How many soldiers did carry handguns?

[HÃ?Â¥kan Spuhr]

Do anyone know how many of the german soldiers that did carry a handgun?

Or was it only officers and the few soldiers that not could carry the clumsy K98 that did have handguns?

By the numbersof guns produced and the numbers of different models adopted it's easy to think that mostly soldiers carryed handguns?

Do anyone here know?


Regards HÃ?Â¥kan

[Marvin]

Hakan,


This is a good question and I have thought about this a lot myself. From my limited understanding, officers were issued handguns, but some of them were required to purchase their own. I don't know what rank would indicate a sef-purchase. All machine gun crews were issued handguns, and the machine gun was the backbone of the infantry.


I have read accounts from German veterans that the regular soldier was not issued a handgun until the were a rank of Feldwebel or higher. I think a Feldwebel was a sergent.


Rear area personel of the command center, medical personel, and others of this type were issued handgins instead of the rifle.


There is a book by Col. Whittington, "German Holsters and Pistols of the Third Reich", vol 4 which list the authorized issue of weapons. It just does not go into the deatail we would like, but is a little help. The German Army was still one of the largest users of handguns at that time.


Marvin

[renaissance]

German "MEDICAL PERSONNEL" CARRIED WEAPONS ? ? ?

well lets look historically...in 1939 there were 1,500,000

whermacht german army going into poland.officers being roughly 35-almost 50 percent says at least you have 700,000 lugers right there. Most new or recent some put back into service from ww1. then you have both naval officers and sailors who carried lugerpistols. then you have the ss who from my reading carried only lugers. As you have worked on guns I have done much reading but this is a crude but probably not too innaccurate estimate.

my estimate is also accounting for non commisioned officers seargents carrying as well

[renaissance]

35% to 50% of the German Army were "Officers" ? ? ?

"

This seems awfully high compared to for instance our own (US) Military

Are you including "NCO's ?

[HÃ?Â¥kan Spuhr]

I don't know for germans, but i know that swedish medical personal use to carry 07 huskvarna pistol (FN1903)


Regards HÃ?Â¥kan

Hmmm...theres a first time you hear anything, I guess.


While I agree with you that the 1911 is overrated and there are other worthy target pistols as you stated earlier (oooh...there...I said it...the Jeff Cooper deciplse are gonna thrash me for sure! sorry, the 1911 has never been a good shooter in my hands), I tend to disagree on the 98K being a clumsy rifle.


While its not as graceful and beautifully crafted as the Swedish M-96 or M-38(or as accurate), the early WWII 98Ks I have handled/shot were much more easy to handle than other military long arms of the time. The Mosin Nagant and Lee Enfield (while good shooters) are MUCH more clumsy to me than any 98K variant I have shot. Ditto for the semi-autos, like the SVT, Garand and G-43. I own several Mosins, Enfields and Mauser variants, so I have some expereince in this area. I also own a Garand, Carbine and SVT-40 as well.


I have an early Nazi-occupation Czech made 98K that in far from clumsy and is actually an excellent shooter. Still, I believe the most accurate and finely-crafted military bolt actions of that period have to be the Swedish M-96 & M-38s, the Swiss K-31 Schmidt-Rubins and the pre WWII Type 38 Japanese Arisakas. Those three will gladly out-shoot ANYTHING else I own in military trim....by a long shot.


Flame away, if you must...but I disagree on the clumsiness of the 98K Mauser. Compared to other long arms of its time, it was one of the best.


-SA

My dad, who was a surgeon in the ETO during WW2, stated that any US medic who was captured carrying a pistol would be summarily executed with his own gun and the pistol would then be left on his chest. Otherwise, the American medical personnel were usually treated with respect by the Germans (the slaughter of the medics after capture during the Battle of the Bulge being a notable exception). He mentioned one of his surgeon buddies after capture being returned to the American lines by orders of a Prussian colonel after the Dr. proved his medical knowledge to the colonel and a German doctor by accurately describing the steps of an appendectomy. My dad also had a great deal of respect for the markmanship of an Me-262 pilot he saw who shot up every vehicle in a convoy except for the four trucks with red crosses on the top.


The bottom line and ultimate purpose for this rambling is that I would doubt very much that German medics would normally carry sidearms in light of their attitude towards American medics who did.

[John Sabato]

I don't believe we are talking about shooting characteristics, but rather, if your duties require both hands, then your primary personal defense had better not require both hands... just common sense.


Rear echelon troops that seldom personally engage the enemy face to face are provided a handgun instead of a rifle to defend themselves because the rifle is harder to carry while doing their primary duty and the pistol is easier to get into action with one hand if they are rudely interrupted by the enemy.


Leaders (read that as Officers and NCOs) and crew-served weapons such as machinegun and mortar crews, communicators, and other staff headquarters personnel fall into this category...


An old soldier - John

My dad was an MP in the Marines in the mid 50s to mid 60s and he carried a 1911A1 most of the time...even when he went to 'Nam in 63-64. He went with some engineer's group or something like that.


When dad returned from Nam in late 64, he "kept" his issue M1911A1 and still has it to this day. It is an Ithaca-made pistol that looks like it has seen better days, but it functions fine. The sights are tiny and its hard to hiot thins with it, in general, but it is very reliable.


