[ Weimar Police C96 ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we're taking a look
at a really interesting German
Weimar era police pistol from the
Bear Arms reference collection in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Now ... really one of the things
I really like about historical firearms is how there are times when you can trace
a firearm through a whole series of different historical periods or events.
And this is an excellent example of just that.
So this was originally manufactured in the latter half of World War One.
And it was originally in this configuration as a military "Red 9".
So the C96 Mauser was ... generally manufactured in 7.63mm Mauser calibre.
But during World War One there were a couple of ... Prussian elements of the German military
that wanted these pistols in 9mm Parabellum
to fit the standard logistics of all their other pistol supply.
And so there was a contract from Mauser for about 135,000 or 140,000 Red 9 pistols.
And they were so named because they have this big red 9 in the grips
to indicate that they are in 9mm not 7.63mm.
So I actually have a whole video about the original military Red 9s that I'll link at the end of this one.
At the end of the war German police forces needed pistols.
And there were limited things available.
Now they would have wanted Luger pistols, ideally.
That was the modern, relatively compact, ideal police pistol.
The problem was the limitations of the Treaty of Versailles restricted
who could actually manufacture handguns (and all other firearms) in Germany.
And in 1921, when the police were just starting to re-equip and reorganise themselves,
DWM, the major manufacturer of commercial Lugers outside the German arsenal system,
they were shut down by the Inter-Allied Military Control Commission.
They were no longer allowed to manufacture pistols.
And so there was no longer a source of Luger pistols for the new German police forces to access.
So instead they looked to what is available in 9mm Parabellum,
and one of the big things that was available were Prussian Red 9 C96 Mausers.
So a bunch of German police forces got those.
And they ... took a look at this thing and they're like,
"Well, it's in the right calibre, they work well enough,
but this is kind of bulky and awkward for a beat cop."
This is intended to be much more of a military firearm,
especially with the shoulder stock on it, and that's not really suitable for the police.
And so in a fairly organised manner,
a lot of those pistols were modified for police use specifically.
And that's what we have here, so ... let's take a closer look.
And let me show you what they did to this pistol, and the others just like it.
There are two main things that were done to make these pistols more suitable for the police.
One is the barrel and one is the rear sight.
If we start with the barrel, on the original Red 9 the barrel was 5.5 inches long.
On the police guns that was shortened to 4 inches,
which is, perhaps not coincidentally, the same length as the standard P08 Luger.
This was done by cutting the very front section of the original barrel off,
and drilling out the rifling inside so this had a larger diameter centre hole.
The barrel was then cut back to 4 inches.
The new end of the barrel was turned down, and the original front sight sleeved on over the top
and soldered in place, complete with the original front sight.
So a relatively simple way to not have to worry about trying to match rifling in a section of barrel,
and not have to worry about a new front sight.
Just slide the old front sight right onto the new barrel.
We then have a bit more intensive of a process for the rear sight.
A German policeman on the beat simply had no need for a 500 metre rear sight,
or something that was mobile and could get misadjusted,
and cause him to shoot badly or get caught on something.
And so the rear sight leaf was removed.
And these lugs that originally held it on were simply milled flat off the top of the gun.
And in its place a fixed rear V-notch sight
was simply dovetailed into place and installed.
Now some of these pistols have Prussian proof marks
down in here on the area that ... originally had the rear sight mounting lugs.
So it's very probable that the Erfurt Arsenal did at least some of these conversions.
And then either the conversions were moved to a different facility that didn't proof them,
or the arsenal itself decided that it just wasn't
necessary to proof guns after going through this process.
Because while, yes, they were shortening the barrels,
they weren't actually doing anything that would impact the headspace, or the lock up,
or any of the functional characteristics of the gun.
So really not necessary to reproof the pistols.
We have a number of relevant markings here.
We have our serial number, 17,785.
This is really quite early in the Prussian Red 9 contract.
It is an all matching pistol, so we have the same number repeated on the bolt, the bolt stop.
And several components back here, the frame,
the internal lock work, the hammer, as you would expect on a C96.
We have this "1920" stamp on the side of the barrel extension.
That's not a date, that is actually a German government property mark.
So the Treaty of Versailles limited the number of firearms
that the German government was allowed to own.
And it used this 1920 stamp to indicate which ones were officially government owned.
And the reason was the ... Inter-Allied Military Control Commission required
the German government to round up and destroy all the excess firearms.
Now when World War One ended it ended with an armistice,
not a surrender, or a peace treaty immediately.
