parts from the VOPO's came from.

Actually Oberndorf is quite near France in the Western part of Germany. The other fellows (the vopo) worked on the East side.

[mrerick]

The cloister building was just offices. Mauser himself lived on the top floor on the corner that ws damaged.

The cloister was rebuilt and renovated over the years.

Many parts were collected and left on a train for the center of Germany in April, 1945. There is good documentation of this attempt to move production in the book about Ott-Helmuth von Lossnitzer.

[Puretexan]

Got to buy me some books. Yall have learned a lot.
Where were they going to move the parts too? Maybe Switzerland?

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by Puretexan

Got to buy me some books. Yall have learned a lot.
Where were they going to move the parts too? Maybe Switzerland?

Switzeland is to the South, and moving parts there would do the Germans no good. The Swiss were neutral, and enforced their neutrality fiercely. As an example the Swiss kept all German airplanes that landed on Swiss soil during the war.

[Puretexan]

I was hoping someone would have pictures of the inside of a working factory
making guns.
I don't know how to say don't point that at me in German, but I bet it was one of the most common used phrases in there.

[SIGP2101]

Here are some old pics from Mauser shop. I have bunch others from factory but can't post them due to the file size limitation of this forum.

[SIGP2101]

Ok here is more on Mauserwerke, had to find different host. Click on the link then click on the image to see it in full size.

[mrerick]

Those pictures are all from the Mauser history anniversary book Geschicte Der Mauser-Werke, 1938. It was published 100 years after Paul Mauser was born and 125 years after the king's armory was established in Oberndorf at the Cloister.