Hugo Schmeisser
Hugo Schmeisser (born September 24, 1884 in Jena , † September 12, 1953 in Erfurt ) was a German weapons designer.
life and work
The life and work of Hugo Schmeisser can be seen in connection with his work in the "weapon city" of Suhl . Entrepreneurs and engineers like Simson , Sauer and CG Haenel shaped this location in a century and a half. His father Louis Schmeisser (1848–1917) was one of the most famous weapons designers in Europe. His name is closely linked to the development and production of machine guns at Theodor Bergmann Waffenfabrik up to the First World War . At Bergmann, Hugo Schmeisser also received his basic training in weapon technology and made his first technical steps in this company, e.g. B. the development of a self-loading pistol in the calibers 7.63 mm and 9 mm. Hugo Schmeisser stayed in Suhl during the First World War. Because of the crucial importance of the production of machine guns, he was indispensable at Bergmann.
In the 20th century, developments in weapons technology by Hugo Schmeisser fundamentally changed infantry tactics twice. Several factors played a role: The given military situation in the course of a war as well as the strategic and tactical idea and the assertiveness of the military leaders and the availability of the appropriate weapons or weapon systems.
First World War
From autumn 1914 the western front had been frozen in trench warfare. For years, both sides struggled with huge losses, but largely unsuccessfully, to get out of the impasse of trench warfare and solve the problem of the breakthrough in opposing defenses. In 1917 and 1918 Hugo Schmeisser developed a weapon for a range of 200 m as an automatic weapon for pistol ammunition. The technical basis was the simple recoil principle based on the mass of the breech block. Specially formed storm battalions played a central role when the decision in the West was to be enforced in the German spring offensive in 1918 . These elite formations, which are quite limited in scope, mostly equipped with the carbine 98a , hand grenades and pistol and partly with the MP18 , were able to achieve a partially resounding effect on a tactical level regardless of flank protection and rear connections (the assault group tactic is also a forerunner of the fast Tank advances based on the German Blitzkrieg conception of the initial phase of World War II ). 35,000 of the new MP18s were produced at Bergmann Suhl.
Weimar Republic
With the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles of June 28, 1919, German arms companies were prohibited from producing automatic weapons. In 1919, in the dispute over the licensing of Hugo Schmeisser's developments to foreign arms companies, he and the Bergmann family broke up. This ended a 30-year collaboration between the Schmeissers and Bergmann. Hugo Schmeisser was forced to reorientate himself in business. Together with his brother Hans , he founded the "Industriewerk Auhammer Koch und Co." in Suhl in 1919. Given the circumstances in Germany after the First World War, this company did not do well from the start. Despite the ban, Hugo Schmeisser worked on the submachine gun. During this time the first contact with Haenel in Suhl fell. That was the beginning of a 20 year long collaboration with ups and downs. To secure his patent rights, Hugo Schmeisser founded a second company in the summer of 1922 under the name " Gebrüder Schmeisser " in Suhl. This entrepreneurially intelligent move was intended to prevent all patents from being lost if the Auhammer company went bankrupt. Since the Haenel company was also in financial difficulties, the Schmeisser brothers joined them in spring 1925 as authorized signatories. The decisive factor, however, was that Auhammer was taken over with all its assets and liabilities. From an entrepreneurial point of view, the company's bankruptcy was elegantly prevented. Strangely enough, the Schmeisser brothers remained authorized signatories of the Haenel company, although they were shareholders and actually managing partners of the company. Despite the provisions of the Versailles Treaty, the development and testing of submachine guns by Hugo Schmeisser continued in a concentrated manner. In 1928 he brought out his MP18, which was further developed by Haenel, as the MP28 . The MP28 used a 32-round rod magazine . The MP28 was again a closing blowback loader with a ground lock. The weapon was used by the German police after 1928. The weapon was delivered to South Africa, Spain, China and Japan via a license agreement with the Belgian company Bayard . Almost ten years later, the MP28 was still used in the Spanish Civil War. Despite Hugo Schmeisser's constructive successes, the Haenel company ran into bankruptcy several times between 1929 and 1934.
