I found a gun in my (dead) great-grandpas closet. It is a german made gun (Walther Zella-Mehlis). He obviously got it off of a German soldier. It also has a cerial number on it and i was wondering if their is anyway I could find the soldier who the gun belonged too. Thanks.
2007-10-14 15:54:21 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Military
i seriously doubt u would be able to find any type of information on it, i imagine a lot of those records were destroyed between then and now.... and even if it IS out there somewhere, the chance of it being the actual owner of the guy??? slim i would guess... there just wasnt any type of accountability about weopens then as now.
good luck
2007-10-14 16:56:27 · answer #1 · answered by asailorsstar 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I would also like to know how you can assume that he 'obviously' got it off of a dead german soldier. Following WW2 there was a mass surplus of german arms and materiel on the market for civilians, and many soldiers bought them as they were cheap alternatives to American made weapons. I have two Russian WW2 rifles and a German WW2 rifle. Now I 'obviously' didn't take any of them off of a dead soldier.
2007-10-15 00:56:47 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
You cant, military records indicating who got what gun would have been kept on a yearly basis, and destroyed as time went on.
Also as the weapon would have been issued out to many different people over the course of its service life its impossible to pin it down to one individual.
The number on any gun is the factory maker number.
No records exist even in Germany as for the same reasons stated above.
2007-10-15 01:20:30 · answer #3 · answered by conranger1 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
More than likely not. You might be able to track down the unit it was issued to but most of the records where lost or destroyed at the end of the war.
2007-10-14 22:59:01 · answer #4 · answered by Chris 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I would say no. To take a gun from a soldier, especially an enemy, the enemy must be dead, and the Germans would not have the best records of who had guns seeing as they change hands so often. Unfortunately all you can do is try to run it through proper military databases and see what comes up. Try contacting the German military.
2007-10-15 00:08:02 · answer #5 · answered by DavidJackson 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
impossible-all records were destroyed in the massive bombings
2007-10-15 13:16:38 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