“The population of the city treated the prisoners differently. Some felt sorry for them and even fed them, others, having lost loved ones in the war, hated them. There were cases of beatings of the Germans. " © Sergey Selivanovsky, "The Germans in Izhevsk".
The final article on Schmeisser was actually ready on August 17, only work on the ending remained. But in the process of working on it, I developed an interest in the personality of Dr. Werner Gruner - as the complete and positive antithesis of the personality of Hugo Schmeisser. On the morning of the 18th I went to the Izhmash History Museum. The director of the museum, Alexei Alekseevich Azovsky, provided me with materials on the history of the motorcycle factory, which produced an experimental batch of Kalashnikov assault rifles. They were to be filmed, in addition, questions arose about the personality and life history of Werner Gruner and his children. I wanted to get information on them from Galina Arkadyevna Kovalyukh, a leading engineer for scientific and technical information. She showed me a book on Gruner and, while I was looking at it, pulled out a folder from the closet. “There are materials on Gruner here,” she said and handed me the folder. When I looked at the documents that were in it, I realized how Schliemann felt when he dug up his Troy. There were copies of documents related to the work of German specialists at the Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant! I realized that my entire final article can be replaced by publications of only one document from this folder. But the good will not be lost. I decided to leave the article as it was written, with a small addition at the end.
So here's the article.
I wrote an appeal to the Kalashnikov concern with a request to give an opportunity to search the archives for documents related to the post-war stay of German engineers at the Izhmash plant. In response, the concern announced that it was refusing to store the factory archives at all, and the State Archives of Udmurtia announced that it had nowhere to store this archive.
The story of the debunking of the myth about the gloomy Teutonic genius who secretly invented the famous weapon in the Izhevsk dungeons lacks a bullet. Indeed, there is no conclusive information about what the German gunsmiths engineers did at Izhmash. The only known document of that era - the characterization of Hugo Schmeisser, signed by the Deputy Director for Human Resources Mukhamedov - was declared a fake by the forces of evil. It turned out to be unrealistic to get access to the archives of Izhmash, but to find there the drawings of the machine with the signatures of Schmeisser or Gruner - all the more so.
But the muck does not sink, but the truth emerges. True, it is not always where you expect it.
Folke Myrvang, a Canadian researcher with a Scandinavian surname, has published a two-volume "German universal machineguns" dedicated to German machine guns from MG08 to M3. Let's pay tribute to Murwang - just a huge number of photos, enough textual information. The excavations are quite deep, for example, information on the Czech light machine gun chambered for the intermediate Rapid 8 mm cartridge.
Well, since there are German machine guns, then, of course, the MG-42 is the best machine gun of the 20th century. If MG-42, then its author Werner Gruner. If Gruner, then Izhevsk, and hence Schmeisser. And a bunch of blueprints!
Archives of documents of their native country are not available to an ordinary citizen of the Russian Federation. At best, your request will not be answered. In the worst case, they will generally announce the liquidation of the archives. But documents of historical value can be found on the Internet or in the books of Western researchers. All of them are published anonymously, without specifying where and how the author got access to the original and where the original is now. This is understandable, otherwise this anonymous person would have problems, if not with the criminal, then with the administrative code, well, or simply would have been kicked out of work.
Let's get back to the subject. In addition to the drawings in Myurwang's book, documents from archives from the Izhmash personnel department surfaced on the Internet. Most likely they were made from Norbert Moczarski's book "Hugo Schmeisser: zwischen Tabu und Legende", and they got to Mosharski not without the help of the famous journalist Ilya Shaidurov. Anyway, let's take a look at these documents.
The first document is "General characteristics of foreign specialists at the department of the chief designer of plant No. 74".
So, the Germans worked on the instructions of the technical department of the Ministry of Armaments from 1946 to 1948. The work on the assignment was completed in January 1949, and as a result of the work, there was a message to higher authorities. It would be interesting to look at both the task itself and the report itself. Maybe children or grandchildren will not see them in foreign sources, but will find the originals of documents. In the meantime, since January 1949, "a group of specialists has been used in current work, such as: designing devices, devices, upgrading equipment, etc.", and if the characteristics of most Germans include "highly qualified. ", Then in relation to Hugo Schmeisser it is said directly -" he refuses design work. " Of course, as I already wrote, Schmeisser did not get out of his head, in contrast to Volmer, no "adaptations" or "equipment upgrades", except for weapons. Even on an empty stomach.
Now Schmeisser's letter from March 1947, when the plant's management, for refusing to design work, established an appropriate salary for him.
