THE GERMAN CONNECTION: Just how much influence did elite German engineers have in designing Kalashnikov's masterpiece?
Ex-Nazi rocket scientist Wehner von Braun famously reassured the US government that America would beat the Soviets to the moon because, "Our Germans are better than their Germans!"We know that groups of supremely experienced German engineers worked for both Cold War empires in the wake of World War II. But I was taken aback some years ago when a writer well versed in things Russian said, "Don't you know, Hugo Schmeisser helped design the AK-47? He was forced to go to the Soviet Union and worked for Kalashnikov."
"What?!" I nearly passed a kidney stone. This was heresy. Seven decades of Communism produced only one lasting triumph, the AK-47, and now a trusted source was telling me it was the work of some icy Teutonic genius? The truth, it turns out, is just so much weirder.
In 1945, Germany was a smoking ruin more in need of bricklayers than engineers, and the Soviet Union was shy about 20 million workers across the board. They had a powerful industrial base but their products were crudely made copies of Western designs.
America's Operation Paperclip had quickly snatched up the cream of Germany's rocket and aviation programs, as von Braun et. al. surrendered directly to the Americans.
The Russians had similar but more complex motivations, and drafted German designers, softening the twisted arm with comfortable working conditions and decent pay. Besides, firearms manufacturing in Germany was forbidden by the occupying forces so opportunity within the trade was limited to the Soviet Union.
The East Germans who accepted the offer had household effects shipped to various cities. A series of trains wandered through Germany, picking up high-octane industrial minds--and their families--destined for the vast complexes east of Moscow. These trains had the windows painted over and once a German family boarded for the long ride east, there was no turning back.
When the Wehrmacht had invaded the Soviet Union in June of '41, the Soviets quickly evacuated entire factories, and their workers, and moved beyond tank and bomber range, into the Urals and Siberia. One of these cities was Izhvesk, a little over 600 miles east, and 100 north, of Moscow. A state arsenal since 1800, it was home to the multiple factories which produced more than 12 million firearms during the Great Patriotic War.
About 3 million German soldiers were eventually captured, most in the last year of the war, and Stalin held onto them as forced labor, working throughout the Soviet Union. Many thousands labored in Izhvesk. Treatment varied for these men, but many were essentially slaves. Some Soviets "felt sorry for them and fed them. Others had lost relatives and hated them, and there were cases of beatings."
The incoming German engineers' families needed accommodations, so German POWs with skills were used to build blocks of apartments, using quality materials. These craftsmen were informed that they were building for German families and the quality control was extremely good. The apartments were four-plexes, but in a cost-saving measure, these were built around large common kitchens. Ironically, these German apartments are still inhabited, and are considered a prestige address in Izhvesk--although none of the residents have spoken Hochdeutsch since the mid-1950s.
Among the engineers who came to the Izhvesk Mechanical Plant complex (rebranded as IZHMASH in 1976) in early 1946 was a sickly primadonna with impressive accomplishments. Hugo Schmeisser, 62, was the son of a firearms designer and in his youth had designed the Bergman 9x19mm Parabellum MP-18, one of the first successful submachine guns. Later, he pioneered the Sturmgewehrs, the first successful intermediate-power assault rifles. Schmeisser's magnum opus, the 7.92x33mm Kurz StG-44, was a triumph of metal stamping, which is far lighter, faster and cheaper than milling solid bar-stock.
Kalashnikov and his assistants, Alexandr Zaitsev and Vladimir Deikin, had already completed a sound basic design in 1945, but were having extreme difficulty in production. The stamped receiver required the milled barrel trunnion at the front and the milled stock insert at the rear to be precision welded. Precision as in perfect--every time. The rejection rate ended up far too high. It was so bad that the Soviet Army ordered extended production of 7.62x39mm SKS-45 carbines while Kalashnikov's team struggled.
It wasn't long before sixteen German engineers were formed into a design team at Factory 74, called Bureau 58, and assigned to assist Kalashnikov and other designers. Schmeisser came in to solve the stamped receiver problem. But did he? Problems started immediately. Written correspondence survives that document an ongoing contract dispute. He complained that his wife and son were sick and he wasn't being paid enough to care for them. He also complained that he wasn't being paid what he was promised when he signed the contract. Factory 74's director, as well as the Communist party political secretary, were both in direct correspondence.
Why was his pay lacking? Remember that Hugo Schmeisser's father was the firearms engineer Louis Schmeisser? Where did young Hugo learn his trade? That's right, Dad, who may have got him his early start working for Bergmann; what we'd now call on-the-job-training. Among other patents, he received one for the MP-18 9x19mm Parabellum submachine gun. But when he de signed the 7.92x33mm Kurz MP43/44/StG-44 for Haenel, the firm got the patent. So Factory 74's manager told him he had insufficient formal education to justify higher pay.
