WWII firearms in East Germany’s “other” armed forces

East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic or DDR in its German acronym, existed for 40 years, 11 months, and 4 weeks. The brief lifespan of East Germany’s military, the National Volksarmee, is well-documented and studied by military historians. It only used a limited amount of ex-WWII kit for a short while.

However the nation had paramilitary forces which did use WWII weapons for a longer time: the Grenztruppen (border troops), the Volkspolizei (national-level police), and the KdA (a second-rate militia). They have received less historical attention.

(Officer of the East German Volkspolizei with a WWII German StG-44 assault rifle.)

(East German Grenztruppen with WWII Soviet PPSh-41 submachine guns during the 1960s.)

origins

WWII in Europe ended on 8 May 1945. Defeated Germany was divided as below.

(East Prussia, Pomerenia, and Silesia were permanently lost to Poland and the USSR. The dark grey area was split between British, French, and American occupation. The red area (which would become East Germany) was under Soviet occupation. Berlin was a separate entity divided four ways.)

During the summer of 1945, SVAG (the USSR’s military occupation government) allowed the resumption of unarmed German police within its occupation zone.

(Unarmed German police in Berlin during the late summer of 1945. The city took tremendous damage during WWII.)

On 31 October 1945 SVAG approved issuing pistols to client German police which would be organized no further than the town or city level.

(One of the first types the Soviets handed out was Saint-Étienne Mle. 1892 six-shooters, chambered in 8mm Lebel. After the 1940 conquest of France, these were used as Revolver 637(f) by the Wehrmacht. The Soviets had captured these during WWII and had no use for them now.)

This very early incarnation, which totaled 22,000 men in 1946, had many problems. Training was almost non-existent and professionalism poor. One estimate puts the 1946 – 1947 turnover at around 50%.

the forerunner: the KVP

During October 1948 SVAG created the Bereitschaftspolizei (“alert police”), a paramilitary force “police” only in name. These men were organized into military formations, given military training, and housed in barracks. By 1 January 1949, it had 10,000 “policemen” organized in 250-man battalions.

(Bereitschaftspolizei unit in 1949, armed with WWII German 98k rifles.) (photo via British Pathe)

On 7 October 1949 East Germany became an independent nation, albeit under Soviet influence and dependant on aid from the USSR.

Six days later the force was renamed to Hauptverwaltung für Ausbildung (“main training office”) or HfA, subordinate to the Interior Ministry (MdI).

(A 1949 parade on the still-wrecked Unter den Linden in the Soviet sector of Berlin, which would soon be East Berlin.)

Both East and West Germany revived the Weimar Republic’s black-red-yellow flag when they regained independence. For ten years, the two nations had identical flags, as seen in the above photo. East Germany added its coat of arms in 1959.

On 1 June 1952 the HfA was renamed to Kasernierte Volkspolizei (“barracked people’s police”). The KVP swelled in size, crossing the 90,000-man mark that year.

(KVP members with WWII Mosin-Nagant M44 carbines.)

(In everything but name the Seepolizei was a fledgling small navy on the Baltic coast.)

The KVP was by now almost entirely military in character, including an armored warfare tactics school and the “Lausitz Flying Club” which was an air force academy in all but name. Actual policing by the regular Volkspolizei was handled separately.

(KVP on parade during 1954 with WWII StG-44s reissued by the USSR and the then-new M-54 helmet of East German design.)

(KVP members during the 1950s with WWII German MG-34 and the East German M-54 helmet.)

On 1 March 1956 East Germany formally announced rearmament. The regular army, the National Volksarmee, was created overnight from the KVP and subordinated to the new Defense Ministry. The “other” armed organizations were now the Volkspolizei, the Grenztruppen, and the KdA.

the Volkspolizei

The Volkspolizei or Vopo as it was called by East Germans, existed parallel to the KVP from 1949 – 1956 and then on its own until 1990.

During 1949 – 1950 there was a large purge of the police. Forced out were members who during WWII had held Wehrmacht ranks above the lowest enlisted levels, Wehrmacht veterans of any rank who had been taken PoW by the western Allies, anybody with family in West Germany, or anybody who had resettled in East Germany after being expelled from the lost eastern regions. Thereafter the Vopo was considered of high political reliability.

(Volkspolizei parade in Neustrelitz during 1955. The officers are armed with StG-44s.) (Bundesarchiv photo)

The Volkspolizei was an unusual organization, not the least of which being it was a national-level force which extended all the way down to normal neighborhood patrols. What differed it from national polices worldwide was that it was armed with military-grade weaponry.

(Taken from the first Volkspolizei manual in 1949, this illustrates shooting the StG-44 from the seated position.)

The Volkspolizei faced its first challenge in June 1953. Eight years of sluggish rebuilding to WWII-bombed cities and a poor economy were topped off by an ill-advised 10% increase in work quotas for no additional pay. Protests turned to rioting with offices of the SED (the ruling communist party) being torched and some Volkspolizei stations being sacked. East Germany’s own internal security forces could not quell the uprising and only the intervention of Soviet troops firing live ammunition ended it.

(East German citizens pelt a Soviet T-34-85 with stones during June 1953. This WWII tank was still the mainstay of GSFG, Soviet forces forward-based in East Germany, with the T-54/55 coming a few years later.)

Following the uprising the East German government and the Soviets examined how the situation had gotten out of hand. There had been poor communication amongst the various arms of the East German government. After the uprising, interoperability between the National Volksarmee, the Stasi secret police, the Volkspolizei, and the KdA militia were strengthened.

For East German civilians the quota increase was cancelled but the government became obsessed with monitoring the population, leading to the Stasi “surveillance-state”. The Volkspolizei’s public perception was greatly diminished. The Volkspolizei struggled for the next 36 years to improve their image with varied results.

(Volkspolizei officers four years after the uprising, still with WWII sturmgewehrs. This style of hat was called a shako and used by both the East German Volkspolizei and the civilian West Berlin police on “the other side”.) (photo via Ullstein Bild)

During the mid-to-late 1960s, WWII-generation gear was phased out of the Volkspolizei. WWII sidearms were replaced by the Soviet Makarov pistol (made under license as the “PM” in East Germany) while the StG-44s and other WWII firearms were replaced by Kalishnikovs. Armament levels were changed to be more in line with what would be expected from a police force. The uniform styles were also modernized.

(Lada squad car and Ka-26 “Hoodlum” police helicopter with the officers in new uniforms.)

the Transportpolizei

This was a special subset of the Volkspolizei responsible for policing transportation infrastructure in East Germany. They were commonly called Trapos or Blaubeeren (“blueberries”) on account of their distinctive blue uniforms.

(The Dreyse Modell 1907 was one of the very first Transportpolezei weapons in 1949. Chambered in .380ACP, this semi-auto remained in Transportpolizei use into the mid-1950s.)

(A Trapo safety-checks his 98k during 1953.)