I have no idea what dad's 45 is worth, but with the white issue leather "US" flap holster and the 2 extra mags in a green/tan web pouch to go with it, I'd guess its worth some serious cash. He'd never sell it, because it does yeoman duty in his nightstand. Once a Marine...oh, well...you know!


Yep, other soldiers carried pistols too, I guess. Interesting topic.


-SA

[Mark McMorrow]

If your Jap Type 38 will outshoot anything else you own, I think you need to upgrade your collection!

According to my calculations (mainly from Jan Still's "Axis Pistols") the Germans had approx 2.2 million 9mm pistols during the course of WWII. In addition they had approx 1.3 million 7.65 mm pistols during the war for a total of 3.5 million service pistols. I have seen published the figure of a total of about 15 million men under arms for the Germans during the war (this would include police,para-military and all armed services...volkstrum etc...) That would translate to roughly 25% of Germans under arms carrying or at least owning a pistol. Every officer (including and Doctors and at least in some cases Chaplains!) by regulation owned a pistol (or if they simply did not want buy one, they were issued one). Most all NCO's, crew served weapon personnel, mounted vehicle personnel and some other positions. Hope this helps in gaining some perspective on pistol use and extent.

Sorry, the correct numbers for 9MM is about 3.2 million and this would of course raise the total to about 4.5 million pistols.....closer to about 32% of all personnel under arms carring handguns. Sorry I can not at this time give you an officer/NCO/EM breakdown.

[bill m]

Hi,

I have a "sneak Luger" that was purchased from the vet that took it in WWII, who said it came from some sort of captured medical person. It is a Weimar police gun with matching unit mark and with the number 2 and 3 matching magazines. Swears that some German medical person had it when they captured them in a field hospital.

SS troops were equiped with far more Browning Hi Power pistols than they were Lugers.


Mike

It is true that the W-SS used a lot of Browning HPs', I couldn't say, based on photo evidence, that they were used in greater numbers than Lugers by the SS. I don't believe that widespread use (on a real large scale) of Brownings HPs by the W-SS began before about 1942. It is certainly true based on confirmed production numbers/dates that the single most widely used pistol in the German Military (as a whole) was the Luger,P08 until at least into 1944.

[HÃ?Â¥kan Spuhr]

Allen


What I meant was that the K98 is clumsy compered to the Luger or any other pistol espsially if one should be a medic at the same time.

I like K98's as well as I like all Well made Mauser rifles.


Best Regards HÃ?Â¥kan



http://www.vapensmedjan.com

...came from your country, Hakan: Sweden!


I own 3 Swedish Mausers and they're all VERY accurate and VERY well made rifles.


I doubt the 6.5x55 round can be made inaccurate at all. It is an excellent target and deer hunting round.


(sorry about the misunderstanding)


-SA

[Kyrie]

Hi Folks,


German commissioned officers were expected, but not required, to furnish their own sidearms. By the time of the Great War commissioned officers could, at their own discretion, chose to be issued a sidearm from their unitâ??s allocation of sidearms if all these sidearms had not already been issued. On ceremonial occasions and during some social events commissioned officers were required to attend â??under armsâ?�, but the required arm could be a sword or ceremonial dagger. This continued until 1943 or â??44, when commissioned officers were required to attend ceremonial functions armed with a pistol.


Enlisted men were issued sidearms if their duties precluded carrying a rifle. Enlisted men who worked with crew serviced weapons (artillery and machine gun crews are examples), or were part of line-of-communication units (transport, messenger, and medical services are examples) would also be issued a sidearm.


Non commissioned officers might or might not be issued a sidearm, depending on their duties. Non-commissioned officers serving in provost or paymaster units would always be issued a sidearm. Non-commissioned officers serving in infantry units were generally not issued a sidearm - but this was largely determined by the commanding officer of the unit in question.


WWII, and the SS, comprises a special case. The SS (both the Waffen and the Allgemeine) were not under the control of the German Army until about 1943 (memory fails at the exact date). As the German Army did not control the SS, they refused to supply the SS - including issuing the SS arms. The SS had to make do with what they could beg, buy, borrow, or steal. This is why so many of the SS units (especially the Allgemeine SS) were found to be armed with sidearms from occupied territories (especially Belgium and Czechoslovakia). It was only after the Waffen SS was placed under the overall command of the German Army that the Waffen SS began drawing supplies from the German Army.


As we can see, the number of pistols actually produced far exceeds the apparent need for sidearms. But this is really an illusion - the reason for the production of all those pistols is combat losses of pistols. When the Post WWII German Army was being formed in the late 1950â??s they did a study on the average service life of a pistol. That average service life in WWII turned out to be 300 rounds. This is not to say pistols were found to be worn out after 300 rounds, but rather pistols tended to be lost, destroyed by enemy action, or captured after an average use of 300 rounds. Thatâ??s the reason for the enormous number of pistols produced - they were being lost or destroyed almost as fast as they could be made.


To put this into perspective, consider the P.38â??s recently imported from the CIS countries. Importation of these pistols began, in great volume, in 1993 and continues today - eight years later. All of these pistols were lost by the Third Reich Germany on the Eastern Front, and had to be replaced; which they were.


I hope this helps some.


Best regards,


Kyrie