National Socialism
In order to have a decisive part in the expected state armaments contracts after the Nazis came to power in 1933, the ten Suhl and Zella-Mehliss weapons companies merged to form an association under the name " United Suhl-Zella-Mehlisser Waffenfabriken ". The individual arms factories from Suhl also set up their own offices in Berlin. As part of this activity, Hugo Schmeisser made a very important and sustainable acquaintance in the following years. He met the famous aviator Ernst Udet (1896–1941). Udet was Goering's deputy in the command of the Air Force. Through Udet, Hugo Schmeisser was able to exert direct influence on the development of weapons and the production of infantry weapons - right up to the direct decision-making area of Göring and Hitler . After 1935 the Haenel company experienced an enormous boom in weapons production. In contrast to many other engineers and designers, the Schmeisser brothers participated personally in the business through license fees and shares in the profits.
The Erma machine and tool factory Berthold Geipel GmbH (ERMA) continuously improved its Erma submachine gun EMP and the result was an MP36 . The ERMA chief designer Heinrich Vollmer used their basic construction and developed them into the well-known German submachine guns of the Second World War, the MP38 and the MP40 . 1.2 million of these weapons were manufactured and they became internationally known as "Schmeisser-MP". This was also due to the fact that the bar magazine of the MP38 or MP40 came from Schmeisser and was marked accordingly.
The decisive development by Hugo Schmeisser had already been worked on by the Haenel development team since 1938. This new automatic weapon fired a 7.92 mm caliber short cartridge. The weapon was supposed to set itself apart from the MP38 / 40 due to its higher performance and to be produced in large numbers with economical use of material. Its housing was manufactured using the non-cutting sheet metal forming process, the so-called sheet metal stamping technique. The weapon, one of the first machine carbines in the world, was first known as the Mkb42 , and subsequently as the MP43 . 10,000 units were already produced for the front in 1943, but in the same year Hitler banned further development and production. It was not until 1944, when the new weapon had a resounding success in a troop trial , that Hitler approved the mass production of the rifle, which had since been renamed the MP44 . In April 1944, the new weapon was named " Sturmgewehr 44 ".
post war period
On April 3, 1945, US troops occupied the city of Suhl and immediately imposed a production ban on all arms factories. Hugo Schmeisser and his brother Hans were interrogated for weeks by teams of weapons experts from the US and British secret services. At the end of June 1945 the Americans evacuated Thuringia and the Red Army occupied the plant. In August 1945, 50 assault rifles 44 were assembled from existing assembly parts and transferred by the Red Army to the Soviet Union for technical evaluation, at the same time as 10,785 sheets of technical drawings for the manufacture of military weapons. In October 1945 Hugo Schmeisser was obliged to work in a so-called Technical Commission of the Red Army. These commissions had the task of determining the state of the art in German weapons technology in order to incorporate the results into their own Soviet developments.
In October 1946, Hugo Schmeisser was forcibly deported to the Soviet Union for several years as a weapon technology specialist as part of the Ossawakim campaign . This fate affected many weapons designers from the works in the city of Suhl. The German weapons designers were brought to Izhevsk on October 24, 1946 , the capital of the Udmurt ASSR in the foothills of the Middle Urals and since 1807 the location of an arms factory (today Ischmasch ). Little is known about Hugo Schmeisser's precise activities in Izhevsk between 1946 and 1952. How important he was for the Soviet Union was shown again in 1952, when all other German specialists were allowed to return, but his stay in the Soviet Union was extended at short notice by six months, so that he did not return to Germany until June 9, 1952.
The external similarity between the assault rifle 44 and the AK-47 developed by Mikhail Timofejewitsch Kalaschnikow led to the assumption that Hugo Schmeisser worked on the development of the AK-47.
Hugo Schmeisser died on September 12, 1953 after a lung operation in the Erfurt City Hospital and was buried in Suhl. On the 50th anniversary of his death there was a memorial event in Suhl.
literature
- Norbert Moczarski : The era of the Schmeisser brothers in the arms factory from CG Haenel Suhl 1921–1948. A largely unknown chapter of Suhl's industrial history. In: Hildburghausen: Yearbook of the Hennebergisch-Franconian History Association. Pp. 237-268. 1999.
- Norbert Moczarski: Between taboo and legend. The world-famous Suhl gun designer Hugo Schmeisser (1884–1953). Suhler series No. 29, Suhl 2009, 72 pages
- G. de Vries, BJ Martens: The MP 38, 40, 40/1 and 41 Submachine gun. Propaganda Photos Series, Volume 2, Special Interest Publicaties BV, Arnhem, The Netherlands, First Edition 2001
- Hans Dieter Götz: German Military Rifles and Machine Pistols, 1871-1945. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. West Chester, Pennsylvania, 1990. (OCLC 24416255)
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schmeisser, Hugo |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German weapons designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 24, 1884 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Jena |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 12, 1953 |
| Place of death | Erfurt |