Tore’s Tuesday – A Kar98A with an unusual history.
I have promised Joe to feature obscure objects, and though the Kar98A is far from unusual and obscure, this specimen is….
The Kar98A was originally issued to artillerymen, cavalry, MG crews, soldiers who had a lot to carry and needed lighter weapons. During the war it became increasingly clear that long rifles and bayonets were not ideally suited for fighting in the confined spaces in the trenches, and these were also issued to infantry, sturmtruppen etc. this particular carbine was made in the government arsenal in Erfurt in 1918 and will undoubtedly have found its way to the front.
The 1918 November revolution in Germany, that led to the establishment of the Republic and the abolition of monarchy, really started with a mutiny in the fleet in late October. The sailors rebelled against the order to go to sea to fight a futile and needless last battle in an already lost war. It soon spread and on November 9th the revolution was a fact. Friedrich Ebers (Mehrheitssozialisten – “Majority socialists”) took over and made a deal with the German high command.
Under this deal the conservative/right wing Freikorps were formed and fought the communists
Bavaria was at this time declared to be a Soviet republic. (Not a Part of the Soviet Union, as that was not yet formed, but in the meaning that it was a republic ruled by the workers councils) As you can imagine, the conservatives and the extreme right wing, were far from delighted about that.
So, among the militias/freikorps that were established, one of them was the Einwohnerwehr Bayern (The citizen’s army of Bavaria) They were central in conquering Bavaria from the hands of the communists. The fighting was especially severe around Rosenheim, but the capture of München was no walk in the park either.
The Einwohnerwehr Bayern marked their weapons with the abbreviation EWB on the buttstock of their rifles, and this one has that stamp.
However, the Entente powers were very skeptical about the many armed militias in Germany and pushed to have them disarmed and disbanded. Though the Weimar Republic were, to put it mildly, somewhat half-hearted about confronting them, they caved to the pressure in the end and finally disbanded the EWB. The weapons handed in were taken into the Weimar Republic Arsenals and marked with the Weimar Republics property mark, 1920, stamped on the receiver of the gun. So, this carbine was then in the interwar years used by the Reichswehr, who were trained to become the officer corps of a resurrected German army…
So, this particular Kar98A went on through history, being used in the invasion and occupation of Norway 1940-45. And, post WWII, being obsolete, ended as a training weapon for a local brach of DFS (the volunteer shooting association of Norway). When I found it it had a .22 barrel insert, just as such guns that I myself fired in the 80s in DFS. So, a rifle with a long and dramatic history to it, and a service life of more than seven decades.