As an added sod-off, the political secretary accused him of having a "capitalistic political view," and they involuntarily extended his contract by six months. Schmeisser was not well-regarded by his colleagues, neither Russian nor German. Many considered him obstructionist and believed that if the stamped receiver production obstacles could be solved, they would be allowed to return to Germany. Basically they wanted to solve the problem and go home. Schmeisser's German boss, Karl Barnitzke, was also criticized in a report, saying, "He has good technical skills but his political views are unsettled."
Considering the situation, life was not too bad. They couldn't leave, but neither could their Soviet colleagues. Vital to national security, Izhvesk was a sealed city. But the Germans and Russians became friends and so did their children. Many of the Germans had worked in the Soviet Union during the '20s and '30s, when both nations were struggling to recover from World War I. And many Russian engineers had been educated in German universities. As with most educated Europeans, they spoke many languages. Their children went to the same parties, but for the German families there was a nighttime curfew.
In the meantime, precision welding eluded Kalashnikov's production specialists, and under the Cold War pressure of 1949, the Soviets went to a heavy milled receiver. It was a quick fix, but machinery originally used for Mosin-Nagant rifles was easily converted. Many of the Germans were allowed home following Stalin's death on March 5th, 1953.
One of these was a manufacturing genius named Werner Gruner who, before the war, had worked at Grossfuss AG. This firm built stamped steel lanterns and kitchen appliances. In the late 1930s Grossfuss decided to compete for an army contract to build a replacement for the expensive 7.92x57mm MG-34 machine gun. Gruner attended an army machine gunner's course and in the evenings, picked the brains of experienced gunners. He then cheerfully returned to Grossfuss, promptly designing the MG-42. The MG-42, "Hitler's Buzz Saw," was arguably the best general purpose machine gun of the 20th century. Overnight, Grossfuss went from about 500 to almost 5,000 employees.
Werner Gruner's personality was the opposite of Hugo Schmeisser. Bright and gregarious, Gruner was a charming win-win manager and skilled engineer. He had received advanced degrees from night studies in the 1920s and early 1930s, and was still in his early 40s when the Soviet Military Administration in Germany "imposed a work requirement." One must remember that while these German engineers were comfortable and well compensated compared to their Soviet counterparts, they were still in some ways indentured servants. Considering conditions in East Germany at the time though, they were living in a gilded cage.
So, did the Germans actually design, or help design the Kalashnikov rifle? On this subject, Russians become quite defensive. Their cultural legacy was at stake. When the subject is broached, the claws come out and hissing is narrowly avoided. Two of my source articles, translated from on-line Russian-language sites, speak of "evil" and "insidious" rumor-mongering.
Let's do the math. The original Kalashnikov design, immature, was presented in 1945, but Sergei Simonov's SKS-45, a down-sized copy of the successful 14.5mm PTRS-41 anti-tank rifle, walked away with the production order. Kalashnikov either asked for or was forced to accept German help in 1946 but failed to offer a production-capable stamped rifle. The crew at Factory 74 of the Izhvesk Mechanical Plant fell back on the milled receiver and launched full-scale production in 1949.
By 1952, almost every German engineer was back in Thuringia, East Germany, (gun country, analogous to the Connecticut River Valley or Brescia, Italy) confronting the somber reality that was the Communist police state. The stamped receiver problem hadn't been fixed. Kalashnikov and his design crew kept at it, tenacious as guard dogs gnawing on a gulag escapee, but it wasn't until 1959 that the riddle of the stamped receiver was solved and production began on the stamped 7.62x39mm AKM.
Kalashnikov had started the design while the Germans were still the enemy, and delivered a successful firearm to the Soviet military, but he had not yet conquered the stamped receiver he started to build. The two most talented Germans working with him were specialists in stamped metal manufacture. Perhaps the delay in introduction of the stamped AKM was a case of "Don't mess with production until we have enough Kalashnikov rifles to fight NATO." But are we supposed to believe that the Germans fixed the problem, and that the Soviets then sat on the project for seven years?
Ultimately, my gut is snagged by a quote of Hugo Schmeisser, who was asked shortly before his death, how much he had to do with the design. He is supposed to have replied, "I gave the Russians a few tips." How much of the success was German--if any--we'll never really know. One thing is certain. If the project had failed, it would have been the former Soviet tank mechanic who would have been shipped off to Siberia.
The author is deeply grateful to I. Shaidurov and M. Dragunov for their support in researching this article.