(Transportpolizei in 1961, armed with WWII Soviet PPSh-41 submachine guns and wearing the M-56 stahlhelm.) (Bundesarchiv photo)

During the 1960s, the Transportpolizei abandoned WWII weapons in favor of modern designs, like the rest of the Volkspolizei. However unlike them, it did not reduce the proportion of combat gear and when the Germanys reunited in 1990 it had, besides AK variants and handguns, also RPG-7 rocket launchers.

the Grenztruppen der DDR

The Grenztruppen (border troops) had a role opposite to that of other border patrols worldwide: instead of keeping outsiders out, the main focus was keeping its own citizens in. At its peak the manpower was 47,000 which was larger than the whole armies of some sovereign nations.

One year after WWII ended, the Soviets recruited 2,500 Germans to assist in patrolling the boundary of their occupation zone. There were shortages of everything. The men were issued simple uniforms and a hodge-podge of firearm types. There were no vehicles; initially there was even a shortage of bicycles. There were no barracks and the men were quartered in civilian houses.

During September 1947 this force was increased to 3,779 men. In November 1948, it was briefly amalgamated into the Bereitschaftspolizei.

(East German Grenzpolizei armed with 98k rifles and StG-44 assault rifle. During this time they wore a shako hat and police-style greatcoat.)

After East German independence in 1949, the force was assigned to the MdI (Interior Ministry) and renamed Grenzpolizei. Vastly enlarged to 20,000+ men, the Grenzpolizei was issued cars and motorcycles and had barracks built.

During October 1952, the Grenzpolizei was made a more military force in response to two things: the possibility that NATO and the Soviet Union might go to war, and a nearly total collapse of the inter-German border itself.

the inter-German border

Eight weeks after Germany surrendered, the lines which the Allies would use to divide it were agreed upon. Civilians fleeing westward after WWII was rampant. There was a net loss of 1⁄5 of East Germany’s population in the first fifteen years after WWII.

After East Germany became independent in 1949 out-migration was viewed as an existential threat. Besides the immediate blow to the labor force, many of the fleeing citizens were young meaning East Germany would be deprived of their lifetime of economic productivity, then down the road face demographics skewed into a nation of pensioners.

(This was a grenzpfahl marker, commonly called “East German barber poles” by American GIs during the Cold War. They sat a few inches behind the legal border.)

The border between East and West Germany was 858 miles long. East Germany’s coastline was 167 miles long; all of it considered a border zone. There was another inter-German border, the ring around the “rears” of the three western sectors of Berlin which totaled 71 miles. Finally after 1961, the Berlin Wall was 23 miles.

(Rügen island was a border zone in its entirety; the shore opposite the island was also a border zone. This 1956 photo shows Grenztruppen patrolling Rügen with WWII Soviet weapons, a Mosin-Nagant M44 and a PPSh-41.) (Bundesarchiv photo)

The hardening of the inter-German border was gradual. For the first year after WWII, there was not one at all. During mid-1946 the Soviets, aided by their client eastern German police, erected crude checkpoints on roads and began foot patrols. Neither had much effect.

(Early East German border policeman with WWII Mosin-Nagant M44. As can be seen, the border at this time was just a log.)

When East Germany became independent in 1949 the border was more heavily patrolled and barbed wire appeared. However people were still escaping at the rate of 1,300 per week. On 26 May 1952 the “hard” border started. A strip was cleared of vegetation behind the fence, and behind that a special zone 3 miles into East Germany (including entire towns) was established, which required a special pass for non-residents. Highways were cut with a ditch to discourage cars from trying to barrel through border crossings. Minefields were laid for the first time.

(The early-1950s border had seven strands of barbed wire 7′ high. The border troops here carry WWII Soviet PPSh-41 submachine guns.)

(The aluminum signs on the grenzpfahl had three versions over the decades; this was the first which was phased out in the early 1960s. At this time border patrolmen still went right up to the legal line. The men are armed with PPSh-41s.)

During the 1960s people were still getting out at the rate of about 200 per week. Work on the “superborder” started, which would get more and more elaborate for the rest of East Germany’s existence.

Behind the “barber poles”, a 50 – 75 yds strip of East Germany was abandoned as a sort of no-man’s land. This served several purposes; during construction of the “superborder” it discouraged the builders from themselves defecting, and afterwards it prevented West German civilians from harassing the Grenztruppen.

Next came the main fence, which was originally a chainlink type topped with barbed wire. This was later changed to perforated metal which would cut fingers if grasped. The fence had SM-70 horizontal claymore-type shrapnel charges fuzed on tripwires woven onto the fence. Behind the fence was an anti-vehicle ditch. Behind the ditch was a graded strip of sand which would show footprints. Behind the strip was the service track, two tire-sized lines of Soviet prefabricated military roadway. Next came a narrow minefield, backed by a shorter secondary fence. To its rear were floodlights and the guard towers. Behind them was another strip cleared of vegetation. There was often a simple third fence behind it and behind that, the 3 mile zone.

(This photo shows construction of the secondary fence in progress. The little square is a small bunker for the Grenztruppen. There were three guard tower styles. The four-story BT-11 shown here was the tallest.)

the militarized force

During 1955, a year before East Germany formally rearmed, a decision was made to begin equipping the Grenzpolizei as an actual combat force. The counterpart, West Germany’s Bundesgrenzschutz, also had this to a (much lesser) degree. The difference was in attitude: the West Germans assumed that if the Warsaw Pact attacked, their border patrolmen would obviously get caught up in the first wave and needed kit to defend themselves short-term. Meanwhile the East Germans assumed that if NATO attacked, the Grenzpolizei should itself be a first line of defense and hold its ground.

(East Germany designated the WWII Soviet ZiS-3 anti-tank gun “Kanone Modell 1943”.)

The 76mm towed ZiS-3 was a remarkable weapon for any border patrol to operate. During WWII this was a powerful gun; the AP round had sufficient velocity to penetrate more than 1½” of sloped hardened armor. They could also be fired as field artillery with HE-Frag ammo. The Grenztruppen used these for a short while, receiving them in the mid-1950s and retiring them in 1960 in favor of post-WWII recoilless weapons. Artillery like this was assigned to special units called Schweres Grenzabtl (“heavy border battalions”).

(Grenzpolizei poster prior to the coat of arms being added to East Germany’s flag. The firearm is a WWII Soviet PPSh-41.)

During June 1955 it was instructed that the Grenzpolizei phase out all ex-Wehrmacht equipment, with it being transferred to the Volkspolizei or KdA. For the rest of its existence the force used only combloc gear.

(The WWII Soviet PM M1910 belt-fed, water-cooled machine gun was “SMG-Maxim” in East German nomenclature. The Grenztruppen used these from the mid-1950s until the changeover to 7.62x39mm as the standard caliber on the border.)

