1900 "Old Model" production start?

[Dwight Gruber]

I've been going throughthe literature, and although there is quite a bit of delivery date information for various contracts and tests, I have found no information on actual production dates.

So, is there any generally agreed-upon date for the actual beginning of model 1900 commercial (that is, not military contract or test) production?

An associated question, what was the industrial work week like in Germany at the beginning of the 20th Century? Was Luger production likely to have been a 7-day-a-week operation or less, 24-hour operation or were there less than a full-day's worthof shifts?

--Dwight

[ViggoG]

Dwight and Others,
From my own experience, While serving my apprenticeship, in the late 1940s, I was working part time in an old machine shop that was equipped with machinery dating from 1850 to 1906. And this was a small shop by comparison.
I'm speaking of the old overhead line shaft driven machines where all 40 or so machines were driven buy a single very large electric motor which had a flat leather belt up to the array of line shafts over head, thence through smaller leather flat belts down to each machines multiple step pulley.
All speed changes were made with a shifter or hand operated stick, where the belts were forced from one step to the other while still in motion.
Note, this accounts for the most often ocurring industrial loss of limb accidents, Getting hung up in the moving belts.
The usual high ceilings needed to accommodate the line shafts made for very poor lighting and electric lighting was thought to be too expensive for more than the minimum required to see ones immediate machine and many operators used acetylene lanterns, which they purchased themselves.
Work in these shops prior to WW-1 was most probably done during daylight hours from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm for the sake of economy. And yes the 12-hour workday, six days per week, was the norm for those times.
Someone posted a photograph of a Mauser factory a short while back and yes the shop that I worked in was even worse than that.
I would presume that the Luger Factory very similar. It was probably, as was the shop in which I worked, in the industrial portion of town, inhabited by the coal fired railroad engines and we had a switch line passing through the shop, to load and unload heavy shipments.
This was "Par for the Course" in those times.
Of course as the nation moved toward war the workday was split into around the clock shifts.
It was probobly two shifts of 12 hours.
For me I only worked 8 hours each day but still it was a trip back through time from 1947 to 1890 and back every day.
There is no dought my mind that these beautiful weapons that we are so fond of came to life under such conditions.
If any one calls that The Good Old Days, I can tell him much more, because the shop in which I worked was as dirty as a coal mine. I have worked with an ex coal miner Who complained that the coal dust was what he quit mining to get away from.
Sorry for the long-winded post but it was a long dirty subject and someone had to say it!
Been There, Done That, Ain't Gonna Do It Again!
Viggo

[Vlim]

Hi,

For it's day, DWM was a pretty modern company and certainly during the late 30s it was far ahead in many ways. The company was large, to say the least and used a variable workforce. When labour was required in order to fullfill large contracts or during wartime the number of employees could easily double. During the early 1900s they employed some 3,500 people. Many of them women and girls, better suited to perform high-quality large-scale production and a reliable workforce during war years. During 1890 half of the then 3,000 people strong workforce (1,500) were women.

Working time would again be variable, depending on the current state of affairs. Normally a 6-day working week was the norm. This could be changed to 2 or 3 shifts a day depending on the workload.

Companies like DWM, who often depended on wartime production and large foreign contracts, could only function as a company by adding supplemental business or sideline business to their production. Production of metal flasks, ball-bearings, telephone equipment, metal cylinders, pushbuttons, cutlary were all used to survive the quiet years.

This survival-approach was repeated just after the 2nd World War as part of DWM focused on production of railroad equipment (and the infamous 'amphicar', a 1960s boat/car combo). This part survives today as part of Bombardier Transport. The ammunition branch of DWM also took up the production of packaging machinery and is still in business as IWKA.

Below are some pretty rare images showing some of DWM's production facilities during the 1900-1913 period. The first images show the forest of driveshaft belts common during those days. The last image was published in 1939 and shows a part of the automated ammunition quality assurance machinery.

DWM employed a separate R&D department and their own machinist shops. They sold ammunition and arms production material to companies around the world and had interests in Vickers, Pieper, FN, Durener Metallwerken, Waffen- und Maschinenfabrik AG in Budapest, DWF (a French ballbearing production company), Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (today's DaimlerChrysler), Bresciana in Brescia, Hess-Bright manufacturing in Philadelphia.

Most daughter companies and interests in other companies were lost as the result of WW1.

<a href="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/dwm_assembly.jpg" target="_fullview"><img src="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/dwm_assembly.jpg" width="400" alt="Click for fullsize image" /></a>

<a href="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/dwm_barrelmaking.jpg" target="_fullview"><img src="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/dwm_barrelmaking.jpg" width="400" alt="Click for fullsize image" /></a>

<a href="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/dwm_forging_dept.jpg" target="_fullview"><img src="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/dwm_forging_dept.jpg" width="400" alt="Click for fullsize image" /></a>

<a href="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/ammo_1939.jpg" target="_fullview"><img src="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/ammo_1939.jpg" width="400" alt="Click for fullsize image" /></a>

[Dwight Gruber]

Gerben,

Thanks much for the excellent historical information, and

Viggo,

Thanks equally for the personal perspective. Two sides of a very interesting coin, and quite useful.

Now, if I could only get someone to answer the first part of my question...!!

--Dwight

[Vlim]

Dwight,

DWM stated in their 1939 company history that the Parabellum production started in 1899.

"Seit dem Jahre 1899 bauten die DWM die Parabellum-Pistole. Diese ist eine Umkonstruktion und Verbesserung der von dem bekannten Waffenkonstrukteur Hugo Borchardt entwickelten Borchardt-Selbstlade-Pistole"

From the company time-line:

"1899 Beginn der Herstellung der Parabellum-Pistole.
22. April: Kapitalerh�¶hung von 12 Millionen auf 15 Millionen M."