Comments on: Axel’s post on the P-38 part 2

By: Per Mathisen

Per Mathisen — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 18:27:26 +0000

Hi
Read my answer in part one !!

By: Al

Al — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 23:42:14 +0000

I have one of the byf44 East German rebuilds with the Suhl proof. It does have the stepped chamber. No sign of any peening around the barrel, just chatter marks from rough cutting tools. No sign of the barrel being 2 piece. There’s no indication of any remarking or removal and restamping of the serial number on the barrel, and there isn’t a suffix that would be on the WW2 production barrels. I think the barrel is one piece, and made and proofed in Suhl, and I think the East Germans were perfectly capable of manufacturing new barrels by 1953.

By: Axel

Axel — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 17:10:00 +0000

Thanks for the compliment!
And yes – first time I heard that “one rifle for every second soldier” story was as an extra at that very same movie.
That’s what they told us and I believed they would have done their research…

By: Axel

Axel — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 17:05:27 +0000

Hi Bob,
thanks for your offer and of course I would like to see those pictures!
You can reach me here: axelmueller@yahoo.com
Best Axel

By: Storm

Storm — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 05:14:36 +0000

Excellent article!!,
however I need to comment on something that is very annoying to see, yet repeated ad nauseam;

“In Stalingrad they only had one rifle for every other soldier. The unarmed ones were supposed to pick up a rifle from a fallen one with a rifle!”

This is a myth directly taken from ww2 movie back from early 2000s, called “Enemy at the gates” (sorta like eastern front Saving Private Ryan wannabe – not that good),
from its impressive but illogical opening scene, and it seems like that fantasy fabrication got burned into collective conscious.
After the movie was published, it gets repeated everywhere, and personally I’ve also heard many times in public discussions with my friends explaining to me “How bad it really was in Soviet union/Stalingrad etc.”.

About the conditions in Russia, I think its (sadly) true, as there was a mention that german soldiers were horrified in 1941. seeing for themselves in how poor country they entered; many if, not most of the houses out of the cities had dirt/rammed earth on the floor.

By: Bob Adams

Bob Adams — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 23:15:50 +0000

I’ve examined a variety of these DDR pistols (P.38, PP and P.08), and all appear to be new production. – in my opinion. I’ve also examined liberation era P.35 Browning HP pistols (A series) which were clearly made from leftover Nazi parts. I see none of those clues in the DDR pistols. Close comparison of machining patterns show differences from war-time production as well as some production shortcuts which differ from Walther & Mauser production. As best I’ve been able to reconstruct, Walther was pretty much cleaned out by occupation forces. GIs even brought back incomplete & unfinished pistols as well as many spare parts. Several concurrent accounts have been published how local craftsmen were hired to assemble pistols as souvenirs for soldiers as the war was winding down. The same was true for other factories as well – such as Sauer and Gustloff.

DDR pistols could have been made from surrendered German ordnance spare parts, but that wouldn’t explain the variant machining patterns visible on the guns.

Don’t take all this as gospel, but it’s what I remember from my research and discussions with Warren Buxton over the years.

I can provide photos of N1000 and several of the PP copies as well as a strange DDR reworked Browning HP which is clearly a rework.