German Army Officers Pistols

[Khaki]

Were German Officers afforded the same privilege as British officers, namely private purchase of sidearms

khaki

[Old Tom]

I would suggest that the German armies would insist on a standard. Perhaps the different armies had different stanards. I guess that this was self loader of lighter calibre than the British revolvers.

Old Tom

[Glenn J]

Khaki,

I certainly get the impression that German officers were allowed a certain amount of latitude in their selection of a personal firearm. For example the list of items required to be purchased by an officer of the reserve as detailed in Doerfler's "Dienstverhältnisse der Offiziere...des Beurlaubtensatndes etc." of 1910 recommennds the "Armee-Revolver due to ease of procuring ammunition. However, the Matthias Müller catalogue of military uniform accessories published around the same time has many variants of self loading pistol, including Brownings (especially suitable as an officers' weapon), Dreyses, Walthers and the Armee-Pistole 08 (Luger) and others.

Regards

Glenn

[Khaki]

Thanks Glenn and Old Tom,

I was pretty sure that provided the sidearms chambered current issue ammo then the officers had the facility to make private purchases. Interesting that from photo's the more senior the rank the smaller the sidearm. I guess that some field officers probably carried a 'backup'

pistol of smaller caliber.It would be interesting to know what quantities were available for private purchase as opposed to factories filling government contracts and whether purchases were made direct to the factor/,retailer or through military channels.

khaki

[TonyE]

I do not know the rules that pertained to German officers purchasing their own side arms, but they certainly did. Whether this only applied above a certain rank I don't know.

With respect to pistols using the service ammunition, at the beginning of the war there was really no choice other than a privately purchased Parabellum Pistol (Luger). The only 9mm pistols in production at that time were the commercial, Navy and army models made by DWM and the army model made at the Erfurt state arsenal. Later of course in 1915/16 Mauser started to produce the C96 "Broomhandle" in 9mm Para for the army.

For officers requiring a pocket pistol there was a wide choice of 7.65mm pistols available, FN Model 1900, Walther Mod.4, Mauser Mod.14, Dreyse, Pieper etc., all of which saw use. We had a Dreyse 7.65mm in the school armoury that a master had brought back from WWI.

For senior officers who might want a dress pistol or for back-up there were similar 6.35mm pistols galore, Walther Mod.2 and Mauser Mod.10 being two of the better known.

I suppose it is also conceivable that there were privately purchased versions of the 10.6mm Reich revolver as well, since that was still a service issue calibre.

Regards

TonyE

[Ogilwy]

Tony,

We need to talk! I'll PM you. We found several 6.35mm fired cases whilst on a dig in Belgium (that you will know of well). I attributed them to personnal backup weapon as you have said, but they are on my 'To Do' list for further analysis, so I haven't progressed that any further yet.

We also found 9 X23mm for the Styer Hahn. These were however for the M12 P16 I believe. I think there were about 10,000 M12 (or P12 in the German designation) purchased by the Germans so I would imagine that they were reasonably prolific in service. I cannot remember if I have the figures for the P16 version at home but will look at the weekend but the full auto was issued to the Sturm troopen and I don't think that rank was a factor as to whom.

I would not be shocked to find Styer pistols as personal purchase weapons, but for me the cherry on the top would be a Borchardt C93! Finding the particular 7.65 X 25mm for one would be ideal, but as they are identical to the .30 Mauser they would be difficult to identify without a good head stamp!

Rod

[TonyE]

OK Rod, I'll await your PM.

Cheers

Tony