HUGO SCHMEISSER
Born in 1884 to a distinguished weapons designer in Jena, Thuringia (half way between Frankfurt and Berlin), Schmeisser was initially employed by Bergmann. There work was being done on automatic weapons design, and Schmeisser patented the first practical submachine gun, the Bergmann MP-18. He was considered critical and remained throughout World War I. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles allowed manufacture of police weapons and Schmeisser continued development in partnership with his brother, Hans. They entered into a complex series of business partnerships with Haenel and others, producing "police" firearms for export, and frequently teetering on bankruptcy. During WWII he worked on weapons using an intermediate-powered cartridge, the 7.92x 33mm Kurz or short. Designated Sturmgewehrs or assault rifles, the models of 1943 and '44 were the most successful, with well over 400,000 being made by war's end. He went to Izhvesk and remained until 1952, working on Soviet small arms designs. He was remembered as an unpleasant man and not a team player. Ironically, his name is most often associated with the Allied nickname for the MP-38/40, an excellent submachine gun with which he had absolutely nothing to do. Seriously ill, he returned to Germany where he ended up under the lawn mower in 1953.
Caption: Hugo Schmeisser developed the 7.92x33mm Kurz StG 44, but how much of a role did he play in the AK-47?
WERNER GRUNER
Born to a schoolteacher near Colditz, Saxony, Gruner showed early promise and studied in Dresden, (today, about an hour's drive to the east). After several years of post-graduate lab work he hired on with Grossfuss AG, which specialize in stamped metal appliances. In the late 1930s, with no previous experience in firearms design, the practical young engineer headed the team that created the MG-42 general-purpose machine gun. This cost a quarter less to make and took half the manufacturing time as its predecessor, the MG-34. Gruner was required to work in the USSR until the early 1950s, where he was quite well regarded by both Russian and German colleagues. He returned home and became a professor of mechanical engineering, focusing on agricultural machinery (big lawn mowers?). A life-long student and professor, he continued lecturing until 1978 and died in Dresden in 1995.
Caption: Werner Gruner was another talented German engineer who worked in the Soviet Union after the fall of Germany in 1945.
MIKHAIL TIMOFEYEVICH KALASHNIKOV
Born in 1919 in the city of Kurya on the Western slopes of the Altai Mountains, his family was impoverished as political punishment. In 1938, he was conscripted as a tank mechanic and was wounded early in the Battle of Brody in June 1941. Always a mechanical tinkerer and inventive, the convalescing young sergeant went to work for the Artillery Directorate. He offered designs and prototype small arms that were not chosen but had merit. Kalashnikov studied and worked with established designers Degtyarev and Shpagin and eventually headed his own design team in Izhvesk which perfected the Avtomat Kalashnikova of 1947 and subsequent variants, of which over 100 million have been made. He went on to design the successful PK general-purpose machine gun. The aging designer enjoyed fame and comfort until dying of natural causes at the age of 94. Untypical of many engineers, the proud Kalashnikov was gregarious and colorful. In later years he was fond of saying, "I wish I had invented a lawn mower."
Caption: There is no denying German engineers were working in Izhvesk, but just how much did they contribute to Mikhail Kalashnikov's project?
Caption: The 7.92x33mm StG44 was a very effective design which heavily influenced Soviet thinking. But did its designer play a role in developing the AK-47?
Caption: The Soviets had problems with the AK-47's early stamped receiver and sought the advice of German engineers for a solution. L to R: 1951 dated Type 1 stamped receiver, 1954 dated Type 2 milled receiver and stamped AKM receiver. Photo courtesy Robert Acuto.
Caption: Gruner's claim to fame is developing the MG42 general purpose machine gun which was produced using many stamped metal components.
Caption: The Soviet Union was a huge sprawling country and many German engineers found themselves working far to the East of Moscow in the city of Izhvesk.
Caption: Life in the gilded cage of 1951 Izhvesk. These are the bright sparks of the Germans who worked in Factory 74. Who knows how much influence they had on the Kalashnikov design? Bureau chief Karl Baritzke is standing, second from left; Werner Gruner, designer of the MG42, is standing, third from right; and Hugo Schmeisser, pioneer of the MP18 and StG 44 is seated, second from left.
Caption: Buildings in the center of Izhevsk, where German engineers and designers were residing with their families from 1946 to 1952. Photo from 1951 oh the left and 2008 on the right.
Caption: A 1951 dated Type 1 stamped sheetmetal AK-47 receiver. Problems with this initial design led a move to milled receivers until production problems were solved. Photo courtesy Robert Acuto.
Caption: While Schmeisser's name is linked to the MP40 submachine gun, it was not his design. However, he actually did design the famous 9x19mm MP18 which is considered one of, if not the first successful submachine guns. Photograph courtesy of James D. Julia Auctioneers, Fairfield, Maine, USA, www.jamesdjulia.com
Caption: The 7.92x33mm Kurz StG 44 was developed with mass production in mind and featured a sheet metal receiver to reduce time and costs. Stamped Type 1 AK receivers had problems which took years to resolve. Photograph courtesy of James D. Julia Auctioneers, Fairfield, Maine, USA, www.jamesdjulia.com
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| Author: | Venola, Richard |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Firearms News |
| Date: | Feb 1, 2018 |
| Words: | 2681 |
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