A Special Teutonic Spoon

[tabs]

For today's de jour viewing pleasure is a special Teutonic spoon that is nearly 100 years old. It is a WW1 Mauser Kar 98 AZ carbine manufactured in Erfurt in 1917 with it's non matching number bayonet. These were manufactured from about 1908 onwards till the end of WW1. They were issued primarily to Foot Artillery, Bicycle, Calvary, Sharp shooter, Pioneers, Telegraphists, Air Ship and Motor Transport troops until 1918 when the Germans launched their March offensive where they were issued to the elite "Storm Troops" who were specially trained shock troops, whose function was to bust through enemy trenches.








So you rightly ask what makes this rusty old war horse so special as they made tons of them during the Great War? The answer is that this is a all matching number Kar 98, in which they can be found in about a 50 to 1 ratio of being mismatched. In other words after WW1, German Mausers were generally reworked where matching up the original numbers didn't matter anymore. Usually they would be redated with a 1920 date stamp, and latter in the 1930's they would have various date code stamps upon them. The last matching number Kar 98 AZ I saw was about 4 years ago, not that I was looking all that hard though.

Then you might ask doesn't that "EWB" stamp in the stock hurt it's being special? Well again here is what makes it really special, that EWB stamp in the stock denotes "Einwohmer-Ver Bayern" or a Bavarian Citizens Defense aka as a FreiKorps unit (1919 to 1922). The Freikorps were mainly composed of returning German WW1 veterans who formed up amidst the chaos of post WW1 Germany to fight the Communists in the streets for control of Germany. The Freikorps units to a large extent were the direct predecessors of the NSDAP Sturmabteilung or SA. Hitler's close associate Ernest Rohm was an arms suppliers to the EWB (Hitler and Rohm were Bavarian based in Munich).

This rifle just tell me it' history. First the rifle retains a very high percentage of it's original bluing and has ALL matching numbers which indicates that it never saw front line service during WW1. It probably remained in a Bavarian arsenal depot or was in the hands of an organization such as the police. Further who ever it was issued to in the Freikorps took it home or it remained in perhaps in a SA/SS units arsenal in Bavaria until the end of WW2. When it was most likely brought home by a returning WW2 US GI, this rifle bears no importers marks which were required after 1968. Further this rifle remained in someones military collection for decades until I recently purchased it. This rifle is in as found condition and has not been cleaned up by myself.

So here you have it a hard to find high condition, all matching number Kar 98 with a post WW1 Freikorps association from the same stomping grounds as Hitler and his Nazi buddys. All and all a special find from an interesting historical era.

[HardDrive]

Nice Mauser tabs. Thanks for posting.

[Jeff Higgins]

Very, very cool there tabby.

My Opa carried one of those as a mule packer in the Balkans in WWI. I've got some old photos of him with it; maybe I'll see if I can first find them, and then maybe scan them.

[fanaudical]

Interesting. What is the purpose of the cutout in the stock shown in the second picture?

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by fanaudical

Interesting. What is the purpose of the cutout in the stock shown in the second picture?

The sling goes through it.

[aigel]

Pff ... non matching bayonet. Next!