(Grenzpolizei in 1958 with WWII Soviet Tokarev TT-33 pistols which were bought third-hand from Poland and replaced a menagerie of types. The East German nomenclature was “Pistole TT”.) (Bundesarchiv photo)

On 12 September 1961, the Grenzpolizei was renamed Grenztruppen der DDR and moved to the Defense Ministry. It was considered a fourth branch of East Germany’s military equal to the army, navy, and air force. Grenztruppen personnel held military ranks. They gave and received salutes equal to the other three branches. The Grenztruppen service color was green, seen on hat bands and collar patches.

the PPSh-41 in the Grenztruppen

With the obvious exception of the USSR’s own army during WWII itself, perhaps no combat force worldwide is more culturally associated with the WWII Soviet PPSh-41 submachine gun than the Grenztruppen.

(Grenztruppen “For Excellent Performance” award, showing a PPSh-41 and a “barber pole” marker.)

The PPSh-41 was already in limited Grenzpolizei service by the early 1950s. After the 1955 decision to phase out non-combloc equipment, it was issued on a massive scale. Besides the fact that these WWII submachine guns were low-cost, there actually were some practical reasons.

(Grenztruppen during the winter of 1956 – 1957.)

(Grenztruppen near the Berlin Wall during the 1960s.)

At least in defendant’s evidence presented during 1990s trials of former Berlin Wall guards, official Grenztruppen doctrine was a verbal challenge, then a second challenge, then a warning shot, then lethal force as a last resort. If that was actually the “orders issued on the ground” is debatable. What is not debated is that Grenztruppen were instructed to fire at fleeing citizens facing back towards the East German side if at all possible, as opposed to firing facing the West Germany side of the border. This was especially true at the Berlin Wall, as buildings immediately abutting the boundary in West Berlin remained in use.

(Grenztruppen on the East/West Berlin border with PPSh-41 during 1961. The Esplanade Hotel just inside the British sector had already reopened, meanwhile the Soviet sector was still rubble. The arm chevron is Soldaten auf Zeit (“soldiers on time”) meaning a recruit requested 3 – 4 years in the Grenztruppen instead of a 1½ years conscription in the army.) (United Archives International photo)

Obviously it was not always possible to shoot in the preferred direction, probably more often not than it was. The Mosin-Nagant’s 7.62x54mm(R) cartridge had a 181 grain FMJ bullet with 2,666 foot-pounds of energy, whereas the PPSh-41’s 7.62 Tokarev cartridge had a 90 grain FMJ bullet with 360 foot-pounds. As border interactions were at short ranges the smaller round was still lethal, at the same time having less “carry” and less downrange penetration if the Grenztruppen had to fire facing the border. Therefore the PPSh-41 was evaluated as more ideal than the Mosin-Nagant.

(Grenztruppen with PPSh-41 during the early 1960s. This camouflage was called Flächentarn and was actually more effective than the famous East German Strichtarn “raindrop” pattern which replaced it in 1965.)

The Grenztruppen continued to use PPSh-41s until 1964, when they were replaced by AK-platform weapons. This WWII submachine gun lived on longer in the force’s iconography.

Created in 1954, the “Medal For Exemplary Border Service” was a high Grenztruppen decoration. On the obverse is a border patrolman with PPSh-41. This medal could be awarded in an annual December ceremony, or on the spot at any time.

During 1976 the Grenztruppen requested the medal be redesigned as both the PPSh-41 and the uniform shown were long out of service. Four designs were proposed, of which all were rejected. Therefore the PPSh-41 version remained in use with the last being awarded in 1989.

In the west this was called the “Wall Murderer’s Medal” as one reason it was awarded was shooting a civilian trying to escape East Germany. This was not the only reason it was awarded, but indeed was one of them. After 1990 the medal became a liability for awardees. One thing German prosecutors looked at was the actual month of the award; if it was other than December it might indicate a potential criminal case.

the Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse

The Combat Groups of the Worker Class, or KdA in its German acronym, was a civilian militia in East Germany controlled by the SED (communist party). It was like similar militias around the East Bloc: Czechoslovakia’s Lidové Milice (to which it was loosely patterned in 1953), North Korea’s Worker-Peasant Red Guards, Poland’s ORMO, and so on.

(The emblem of the KdA.)

(A typical KdA Hundertschaft armed with WWII PPSh-41s. The KdA was not exactly an elite force.)

The KdA was created in late 1953, partially in response to the 1953 uprising during which full-time East German uniformed forces were insufficient to handle mass discontent. The KdA’s purpose was two-fold: 1) a loyal paramilitary enforcing communist rule if there was another rebellion; 2) a second-rate manpower pool, sort of a “reserve reserve” in wartime.

(Creation of the KdA drew on earlier local militias in East Germany. This 1952 photo shows factory workers training with WWII vz.24 rifles.)

Membership was in theory voluntary however trade unions and vocational groups required it, so in effect it was hard to dodge. Members drilled after work for a minimum of 136 hours annually including at least one “field exercise”. Training was done by the Volkspolizei so that the KdA was exempt from East Germany’s CFE (conventional forces in Europe) manpower total.

The KdA unit was a Hundertschaft, around 100 men. Three or four Hundertschaft made a battalion. Battalions were controlled at the Bezirk (district) level and districts nationally by the SED’s Central Committee through the MdI (Interior Ministry). There were also Schwere Hundertschaft (“Heavy Hundreds”) which were overstrength and equipped with mortars and anti-aircraft guns.

(Kampfgruppen, presumably of a  Schwere Hundertschaft, with a WWII Soviet 61-K towed 37mm AA gun during a field exercise. In East German nomenclature this was “FlaK Modell 39”. Had a third world war broken out, its effectiveness against supersonic jets flown by NATO is dubious. These were finally retired during 1974.) (photo via rwd-mb3.de website)

The first uniforms were factory uniforms worn with a red armband. During 1959 a cheap khaki BDU was introduced.

(Armband used by the early KdA, in this case a Hundertschaft raised from employees of the VEB Stahl- und Walzwerk steel mill in Riesa. During WWII this had been Mitteldeutsche Stahlwerke, which was thoroughly looted by the USSR during the occupation. A “VEB” was a government-owned business as was most in East Germany.)

(KdA members by Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate during the early 1960s, showing the khaki uniform with cloth kepi cap. They are armed with WWII PPSh-41s and wear the WWII Soviet drum magazine bag.)

WWII weapons used by the KdA varied, usually castoffs from the Volksarmee or Grenztruppen as they modernized.

(KdA unit with 98k rifles during 1957.)

(KdA member with a StG-44 assault rifle. These were introduced as they were retired from Volkspolizei use. KdA units began to receive sturmgewehrs around 1958 and only had them for a short while, until the early 1960s. East German soldiers wore a Y-suspender belt with the mess kit on the left and canteen on the right, as seen here.)

(KdA members during the early 1960s with WWII Soviet PPSh-41 submachine guns.)

As part of the security reorganization after the 1953 uprising, it was considered desirable for East Germany’s various weapon-carrying forces to inter-operate regularly.

(Two KdA members with 98ks speak with soldiers of the regular National Volksarmee, which had already moved up to the SKS rifle as seen on the helmeted soldier.) (Bundesarchiv photo)

(A Grenztruppen with PPSh-41 alongside a KdA member with a slung 98k during construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.) (Bundesarchiv photo)

The largest call-up of the KdA came during August 1961 when the Berlin Wall’s construction was started. About 20% of the nationwide force was mobilized during that autumn.

