anybody id this rifle? old german photo

[lee2]

i'm asking about the rifle in the foreground.
any ideas?

 

[BigCity]

Looks French to me. Maybe captured? Just guessing.

 

[Threeband]

Lebel Mousqueton. (R35 Carbine.)

http://candrsenal.com/briefly-french-lebel-mle-1886-m93-r35-carbine/

 

[MilsurpDan]

I agree, looks like a Lebel R35. Hey, maybe mine's in there somewhere!

 

[zoostation]

Glock

 

[Whitey]

Glock

LOL.

 

[BUFF7MM]

Captured AK31's, pre 47's, 6.35x28 mm

 

[Bertfish]

Glock

Must work at MSNBC

 

[Threeband]

AK 15

 

[28Shooter]

I expected to see Mawkie in on this one.

 

[thomfantomas]

Chupacabra

 

[iH8DemLibz]

Dropped ones.

 

[SKIP]

They could be French soldiers as Nazi allies. I know other conquered countries provided troops for Hitler.

 

[zoostation]

They could be French soldiers as Nazi allies. I know other conquered countries provided troops for Hitler.

I have the figures in an article at home but by war's end more non-Germans had served in the SS (when you include the Waffen-SS) than Germans. The French volunteers had their own SS Division, the Charlemagne Division. They also had a muslim division, plenty of Belgians, Walloons, German "descended" people from all over Europe they referred to as the Volksdeutsche, cossacks, even lots of slavic-descent Eastern Europeans despite the nazi racial obsession. They also drafted in many of the conquered countries, but I don't think in France. Became a point of conflict between the SS and the Wehrmacht as to who was going to get the larger share of conscripts.

The one thing they didn't have a lot of was Brits. Only a dozen or two of them IIRC (and the Brits hung their their leader after the war), and I think three or four Americans.

 

[MilsurpDan]

I can't tell from the uniforms, but they could be Luftwaffe or other German troops doing training exercises. I've seen quite a few pictures of Luftwaffe troops using French weapons while training. As well as a lot of other second line troops being issued French stuff.

 

[lee2]

another pic but harder to tell what they are carrying.

 

[mawkie]

Late to the party! Yup, Lebel R35 in both. Cool photos.

 

[Machodoc]

Late to the party! Yup, Lebel R35 in both. Cool photos.

If Mawkie says that's what they are, I'm betting that's what they are.

I only recently learned that so many of the SS troops were not "official" Germans. On the other hand, Germany had a large push for colonization in the 1800s, so there were some pretty substantial pockets of ethnic Germans throughout the world. Even though they may not have been born in Germany, most related to being German at heart.

For example, my wife's mother's family had always thought of themselves and being Romanian, but it turns out that branch of the family were ethnic Germans who settled in other parts of Europe, and some married locals, but several served in the German military in WWI.

 

[lowoncash]

AK 15

I was thinking it was AR-47.

 

[Biggfoot44]

I don't know offhand about cumulative Waffen SS enrollment numbers. I do know that the German led coalition that invaded the USSR had more non-Germans than Germans.