Pics of the Mauser factory in June 1945

Guillaume d'Orange

Guillaume d'Orange

Senior Member
Hi gents,

You may remember this thread:
www.k98kforum.com

Footage of the Mauser Oberndorf factory in June 1945

Gents, I've found an interesting footage in French military archives (some of them have been digitized recently): https://imagesdefense.gouv.fr/fr/l-usine-mauser-d-oberndorf-sous-l-occupation-francaise-en-allemagne.html# In the first 2 minutes, we see the factory under French control and some...
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Last week, I had access to the pics in the French archives that are related to this footage.
Here they are. Beware, copyrights belong to ECPAD : https://www.ecpad.fr/

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To be continued.
 
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Guillaume, Nice pictures of the end of the war for the famed Oberndorf factory! The factory worked manufacturing K98ks right until its capture. The people were dedicated to their fight right until the end for sure. How many members here would love to "hand pick" some of the rifles from the back of the truck....
Good job on sharing the pictures!
 
joryfreeburg said:
Some really cool photos in this thread… thanks for posting
Click to expand...
Taken by a French war reporter (Ernest Staché), sleeping in French military archives. Not many foreign people have seen these.
As you can see the trucks have French flags on their plates and that guy climbing the chimney is putting a French flag on top of it.
There are many interesting details in those pics. What I note is that the rifles inside the factory (my estimate is around 2000 of them, close to the average daily production in 1944) have all their rubber muzzle caps and no sling, while some of the rifles outside have some slings and no cap.

I reattach the description of the file in the archives.
 

Attachments

  • Ernest Staché - Remise en Marche Mauser.pdf
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korea1950 said:
Guillaume, Nice pictures of the end of the war for the famed Oberndorf factory! The factory worked manufacturing K98ks right until its capture. The people were dedicated to their fight right until the end for sure. How many members here would love to "hand pick" some of the rifles from the back of the truck....
Good job on sharing the pictures!
Click to expand...
No, they were not. They were probably dedicated to their job, which was making rifles and getting paid so their family can eat. I'm pretty sure that by 1945 that was their primary concern and not who used those rifles and for what, oh and as long as they were not in the Russian occupation zone.
 
What is interesting is that they are mixing both new rifles and captured/turned in rifles on the trucks.
Apparently there was no difference.

The image of the rifles stacked in racks by the factory shows a variety of rifles including Gew98s, K98ks, Vz24 and what also looks like a G33/40.

We really appreciate the presentation!
 
What's also cool is that I recognize some of the places as I've been to Oberndorf.

Here is a pic of the power plant chimney being demolished in 1946/1947. You see that the roof had been repaired since June 1945.
I bet the yard in front of the power plant was used to store coal that was unloaded from the trains on the nearby railroad tracks.
The gantry was probably some kind of crane to move the coal.



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Modern map of the town:

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Black arrow shows where the power plant was probably located.
Red arrow is the place where you see the workers leaving the factory. The tall walls on the right handside are those of the old church that was part of the factory:

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The first pic of my post was taken somewhere close to the green arrow.
The place pointed by the yellow arrow is not seen in the pics. It is the "Schwedenbau" (built for the Swedish contract), it still exists today and houses the "Waffenmuseum":

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bruce98k said:
What is interesting is that they are mixing both new rifles and captured/turned in rifles on the trucks.
Apparently there was no difference.

The image of the rifles stacked in racks by the factory shows a variety of rifles including Gew98s, K98ks, Vz24 and what also looks like a G33/40.

We really appreciate the presentation!
Click to expand...
Yes, funny business !
One thing I've noticed from the pics inside the factory is the numbers painted on the wall. I guess it identifies workshops and steps in the manufacturing.
In the footage, the rifling machines are located at number "6".

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I wonder where those rifles and machines ended up. In the eastern sector the Russians hauled everything away that wasn’t nailed down!
 
Guillaume d'Orange said:
Yes, funny business !
One thing I've noticed from the pics inside the factory is the numbers painted on the wall. I guess it identifies workshops and steps in the manufacturing.
In the footage, the rifling machines are located at number "6".

View attachment 328573

View attachment 328574
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Where is this lower picture taken? The Waffenmuseum that you mentioned?

Edit: found this on YouTube. I would not have known to look that term up without your information. For those of us who will never get to visit:
 
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biggymu said:
Where is this lower picture taken? The Waffenmuseum that you mentioned?

Edit: found this on YouTube. I would not have known to look that term up without your information. For those of us who will never get to visit:
Click to expand...
Yes indeed, this is a new display in your vid.
Larry Vickers did a vid there once.
Oberndorf is not very far from Stuttgart. If you like Mercedes, Porsche cars and K98k, it may be worth the trip from North America.
 
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