(Berlin’s U-Bahn (subway) was built before WWII. After 1945 eleven stations of the #6 and #8 routes, which served mainly West Berlin, were underneath East Berlin. When the Berlin Wall was built these were closed at ground level. Trains passed through underground but did not stop at the so-called “ghost stations”. Here a KdA member with PPSh-41 guards a “ghost station” in 1961.)

The PPSh-41 was already in KdA use during the early 1960s. Throughout the decade the numbers increased greatly as this WWII submachine gun was retired out of the regular military, the Grenztruppen, and the Transportpolizei. By the end of the decade the PPSh-41 was the most common weapon a a Hundertschaft drilled with.

(A Kda member with PPSh-41 by the Brandenburg Gate in 1962. The quadriga, here with empty wreath, was tremendously damaged during WWII and almost unrecognizable when Berlin fell in May 1945. Between 1950 – 1958 the statue was rebuilt by East Germany, but with the wreath’s Iron Cross, Kaiser’s crown, and Prussian eagle omitted. After German reunification in 1990, these changes were reversed.)

By 1969 the KdA was at a crossroads, largely armed with weapons from WWII a quarter-century earlier. Within the Volksarmee, there was questioning of the military value from having civilians on a battlefield with obsolete guns, and also a suspicion that many members were just going through the motions. None the less a decision was made to invest in the force and during the early 1970s, remaining WWII weapons were discarded and replaced by AK-platform rifles and machine guns along with RPG-7s and ZU-23-2 AA guns.

In October 1989 3,500 KdA in the East Berlin area were mobilized against the anti-communist protests. Of the 3,500 called up, there were 146 outright AWOL and another 188 showed up to announce they were refusing orders. No further mobilizations were attempted.

how it all ended

During 1989 anti-communist protests occurred across East Germany. Erich Honecker’s government collapsed on 18 October 1989 and the Berlin Wall opened at 22:45 on 9 November 1989.

The opening of the Berlin Wall is sometimes mis-conflated with German reunification. East Germany continued to exist another 339 days. Technically the two nations did not “merge”, instead on 3 October 1990 East Germany dissolved itself and its entire territory was admitted as five additional Länder (states) to what had been West Germany.

(On the afternoon of 2 October 1990 the East German military held its final musters. Here army soldiers are furling unit guidons. In typical German precision, watchstanders that night wore Volksarmee uniforms while their midnight reliefs wore Bundeswehr uniforms, now part of the unified army.) (Bundesarchiv photo)

end of the KdA

During November 1989, participation in KdA training plummeted. On 6 December 1989 the Volksarmee was ordered to collect and store KdA weapons. (This ended up taking five months.) On 14 December 1989 the KdA was disbanded. Members were told that they could freely keep uniforms.

In modern Germany there is no stigma to being a former member. Paraphrased into English a saying was “Nobody had any choice in it, Nobody put any effort into it, Nobody got anything out of it.”

end of the Volkspolizei

The Volkspolizei still had about 80,000 officers when East Germany ended in 1990.

Policing in West Germany was much different, and handled at the Länder (state) level and in some cases even more local than that. On 3 October 1990 the Volkspolizei was split into five new Länder-level departments. Upper leadership was considered “tainted” and not brought over, but some patrolmen stayed on.

The Transportpolizei was considered the least political of East Germany’s uniformed services and about half of its manpower was retained.

end of the Grenztruppen

Throughout the Cold War, morale in the Grenztruppen was very high. After the Berlin Wall opened, professionalism was still exemplary but there was a depressing realization that they were about to land “on the wrong side of history”.

On 30 November 1989 17% of the Grenztruppen was discharged. By March 1990 another 33% were discharged. That month, Grenztruppen ceased carrying weapons. On 1 July 1990 the inter-German border was abolished and Grenztruppen manpower fell to 2,000. At 00:00 on 3 October 1990, the former West’s border service took control of defunct East Germany’s boundaries with Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Some former Grenztruppen were retained as civilian government workers to demolish the “superborder”. This included clearing 1.3 million land mines laid between 1952 – 1989. When the search for these ended in the mid-1990s, about 30,000 remained unfound. It is assumed that they were either East German paperwork falsifications or too remote to be a hazard.

During the Cold War between 450 – 1,000 civilians were estimated to have perished trying to flee East Germany, including 136 at the Berlin Wall after 1961. German law has no statute of limitations for homicide. During the 1990s some former Grenztruppen soldiers were put on trial for cases dating as far back as the 1960s, resulting in several convictions.

With the passage of several decades animosity towards the former force has lessened somewhat and today there are Grenztruppen veterans clubs in Germany.

a closer look at the weapons and what happened to them

There are some general milestones in East Germany’s use of WWII firearms. During 1949, the USSR “recalled” previously-issued WWII Soviet gear, including the small amount of WWII SSh-40 helmets, Mosin-Nagant rifles, and Nagant M-1895 revolvers already handed out.

This “recall” finished in December 1950. Thus, all the paramilitary forces at that time were briefly using exclusively non-Soviet kit, most of it ex-Wehrmacht.

The USSR had a change of heart in 1951 and began a massive effort to rapidly again provide East Germany with Soviet WWII guns of all types, followed by a 1952 instruction to the KVP to begin phasing out ex-Wehrmacht types. The same instruction was given to the Grenzpolizei in 1955. It was never given to the KdA or Volkspolizei.

After 1956, procurement switched to SKSs, AK-47s and Makarovs. The last imports of Soviet WWII surplus probably came around 1959 – 1960. By the mid-1960s the regular army was no longer using WWII firearms, with the Grenzpolizei following suit. The KdA phased out WWII weapons in the 1971 – 1974 timeframe.

During 1990 the West German military established Bundeswehr Kommando-Ost (“Federal Forces East Command”) which effectively was briefly (9 months) a temporary fourth branch of the military, a combined air-land-sea force to immediately secure all of the former East Germany’s military hardware and manpower at 00:00 on 3 October 1990.

There was a lot, starting with 1.2 million small arms and then everything from tanks and supersonic jets, to army field kitchens to navy warships to air force ground radars, and so on. There was also 300,000 tons of ammunition ranging from .22LR to guided missiles.

fictional nomenclatures

“K100” was a Mosin-Nagant of any type. “MPi-100” was a PPSh-41. These bogus designations were used in paperwork between 1949 – 1956. East Germany did not want western intelligence to know what guns it had or where they came from.

With the open creation of the regular military in 1956, the fake nomenclature was abandoned.

the Mosin-Nagant

In numerous forms, this was the USSR’s standard battle rifle during WWII. It was a bolt-action gun firing 7.62x54mm(R) from a 5-round internal magazine.

East Germany was a relatively minor Mosin-Nagant user. After the first small batch was “recalled” in 1949, deliveries did not resume until 1951. By 1956 the USSR was already supplying the regular military with SKSs and by 1961 all bolt-action guns were out of the regular army.