We are interested in one moment. This one: “As an inventor, I have many patents. … In the field of automatic pistols in the German army, my design MP-18-1 / Bergmann / from 1918 is known. " Hugo! But what about the Stg-44 or, at worst, the Mkb-42 (H) ?! Not a word. I found only one Schmeisser patent related to the Sturmgewer. This is the patent for the Stg-44 breech ejector. Maybe not all patents have been digitized and laid out yet? But, you must agree, in such a letter - and not to mention your merits as the "founder", "predeterminer" and "anticipator" of the era of assault weapons under an intermediate cartridge, is more than strange!
After reviewing the drawings in Myurwang's book, it becomes clear what the task of the technical department of the Ministry of Arms was. The Germans developed the entire line of small arms - from submachine guns to machine guns. Here is the work of Kurt Horn. His submachine gun is well known to readers of the Kalashnikov magazine (No. 9/2006) according to Yuri Ponomarev's article “Horn’s Automaton”.
Most likely, this machine did not come to embodiment in metal. Yuri Ponomarev writes about successful trials of captured weapons. But the Kalashnikov assault rifle has already been put into service, and Horn's work is now only of academic interest.
As the report says, the Germans, after developing a line of weapons, switched to smaller jobs. For example, such:
Do not fidget in your chair. Better pay attention to the width of the store. This is just another attempt at a four-row cartridge arrangement in the magazine. As Dieter Handrich writes, they tried to implement this back in 1944 at the Henel firm. Schmeisser was no longer a technical director by that time and was not engaged in design. He was a simple "director of the Henel firm." On the scan, the magazine casing without a feed mechanism and, most importantly, without a mechanism for rebuilding a four-row feed into a two-row feed at the exit. Schmeisser in his store, rebuilding cartridges from two rows to one, found himself in a stupid position. What can we say about the rebuilding of four rows in two. There are zero patents, as always. Therefore, when the concern announced the creation of a 60-round store, it could only be regarded as the super genius of its engineers or the complete arrogance of the one who throws such statements.
No. I have not forgotten about Schmeisser. Here is his work as part of a special assignment of the technical department of the Ministry of Arms:
This is a submachine gun of the Zwai variant. Apparently, there was another version of the Aynes. Combine this with Schmeisser's letter, in which he does not mention his merits in the creation of the stormgower, but emphasizes his authorship in MP-18 / Bergmann /. Compare the level of execution of Schmeisser's sketch to Horn's.
So that is all. Remained the lyrics in relation to Mosharski, Shaidurov, Myurvang and a mysterious fellow countryman with a non-Russian surname - Symonenko, who gave Murwang scans from the drawings of the Germans. Where are these blueprints now? Why is the main argument, knocking out the last support from slanderers and liars who are trying to discredit the pride and glory of Russian weapons, has not yet been presented in the same Kalashnikov Museum? Why is there no access to materials tightening the noose on the throats of detractors of the history of the Fatherland, such as Ruchko? Why Myrvang, Mosharski and many others, with such obvious evidence, continue to pull bagpipes about some mythical participation of the Germans in the creation of the best weapons of the 20th century?
Literature:
Folke Myrvang, “German Universl Machinenguns, Volume II. From the MG08 to the MG3 , 2012.
Dieter Handrich, Sturmgewehr 44, 2008.
Norbert Moczarski, "Hugo Schmeisser: zwischen Tabu und Legende".
End of the article.
So, August 18, 2014. Here is a copy of that document from the folder that Galina Arkadyevna unfolded in front of me.
What can be said about this document? Schmeisser was honest when he said that he "gave the Russians some advice." As we can see, the director of the plant and the party organizer confirm these words of his. There is an obvious mistake in point "c". It is necessary to read: "the design of the store for the 1891 rifle has been developed." Well, and point "d" is a draft design of a submachine gun, which we have already seen at Myurwang.
This is one of fifteen characteristics issued from the factory at the request of the MGB in September 1951. Now compare the amount of work done by Hugo Schmeisser and the amount of work done by Karl Barnitzke:
Impressive? So the project of a submachine gun of the "Aynes" variant was found.
Perhaps that's all. Children and grandchildren will not have to unearth artifacts proving that German designers had nothing to do with the best weapons of the twentieth century. So much the better. They will find a more interesting topic for themselves.
Thanks to those whose precious time I have used:
- Aleksey Alekseevich Azov - Director of the Izhmash Museum, - Kovalyukh Galina Arkadyevna - engineer of the NTI of the same museum, - Sergei Nikolaevich Selivanovsky, - Lobanova Margarita Vladimirovna - teacher of the Izhevsk industrial technical school, - Mikhail aka stannifer, - Andrey Timofeev, - Kulikova Natalia.