And so a lot, the majority, of German troops essentially went home with their firearms.
And there were a lot of guns floating around Germany
that had to be collected up and destroyed, per the Treaty of Versailles.
And in order to do this, the German government offered a bounty on firearms.
You turn it in and you get cash, very useful at the time.
Well, they wanted to avoid people stealing government guns
and turning them in for the cash reward.
And so they would mark government guns with that 1920.
The fact that it is on this pistol means that in the basically immediate aftermath of World War One
this particular C96, at the time still in its original configuration,
was ... officially property of the German government.
There are two final markings on here that are interesting,
... and these are both police markings.
We have an "St. 140." and unfortunately the meaning of this is still unknown.
There's a fantastic book out there called "History Writ in Steel"
that is all about German police pistol markings.
And it does a really good job of covering this stuff, and it specifically calls out this
type of marking as something that just hasn't been identified yet.
But we also have this one on the front grip strap, this "S.G.V. 39."
And this indicates that this pistol was issued out to the Gumbinnen Schutzpolizei,
the German police in the district of Gumbinnen.
The "V" is a Roman numeral 5.
... This is actually pretty high, you more often find these with lower Roman numerals.
This indicates that this was the fifth command of this particular police agency.
And the Gumbinnen Police actually had ... a lot of cops,
and a lot of guns for the size of the district.
This was a district of (in 1922) 19,000 people with 1,400 police officers, so quite a lot.
At any rate, the V indicates the fifth command, and then 39 indicates that this was the 39th
inventory item that was being marked in this way.
So probably the 39th firearm of that group.
Gumbinnen is in the far eastern section of Germany.
It's actually now part of Poland, not Germany at all.
These police pistols retained the rear grip slot
for the ... combination holster stock.
But they ... very rarely appear to have actually been used with holster stocks.
Instead they were much more commonly used with just basic leather holsters.
And this is in fact the holster that this pistol was in in 1945 when it came back to the United States.
So there's a pocket here that would have held one stripper clip of extra ammunition.
I'm not sure the exact provenance of these clips,
if they're the original ones or if they were acquired later.
But this is pretty typical of the sort of holster that a German policeman would have used
to carry a shortened C96 like that.
Obviously the holster is the same 4 inch barrel length,
it would not fit an original Red 9.
I should say there is ... an older, sort of a typically accepted story,
that these police modified C96 Mausers
were in fact guns that were manufactured after the end of World War One.
And they were manufactured under the limitations of the Treaty of Versailles.
And I want to point this out because I don't think that's actually true.
For a fact, we know that these were Prussian contract guns that were made during the war.
And ... if you read through the Treaty of Versailles
there is in fact no discussion of features of handguns limiting their manufacture.
And we know that Mauser did actually make some C96s with long barrels
during the inter-war years when they were still under the limitations of Versailles.
These were in fact pistols that were manufactured during the war
that were then adapted to police use.
The relevance of the Treaty of Versailles is that it prevented them
from getting more modern pistols that they would have preferred.
But if we continue on this particular pistol's story,
a lot of these were ... used by police services until the early 1930s,
generally, when Lugers became available once again.
Some of them were then actually reissued
to ... elements of the German military and used during World War Two.
Now I don't know if this one was, it probably was not, some were.
This particular pistol, we can pick up its story in April of 1945
because we happen to know that this particular pistol was brought back by a US veteran.
Who wrote a letter, this is a photocopy of it.
But wrote a letter to his family on April 17 1945 explaining,
"I got me a Mauser .38 automatic pistol, there are very few of them.
I also got two calibre .32 in Belgium."
And he goes on to talk about some other things about his service in Germany.
But we know his unit was in the far eastern edge of Germany at that time,
which is in the same area where this was,
we know from its markings, was actually issued as a police pistol.
And so our serviceman here
probably picked this up from one of the towns where it had been used by the police.
Firearms under Allied occupation in World War Two were confiscated from the general public,
and they were made available to Allied soldiers who were interested in souvenirs.
That's something that was very commonly done, taking firearms as souvenirs in World War Two.
That has become basically prohibited in the US military today,
but it was absolutely a common thing in World War Two.
So, 1945 this pistol is acquired by an American GI, comes back to the United States.
And it stayed here until the GI passed away,
and his family came in to Bear Arms and sold it to Kurt, the owner,
to become part of the reference collection here.
So I like I said at the beginning,
I really enjoy taking a look at historical firearms
that you can trace through a number of different eras and events,
and this is a great example of that.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video as well.
Thanks for watching.