(A Grenzpolizei with WWII Soviet Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine and a WWII Soviet field telephone during the 1950s.)

Three versions were provided by the USSR. The Mosin-Nagant M38 short rifle version, with no bayonet, was “K 38” in East German nomenclature. The more common Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine of WWII was “K 44”. There were also some Mosin-Nagant 91/30 long rifles, designated “Scharfschützengewehr” as most were scoped for sharpshooter use.

There was one other version, extremely rare today: the post-WWII Czechoslovak vz.91/38.

(photo via IMA-USA)

These rebuilds were done in Czechoslovakia in the 1949 – 1950 timeframe, during the USSR’s “recall” of Soviet guns previously given to East Germany.

“vz.91/38” is not a real designation but rather shorthand used by firearms historians. In East Germany the nomenclature was the aforementioned fake “K100” and after that, they were lumped into the “K 38″ code.

The base was either Mosin-Nagant Model 1891 long rifles, Mosin-Nagant M93 Dragoon guns, or Mosin-Nagant 91/30 long rifles. These were cut down to a standardized length (20½” barrel, 3’4″ OAL). The front sight was replaced by a post in a circular hood. The rear sight had longer range markings buffed off leaving a blank space on the top half. Whatever Russian markings were on the gun remained, and a Czechoslovak proofmark was added.

The stocks were similar to M44 carbine stocks (some may have been re-carpentered M44 furniture). They have a M44-style bayonet cutout but the vz.91/38 has no bayonet.

These were first known to NATO after the 1953 uprising. Two East German KVP members took advantage of the chaos to defect to the British sector of West Berlin.

ammunition

East Germany never manufactured 7.62x54mm(R), all was imported.

fate

The vast majority of the paramilitary forces Mosin-Nagants were flushed out during the 1960s. One Grenztruppen radio unit still had “K 44″s (Mosin-Nagant M44 carbines) on inventory in 1981 but this was certainly an outlier.

Disposition of East Germany’s Mosin-Nagants is something of a black hole in records recovered after 1990. Only one deal has surviving documentation. During 1967, East Germany sent Egypt 530 Mosin-Nagants along with 1 million rounds of 7.62x54mm(R) ammunition.

Some apparently became intra-Warsaw Pact aid to Bulgaria and Romania, as East German-marked examples were found in those nations when communism ended. At least a few were transferred to North Vietnam.

The Mosin-Nagant above was a Izhevsk-manufactured 91/30 long rifle with scope. This Viet Cong gun was captured during September 1970 in the I Corps area near Quang Tri, South Vietnam. This rifle was buffed completely clean of all markings, and wears only a new 4-digit serial and East German inspection stamps. The provenance is beyond reproach as the owner also has the original US Army hand-signed DD 603-1 form.

There is an interesting possibility: the East Germans sent many of their Mosin-Nagants back to the Soviet Union when they were done using them. Soviet military aid was less rigid than the American SAP, MDAP, and MAP rules which had “first rights after use” back to the United States. The USSR did not expect or want obsolete weapons back. But it was sometimes done, as a fictitious debt offset for further aid.

One (admittedly flimsy) hint at this is that of the few surviving Mosin-Nagants with East German use, many were imported to the United States by PW Arms in Redmond, WA. This company at one time had dealings with Molot in the Russian Federation. So its possible they were imported not from reunified Germany, but out of Russian storage years later.

helmets

East Germany did not use WWII stahlhelms.

The first attempt at a helmet was the M-54. It owed nothing to WWII. The design criteria was that it could not be a WWII stahlhelm, could not be mistaken for the American M1 pot common in NATO, and could not clone a Soviet design.

It met these conditions but otherwise was a failure, offering mediocre head protection. These entered KVP service in 1954. They were rejected by the Volksarmee in 1956 and remained limited to Volkspolizei use. By 1961 they had already filtered down to the KdA.

The next (and last) East German helmet was the M-56, which did have ties to WWII. During 1944 a “next-generation stahlhelm” was proposed, known as Thale B/II. It did not enter production before WWII ended.

(Third Reich-era patent of the design.)

In 1956 this design was resurrected and, with some minor modifications, accepted for service as the M-56. It would go on to equip all branches of the regular military, the Grenztruppen, and the KdA.

(Heat-treating of M-56s during the 1970s.)

Despite its unorthodox shape the M-56 gave excellent head protection. It remained in service until East Germany ended in 1990.

(The maritime wing of the Grenztruppen was the GBK, or Grenzbrigade Küste. It used obsolete navy warships and its own fast patrol boats made by VEB Yachtwerft Berlin. It had a unique ensign, the East German flag with a vertical green stripe.) (photo by Hans Wiedl)

During the Cold War these helmets were exported to Mozambique, Vietnam, and Angola. Some of the latter were captured by South African troops during the 1980s where they were a favorite battlefield trophy. There were 500,000 on hand when East Germany ended in 1990 and some were later exported by reunified Germany to Yugoslavia and Turkey.

the 98k

With 14 million being the high estimate of production, the 98k was Germany’s standard WWII battle rifle. A bolt-action design, it fired the 7.92x57mm Mauser cartridge from a stripper-loaded 5-round internal magazine.

(Transportpolizei member with a 98k during the 1950s.)

There was no new East German nomenclature, 98k was simply reused. East Germany received 98ks four ways: Soviet “Capture X’s” directly from the USSR, the same but reconditioned in Czechoslovakia, post-WWII Czechoslovak 98k production, and Czechoslovak-made “tgf 1950s”.

During WWII the Soviet army captured many 98ks. When approved for reissue the marking was originally supposed to be a pair of crossed rifles with exaggerated stock shapes. Early in the process the lower part of the die tended to break yielding a X, so often that later the dies were changed to be just a X to avoid confusion. Capture X 98ks were exported by the USSR after WWII. East Germany was one recipient. During 1949 – 1950, 98ks were briefly the most common rifle in inventory.

(This 98k was made by Gustloff-Werke in 1944. It shows the WWII serial, and above it a Soviet “capture X” with East German proofs. The triangular marking is an Iraqi jeem. Many of East Germany’s 98ks ended their days in Saddam Hussein’s army.)

Czechoslovakia inherited 98k jigs in 1945 and restarted production under the designation vz.98N using a declining blend of leftover WWII German parts vs new-production parts. Thus some of the 98ks East Germany received from that country have a mix of WWII waffenamt and post-1945 Czechoslovak stampings.

tgf 1950s

(photo via Forgotten Weapons website)

These 98ks are unquestionably of East German use. They were made during 1950 by Brno in Czechoslovakia for a MdI (East German Interior Ministry) order. It is thought that 20,000 were ordered; if that many were actually made is debatable.

(photo via gunboards online forum)

These 98ks generally resemble a late-WWII “kriegsmodell” 98k with simplified furniture (no groove and takedown disc replaced by a hole drilled into the buttplate). However they have a bayonet boss and cleaning rod hole. There are two known front sight styles, one a 98k type and one a vz.24 type.

