Walter - Luger

THE STORY OF THE WORLDS
MOST FAMOUS HANDGUN

JOHN WALTER

FOREWORD BY REINHARD KORNMAYER

For Alison, Adam, Nicky, Findlay, Georgia and Holly, with love

First published 1995 by Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal Ltd

Fully revised paperback edition first published by The History Press 2016

Published by arrangement with Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal Ltd

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2016

All rights reserved

John Walter, 1995, 2016

The right of John Walter to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 6920 8

Original typesetting by The History Press

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Many books dealing with the Luger or Parabellum-Pistole have been published over the course of time. Many of them deal at great length with individual topics: manufacturers, periods of history such as the First World War or the Third Reich, accessories, markings or constructional details.

But many of these books, however remarkable, appeal largely to the extreme Luger collector. John Walters new book fills an obvious gap in Luger literature. It reads almost as a novel, as the convoluted history of the pistols is presented as a chronological narrative.

John has offered us the results of new research, and gives previously unknown biographical details of many of the participants.

Almost anyone with an interest in the Luger, whether a collector or not, will find something of interest. Even for me, a passionate Parabellum enthusiast, the book offers new information. I can only state that the book is absolutely great: my compliments to the writer!

Reinhard Kornmayer

Singen, Germany, 2016

It seems strange to acknowledge that this book owes a great debt to one published almost forty years ago. Luger of 1977 was the first large-scale work on its subject to be published in Britain (virtually all other English-language books had originated in the USA) and proved to be very successful. It was translated into Italian, with only a few essential changes, and then into German.

The German version was somewhat of an upgrade. It brought me into contact with Joachim Grtz, whom Motor-Buch had entrusted with refining the project after a preliminary translation had been undertaken by Klaus-Dieter Meyer. Joachim had so much enthusiasm that he immediately began to delve into the archives that remained in Germany, to ensure not only that he was treating my text sympathetically but also that what Id written was right!

It had become fashionable in English-speaking circles to assume that nothing had survived the wasteland that was Germany after the end of the Second World War, and this, in turn, had created an environment in which misunderstanding, duplicity and even fraud could flourish. It was true, up to a point, that archives had been destroyed in places such as Berlin, where street-fighting in 1945 had been catastrophic; but not so true of records in Mnchen (for example), where the ravages of war had been much less obvious.

Joachim Grtz lived in Mnchen, and his researches in the Bundesarchiv, libraries and museums gathered pace rapidly. When The Luger Book was published in 1986, content benefited greatly from newly discovered information. He and I collaborated on The Navy Luger, published in 1989; this, too, included documents which had been lost for decades. By the end of the twentieth century, Joachim had written Die Pistole 08 and was widely regarded as one of the finest German small-arms historians.

When the time came, in the mid 1990s, to revise The Luger Book, I decided to revert to a straightforward narrative. The precisely sub-divided AZ encyclopaedic nature of the 1986 book had not been universally accepted, and several critical reviews were published. I felt that most of these reviewers completely misunderstood my goals but there wasnt much I could do to educate them!

The Luger Story was duly published in 1995, then reprinted in a slightly modified form in 2001. There the project lay for fifteen years. When plans to resurrect it were mooted, we realised that so much innovative research had been undertaken that I elected to entirely revise the text.

This was greatly helped by the existence of The Borchardt & Luger Automatic Pistols, the magnificent outcome of collaboration between Joachim Grtz and Dr Geoffrey Sturgess published in 2012 in three huge, colour-packed volumes. Joachim collated a huge amount of material, but, sadly, had died suddenly in 2002; Geoffrey Sturgess, one of the worlds leading collectors, was determined to continue the work of his friend and collaborator. One of the most valuable aspects of The Borchardt & Luger Automatic Pistols and there are many! is the attention paid to constructional minutiae, allowing much of the fakery to be exposed.

My work cannot compete with Grtz & Sturgess. Instead, it seeks simply to provide a readable, affordable one-volume narrative which will appeal to anyone fascinated by the Luger pistol. However, I hope that new information will be found in the genealogical research that underpins identification and (sometimes crucially) dating of specific objects.

The chance to re-write Luger was one I welcomed, but writing the acknowledgements is less congenial. Too many friends and colleagues who helped with my research are no longer with us: Joachim Grtz, Major a.D. Hans-Rudolf von Stein, Henk Visser, Herb Woodend and Anthony Carter among them.

Rolf Gminder cheerfully supplied information and a vast amount of photographs, particularly in the early days when he was supervising Mauser-Jagdwaffens production programme; and Dr Geoffrey Sturgess very generously allowed access to his unrivalled knowledge. Much of his collection of small-arms was sold by auctioneers James D. Julia, Inc., of Fairfield, Maine, and Im pleased to acknowledge the help of Lisa Oakes in obtaining copies of some excellent catalogue pictures (for additional details, see www.jamesdjulia.com).

Forty years ago, I first made contact with Reinhard Kornmayer the doyen of European Parabellum enthusiasts and Im delighted that he has provided not only pictures and documents but also a foreword for this edition.

I am very pleased to acknowledge the help of Michael Leventhal, now of Greenhill Books, who was largely responsible for commissioning this new edition. His father, Lionel, who gave me my first job, takes the blame for Luger, The Luger Book and The Luger Story! And I must also thank Chrissy McMorris of The History Press, for smoothing the road from manuscript to print.

In 2001, I could thank only Alison and Adam for the love and support that overcame all the many frustrations of the creative process. Now I have to add to the list Nicky, grandchildren Findlay, Georgia and Holly, and Jack the dog.