Why British Commandos 'Risked Court Martial' To Smuggle This German Knife Home

Описание: Between 1944 and 1945, approximately one-third of all materiel produced for Operation Overlord simply vanished. Field Marshal Montgomery officially discouraged trophy-taking. 18,599 British soldiers were court-martialed for theft during the war. None of it mattered. When Commandos encountered German Pioneer assault troops at Dieppe, Saint-Nazaire, and on D-Day, they discovered something worth the risk: Solingen steel so superior to their own Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knives that veterans called British-issue blades "criminal neglect."

This is the story of the Wehrmacht's elite combat engineers, the equipment they carried into some of the war's most brutal close-quarters fighting, and why British soldiers risked everything to bring a piece of it home.


SOURCES

Primary Sources
• British Army Courts Martial Records, 1939-1945
• German Army Equipment Regulations: M41 Pioniersturmgepäck (March 27, 1941)
• Operation Jubilee After Action Reports (Dieppe, August 1942)
• 21st Panzer Division War Diary, June 6, 1944

Books and Academic Sources
• Longden, Sean. "To the Victor the Spoils: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy" (Arris Books)
• Rottman, Gordon L. "German Pionier 1939-45: Combat Engineer of the Wehrmacht" (Osprey Publishing)
• Emmerich, Clyde. "Crime and the British Armed Services Since 1914" (Palgrave Macmillan)

Museum Collections
• Imperial War Museum — German Flyer's Knife Collection (Object 30003937)
• The Tank Museum — Gravity Knife donated by the Burgess Family (8th Kings Royal Irish Hussars)
• National WWII Museum — German Edged Weapons Collection, New Orleans

Specialist References
• Military Trader: "Nahkampfmesser: The Combat Knives of the German Wehrmacht"
• Brüning, Jan-Peter. "Luftwaffe Gravity Knife: Weapon, Tool, Tradition"
• DTIC: "The German Pionier: Case Study of the Combat Engineer's Role" (AD1071311)

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German War Machine examines German weapons of World War Two through the eyes of the Allied soldiers who faced them. We do not glorify Nazi Germany. We do not celebrate German victories. We tell the story of the weapons that Allied veterans encountered, feared, captured, and ultimately defeated.

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