(Instead of the common “Mauser H” frontband, a solid type was used. It is serialed matched to the receiver. There are three known front sling attachments: regular swivel, simplified swivel, and the fixed D-ring seen above.)

Atop the receiver “tgf” was in the font and style which Germany used for factory codes during WWII. However tgf was not a WWII code. (Brünn AG, Brno during the WWII occupation, used dou, swp, and dot.)

A longstanding explanation is that tgf meant Tschechische Gewehr Fabrik (Czech rifle factory in German) however this is untrue. The tgf code also appears on Czechoslovak Type 1 training rifles, clones of the WWII Soviet SPSh-44 flare launcher, and early Cold War-era machine gun tripods. Not all of these were intended for East Germany and tgf-stamped gear was already circulating elsewhere in 1948, a year before the East German rifle order.

Rather, tgf was Brno in a “Caesar’s Cipher” system which Czechoslovakia used for defense industries after WWII. Other examples are Uhersky Brod (aym) and Povaska Bystrica (she). The tgf code was also used on pre-WWII vz.24 bayonets which saw production restart in Czechoslovakia between 1946 – 1950. East Germany received many of these as “capture X” 98ks were usually missing a bayonet.

East German 98k reworks

East Germany rebarrelled and/or restocked many of its 98ks over the years. The rebarrelled 98ks are marked as described later below. The stocks were typically of a standard WWII 98k shape, either in wood or a laminate made by compressing layers of heated veneer soaked in phenol.

(photo by Gilles Bellemare)

The above photo shows that a tgf 1950 buttplate was reused on a new stock. The hole is now unusable but a takedown disc is fitted.

Work was done by VEB Ernst Thälmann-Werke in Suhl. This was not a restarted J.P. Sauer & Sohn (a major manufacturer of 98ks during WWII) although that company was also in Suhl and VEB Ernst Thälmann-Werke may have used some of the Sauer WWII facilities and machinery not looted by the USSR after WWII.

ammunition

East Germany’s 7.92 Mauser ammunition came via various paths, just like the guns. Some was WWII-capture delivered by the USSR. Some came from Czechoslovak postwar production. East Germany also made its own.

(East German-made 7.92 Mauser of a 1960 production lot. These came in 15rds boxes in 160-box combloc crates.)

East German 7.92 Mauser came in two types, both with steel casings. One has a “gliding steel” jacket over lead, the other a tombac FMJ. Headstamps are a two-digit number indicating year (59, for 1959 for example) and a two-digit factory code of which 05 (Lübben) and 04 (MW Königswartha) are most common.

East Germany did not want other nations to know its production capacity. Lots started yearly in January with 1/1, then 1/2, 1/3, until 1/10; where it started over at 2/1, 2/2, 2/3, and so on. Hence the above photo is of the 1,041st lot of 1960. This system made individual labels worthless to NATO intelligence.

East German 7.92 Mauser ammo pouches were a clone of the WWII Wehrmacht design but used pigskin instead of leather.

fates

East Germany exported many 98ks after they left service. North Vietnam received some during the early 1960s. During 1965 – 1967 3,000 98ks were delivered to Syria along with 90,000rds of 7.92 Mauser ammo. During 1978 a decent-sized quantity was delivered to Ethiopia. A few were reportedly delivered to South Yemen at that time but this is uncertain. The main export recipient was Iraq. Shipments started between 1964 – 1967 and ran off and on through the mid-1980s. The final Iraqi shipments were probably all 98ks that remained in East Germany, with the rifle long out of even KdA service by then.

the vz.24

This was a pre-WWII Czechoslovak rifle similar in most regards to the WWII German 98k. During WWII the Wehrmacht used absorbed vz.24s under the G24(t) designation. The USSR captured some and despite the similarity with the 98k, kept them segregated in storage.

Reissued by the USSR to East Germany, small numbers of these were used by the KdA early on and phased out along with the 98ks.

the MG-34

A predecessor of the MG-42, WWII Germany’s MG-34 fired the 7.92x57mm Mauser cartridge at 800rpm from either a 250rds belt or an attached 50rds Patronegurt, which was a snail magazine housing a truncated belt.

(KdA members during 1954 with MG-34 machine gun and 98k rifles.)

This was the first machine gun the Soviets reintroduced to East Germany, with the first “capture X” examples coming discretely in 1946. There were not a lot of them. Already in 1951 the Soviets switched to providing DP-28 machine guns to the KVP. The few MG-34s were later passed to the Volkspolizei and the KdA.

(MG-34 mounted in the sidecar of a KdA motorcycle unit in Potsdam during 1959.)

In East German nomenclature, the MG-34 was “Leicht MG Kal. 7,9”.

fates

During 1967 some East German MG-34s were lumped into a Warsaw Pact emergency aid package to the Egyptian army to help it recover from the Six Day War. During 1968, 55 were sent to Syria and another 80 to Egypt which likely represented the last of East Germany’s MG-34s.

the PPSh-41

The Soviet PPSh-41 submachine gun was an iconic weapon of WWII, with about 6,000,000 being made. It fired the 7.62x25mm Tokarev cartridge at 1,250rpm from a 71-round drum.

(Members of the KdA stand ready with PPSh-41s as construction of the Berlin Wall starts in 1961.) (Bundesarchiv photo)

East German nomenclature was first the bogus “MPi-100” then after 1956 “MPi 41”. The number delivered after WWII is unknown but had to be huge.

(A KdA unit with PPSh-41s during the 1960s.)

fates

East Germany began phasing out the PPSh-41 during the early 1960s. It left Grenztruppen service in 1964 and the KdA during the mid-1970s.

Like some of the other guns described above, much remains unclear of where all these submachineguns ended up. The first known export was to Syria in 1965. However this whole arms shipment was lumped together as “Kategorie Maschinenpistole” which in East German nomenclature encompassed not just the PPSh-41 but also StG-44 and AK-47.

During 1967 East Germany sent Egypt 6,000 and Syria 6,000. The Egyptians assigned them as T-54/55 tank crewman guns if they had to evacuate the tank. A small quantity was reportedly sold to Somalia during the 1970s but this is uncertain.

During 1981 – 1982, East Germany provided Nicaragua with 2,000 PPSh-41s. This was the last known export of the type, which by then had little battlefield relevance. In all likelihood whatever remained was scrapped.

the StG-44

Germany’s WWII Sturmgehehr (assault rifle) is often considered the world’s first successful assault rifle. The StG-44 fired the 7.92x33mm Kurz cartridge from a 30rds magazine. During WWII 426,000 were made. They simply came too few, too late to help Germany’s war effort.

The USSR captured 102,000. After WWII these guns were considered a free way to enhance allied communist infantry arms, especially after the AK-47 started production in 1948 making the stored StG-44s redundant. East Germany was provided 23,600. East Germany’s nomenclature for the StG-44 was “MPi 44”.

(Volkspolizei with StG-44 and six mag bags, quite a loadout for a policeman.)

(Transportpolizei member with StG-44 during the 1950s.)

