Centro de Estudios Técnicos de Materiales Especiales

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The Centro de Estudios Técnicos de Materiales Especiales (CETME) is a Spanish research institution in Madrid that was founded after the end of the Second World War to develop firearms for the Spanish military and export on behalf of the Franco regime and later the democratic government . It is known for the CETME model A rifles, from which (in cooperation with Heckler & Koch ) the standard rifle of the German armed forces , the G3 , was later developed.

history

In 1950 the Spanish military was equipped with ( Mauser / Rheinmetall / Solothurn ) Patent Gewehren 98 . (Mauser / Rheinmetall / Solothurn) Patents were used by Astra Unceta Y Compañia SA before and during the Second World War . Unceta delivered the Astra 600 with ammunition to the Wehrmacht until the border was closed in August 1944. Officers from the German Army Weapons Office were sent to armaments factories in Spain for inspection . Waldemar Pabst represented the Solothurn arms factory. From May 6, 1945, property of German citizens and the German Reich was expropriated in Spain , with the exception of property of Germans with legal residence status in Spain. The expropriations were legally justified with the Paris Reparations Agreement .

The Centro de Estudios Técnicos de Materiales Especiales was founded in 1948 on the instructions of the Ministerio de Guerra Español , for the development of armaments. Organizationally, CETME was part of the Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI). Lieutenant Colonel Ignacion Moyano, Marqués de Inicio was Francisco Franco's military attaché to Hitler . He had been a member of the Blue Division during the war and had been recruited by Wilhelm Canaris . In 1948 Moyano recruited employees from the Mauser development department. 148 of them were already working in Mulhouse for the French arms industry. Moyano later became a Spanish military attaché in Paris. José Hegea Gonzales had been accredited in the Spanish consulate in Hamburg since 1948 and later in Frankfurt. Hegea established contacts with Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz . In 1949 Moyano and Gonzales visited Werner Heynen , the former general director of the Wilhelm Gustloff Foundation and chairman of the main committee "Automatic Weapons" in the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Production, and left him with the further recruiting.

From 1949 Rheinmetall employees in Spain worked on a 7.92 mm caliber assault rifle. Ludwig Vorgrimler from the "Light Weapons Construction Department" at Mauser went to Spain in September 1950. The Mauser assault rifle 45 consisted of deep-drawn sheet metal. The deep-drawn sheets for Vorgrimler's rifle were minted at Pinto near Madrid.

See also

literature

  • John Walter, Rifles of the World Verlag Krause Publications, 3rd Edition, 2006, pages 81 to 83, ISBN 9780896892415 ( available online )
  • Steve Crawford, Twenty-first century small arms: the world's great infantry weapons , 2003, pp. 76-77 , ISBN 9780760315033
  • Terry Gander, Ian Hogg, Jane's Guns Recognition Guide , 4th Edition, London, HarperCollins Publishers, 2005, ISBN 978-0007183289
  • Walter Lehmann, The Federal Republic and Franco-Spain in the 1950s , Oldenbourg Verlag, 2006, page 133, ISBN 978-3486579871
  • Rüdiger Vom Bruch, Uta Gerhardt, Aleksandra Pawliczek, Continuities and Discontinuities in the History of Science in the 20th Century , Verlag Steiner, 2006, page 162, ISBN 978-3515089654

Web links

Commons : CETME  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Günter Wollert, Reiner Lidschun, Wilfried Copenhagen : Illustrated encyclopedia of rifle weapons from all over the world. Rifle weapons today (1945–1985) Volume 2, 5th edition. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89488-057-0 , p. 434 f.
  2. ^ Reservists Comradeship Marburg