The first deliveries came in 1948 to the Volkspolizei. During 1952 the KVP was ordered to begin phasing out StG-44s, and in 1955 the Grenzpolizei also began to phase them out. They remained in use with the Volkspolizei and later, with the KdA.

(East German sunburst marking on a StG-44.)

(KdA and Volkspolizei members with StG-44s. This photo had to have been taken between 1953 when the KdA was created and 1959, when the coat of arms was added to the flag.)

StG-44s were still in use with the KdA into the 1960s.

(The Ernst Thälmann-Denkmal in Stralsund, East Germany opened in March 1962 so this photo was on or after that date. The KdA member has a StG-44 while the navy sailor has a PPSh-41. This communist monument is still standing in Stralsund as of 2023.)

ammunition

East Germany both imported and made Kurz ammunition. After WWII, Sellier & Bellot in Czechoslovakia reboxed Soviet-captured 7.92x33mm. Using the “bxn” code, some was transferred to East Germany. Sellier & Bellot also ran new production to an East German contract.

(East German-made Kurz round.)

Between 1958 – 1962, MW Königswartha in East Germany produced this ammunition. It is steel casing, with the bullet having a tombac FMJ. East German packaging was elaborate, the rounds were in cardboard boxes inside a galvanized tin inside a wood combloc crate. This order was in hindsight wasteful, as by then the StG-44 was in declining use only with the KdA. The front end of this order doubled up Czechoslovak imports while the tail end overlapped the withdrawal of remaining StG-44s.

fates

A small number of StG-44s may have been sent to North Vietnam during the early 1960s. East Germany shipped 2,200 StG-44s to Syria in 1964, and then another 1,300 in smaller batches between 1968 – 1973. Between 1969 – 1970 Somalia received an unknown quantity. During the first stages of Lebanon’s civil war, East Germany made a shipment to Palestinian factions under the “Kategorie Maschinenpistole” catch-all, however this time with a “nicht Kalaschnikow” footnote indicating they were all PPSh-41s or StG-44s. The as-Sa’iqa faction was photographed in Beirut with StG-44s so at least some of this shipment was Sturmgewehrs. The final known recipient was Iraq which received an unknown number along with the 98ks.

Overall the largest recipient of East German StG-44s was Syria. Any still in East Germany by the early 1980s were likely scrapped.

(A rebel during the 2010s / 2020s Syrian civil war with a StG-44.)

East Germany sold Egypt 600,000rds of Kurz ammo in 1967 but no guns. The Egyptians later transferred much of that ammo to Syria.

Unknown quantities of Kurz ammunition were sold to Somalia, Iraq, and Syria with the latter getting most of what remained during the early 1970s. The 1969 national inventory was the last showing any appreciable amount of Kurz in East German warehouses.

the P.38

The 9mm Parabellum semi-auto Walther P.38 was a standard Wehrmacht sidearm during WWII.

(This P.38 was made by Mauser at Oberndorf during WWII. It has an East German sunburst and Volkspolizei property mark.) (photo via p38guns.com website)

East Germany acquired P.38s by a variety of ways. Some WWII-captured examples were directly donated by the USSR. Czechoslovakia ran a 1946 lot with leftover WWII parts which was shipped to East Germany. Finally, the East Germans planned on making 60,000 of these themselves during the 1950s. However the order was cancelled early on after only a small number, a few hundred at most, were completed.

The East German nomenclature was “Dienstpistole P38”. MW Königswartha manufactured 9mm Parabellum which was typically not a combloc caliber.

East Germany reworked many of the P.38s during their service lives with the Volkspolizei and KdA. These have an “AB” followed by a number inside a wreath.

fates

A few P.38s were still lingering in the Volkspolizei, albeit probably in storage, in 1989. One curious thing is that many known examples have been completely “sterilized”; with all East German markings completely removed. A theory is that during the 1980s, these were illicitly exported to generate foreign currency, obfuscating their COO (customs country-of-origin) as many western nations banned East German firearm imports.

other WWII types

(Volkspolizei-marked G 43 rifle.)

East Germany received a small number of “capture X” G 43s. During WWII 402,713 of this German semi-auto rifle were made. Even though it was in production for half of WWII, more were not made due to its cost which was 40% more than a StG-44 (which had full-auto capability) and more than double that of a 98k. East German nomenclature was “K 43”. These were retired in the late 1950s / early 1960s.

The USSR made 1.6 million SVT-40 semi-automatic rifles, a large number dwarfed by the even much larger numbers of Mosin-Nagants and PPSh-41s made during WWII. East Germany acquired a small number of these. The SVT-40s were the last WWII weapon to leave Grenztruppen service at the end of the 1960s.

why East Germany’s exports of WWII weapons are so opaque

East Germany’s contrived national mythology was a pacifist nation, only reluctantly armed due to NATO’s hostility. Selling guns around the planet doesn’t really fit with that and with only a few exceptions arms exports were done in total secrecy to begin with.

On the political side, exports of WWII-era guns were handled by General Heinz Hoffmann. He dealt with the highest levels of the recipient’s army. To actually consumate deals, an organization called Kommerzielle Koordinierung or Koko handled outgoing WWII weapons. It was led by Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski.

(Gen. Heinz Hoffmann and Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski.)

By 1969 Koko had free reign to not only violate international arms transfer norms but East German law itself. Schalck-Golodkowski was classified as “special officer of the state”, or ObiE, by the Stasi secret police and left alone. Koko used companies named IMES and ITA to ship the WWII weapons.

As it was “above the law” to begin with, Koko kept few records. On the national level, as mentioned earlier there was a 339-day lag between the Berlin Wall opening and East Germany ending. In the State Security, Defense, and Interior ministries; a lot of paperwork saw the inside of a shredder during that interim, especially if pre-1989 decisions would expose people to post-1990 criminal charges.

There is a second footnote to that 339-day lag. During the final weeks East Germany legally existed, the DDR Defense Ministry signed a slew of high-dollar arms export deals. Within the cloistered community of the world’s arms dealers, this perplexing frenzy was known as the “Going-out-of-business Sale”. The best guess among arms dealers was that apparatchiks in the doomed country were trying to lock in pay bonuses which they would then try to hold the reunified government accountable to. With one exception (a navy minesweeper sold to Guinea-Bissau) these deals were blocked in 1990 before things physically shipped. But intelligence of these strange last-minute contracts made Kommando-Ost all the more adamant to immediately secure all guns in the east on 3 October.

Kommando-Ost was somewhat surprised at how little WWII-era weaponry remained in East German storage, considering that other Warsaw Pact members still had Mosin-Nagants in actual use.

General Hoffmann passed away in 1985 and Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski in 2015. It has been 30+ years since German reunification and if any more information was going to come to light, presumably it would have already done so.

FOR THE COLLECTOR

For this final section, perhaps a good way to start is how East German firearms were treated by the reunified nation in 1990, and how they were marked.

East Germany only inventoried weapons during odd-numbered years. The 1989 inventory was never done due to the national chaos. A full listing, based on the 1987 inventory, was already provided to Kommando-Ost prior to reunification. Overall there was great cooperation between the East and West German armies during early 1990.

Kommando-Ost created three categories for ex-East German military equipment:

Category 1: long-term retention by the Bundeswehr

Category 2: interim use only

Category 3: discard

Overwhelmingly Category 3 was the largest. For Categories 1 and 2, there was no “nice-to-have stuff”; a demonstrable usefulness had to be presented. Any WWII-era weaponry of any sort was automatically Category 3. Very little remained, the most surprising find being some warehoused T-34 tanks.

For Category 3, first offer was made to the NATO allies, of which Turkey and Greece took advantage of. After that disposal was handled through VEBEG, a civilian surplusing arm of the German government. VEBEG will not resell lethal items. As such, firearms were demilled prior to being auctioned as scrap.

This means that today, pretty much any privately-owned ex-East German gun of WWII vintage did not come from Germany itself in 1990, but rather from abroad. The exception is handguns. Police in the five new Länder replaced ex-Volkspolizei guns with Heckler & Koch P6 pistols in 1992. During 1993 the ex-Volkspolizei inventory was disposed separately through third-party surplusing firms, enabling an end run around VEBEG. Overwhelmingly these were Cold War-era Makarovs, Model Zs, and Romanian M-74s but there were a few WWII-era pistols still in storage and disposed of with them.

For rifles, the first civilian availability was ex-East German 98ks which had been sold to Iraq and then captured by Israel. During 1987 Armscorp USA imported some which were then sold by FedOrd in California starting in 1988. Another tranche of ex-Iraqi 98ks with East German markings came in a two-year window between the end of Iraq’s war with Iran in 1988 and the start of sanctions against Iraq in 1990. Various importers brought these to the USA during the 1990s.

Lever Arms in Canada supposedly received a small number of East German 98ks from Europe during the 1990s, if true, it is unclear how that was accomplished.

(photo via Royal Tiger Imports)

More recently Royal Tiger acquired a batch of ex-East German 98ks, including some tgf 1950s as seen above, after they were surplused off by Ethiopia.

(photo via gunboards online forum)

The first markings on guns of what would become East Germany were during the very early post-WWII period, 1945 – 1948. There is a S (“Sowjetisch”, the Soviet occupation zone) then a roman numeral (five in the above example), and then a representation of a pre-Third Reich era police symbol.

The most basic East German marking is the sunburst, which usually has an inspector’s number in the center. It served as both an acceptance and property marking. Above it is seen on a 98k made by Steyr-Daimler-Puch during WWII, later a Soviet “capture X” rifle.

(A P.38 pistol’s markings: 1) WWII serial 2) WWII factory code for Spreewerke 3) Volkspolizei “refined sunburst” which is defaced here 4) East German untersuchung 5) East German sunburst.)

A more refined sunburst with a dot in the center was a specific Volkspolizei property mark.

East Germany received many 98ks via Czechoslovakia, be they refurbished Soviet capture Xs, early postwar production, or the tgf 1950s. These have Czechoslovak markings. Above, 1) is the Czechoslovak serial, 2) is the Testováné proofmark used at Brno, and 3) is a Czechoslovak governmental acceptance. Some 98ks (not this one) also have a E3, the Czechoslovak item code for small arms, and/or a circled Z which meant “approved for export”.

(A rebuilt East German 98k: 1) Interior Ministry 2) East German nitroprüf 3) East German untersuchung 4) East German endbeschuss 5) VEB Ernst Thälmann Werke 6) serial of the new barrel 7) Iraqi jeem marking, after the gun had been exported.)

“MdI”, Ministerium des Innern (Interior Ministry) controlled the Grenztruppen from 1949 – 1961; the Volkspolizei, Transportpolizei, and KdA the entire time they existed, and some minor units with guns including prison wardens.

The crowned-N is a nitroprüf proofmark. The crowned-U is an untersuchung, a more detailed proofing. They can be present either together or alone. There was also a crowned-R for major repair work but this is rare on WWII-generation guns, usually the East Germans just junked it. The eagle is a endbeschuss, a comprehensive final examination. It is never alone, always with a crowned-N or -U.

As mentioned earlier many of East Germany’s 98ks (and some pistols) were rebuilt by VEB Ernst Thälmann. They have a “1001” factory marking and a serial of the new barrel. Usually the receiver’s serial was force matched on the right side of the new barrel, not visible in the above example.

Many rebuilt 98ks have another number underneath the new barrel’s serial. Observed examples have ranged from the 40s to the 220s, in the above example 121. The meaning is unclear. Some have a two-letter code (not this example), the most common being “DE” but others observed. The meaning is likewise debated.

Regarding East Germany’s Mosin-Nagants, unfortunately the most famous supposed marking is misunderstood and often used as a fraud.

(Izhevsk-manufactured Mosin-Nagant M44 carbine of WWII.)

During the 1990s word spread that a 1 or 2 inside a triangle on a Mosin-Nagant indicated former East German ownership. As there was high interest in the East German military, this greatly increased the value of Mosin-Nagants with these markings.

The source of the error, which was originally an innocent misunderstanding, was East Germany’s Güteklasse for new domestic-made guns between 1950 – 1990, which naturally excludes all WWII weapons.

(There existed exceptionally good, good, and factory seconds categories.)

During the 2010s the firearms historian Ruslan N. Chumak identified the true meaning of these Mosin-Nagant markings, which have nothing to do with East Germany. They are old Soviet refurbishment markings. The triangled-1 is the Moscow Military District. The triangled-2 is the 103rd GRAU Arsenal at Saransk, Russia. A plain square is the 7th GRAU Arsenal in Riga, Estonia. A square with diagonal line is the 1st GRAU Arsenal at Balakleya. (This arsenal is more tragically famous for a 2017 explosion and being on the front lines of the 2022 – 2023 Russo-Ukrainian War.) These four were commonly seen in East Germany.

The squares were usually falsely attributed as “East German-reworked”, the triangles as “East German active-” or “East German-reserve duty”. There are variations as people invented their own explanations.

Unfortunately despite Mr. Chumak’s research the misunderstanding was already so repeated that it lingered into the 2020s. To be clear, not every Mosin-Nagant in East German use had one of these markings, and many (probably most) with these markings were never even in East Germany.

Into the early 2010s these markings and their false explanations were used to fraudulently inflate the prices of affected Mosin-Nagants to misinformed buyers.

Overall if the East German provenance of a WWII firearm can be proven, it does increase the value. For the 98ks, they are often doubly-desirable as many on the civilian market are both ex-East German and ex-Iraqi. The tgf 1950s are more valuable than a normal 98k. Any Mosin-Nagant with a true, verifiably provenance to East Germany is rare. TT-33s with East German markings are somewhat rare; far less so than Cold War-era East German Makarovs. Non-firearm militaria of the DDR is quite affordable. East German stahlhelms are extremely common.

postscript

As of writing this (early 2023) Ocober 2031 is 8½ years away. When that time arrives, East Germany will already have been gone longer than it existed.

(1964 East German postage stamp showing a KdA member with WWII PPSh-41.)