Description
In one of history’s great ironies, from Nazi Germany to the new Jewish State!
The fledgling state of Israel, predominantly made up of Jewish displaced persons from Nazi concentration camps, won its independence largely with German K98 rifles.
On the surface, the easy assumption is that the victorious Western Allies supplied the new Jewish state with these arms, but that’s not so. As German troops surrendered in the closing days of World War II, the Allies had no intention of stockpiling German arms for future use. Actually, the Americans tended to destroy captured weapons en-masse. The British generally did the same or turned weapons back to police & border guard units. The French sent theirs to North Africa & Indochina for use in their post-war colonial conflicts. Thus, the Israeli K98 rifles didn’t come from Israel’s current allies. They came from behind the Iron Curtain.
In the interim between the end of WWII in 1945 & Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, Europe & the middle east were awash in military firearms. The Jewish group Haganah had begun pressing for the establishment of a homeland in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine since late 1945 / early 1946. Haganah included in it’s ranks some members of the WWII British army’s Jewish Brigade, which had fought the Germans in Italy, as well as veterans of the US Army & the French resistance. Haganah thus was fairly well-connected internationally & began clandestine acquisition of firearms, including surrendered ex-German K98k’s.
The vast majority of Israel’s 98k inventory was obtained from Czechoslovakia, in one of history’s greatest arms-smuggling operations. The country had a shaky democracy dominated by communists, many of whom ironically were Jewish by descent & pro-Zionist. The Czechs were sitting on stockpiles of German weapons surrendered in 1945 & the country was largely unscathed during the war. As such, it had many fully functioning arms factories that had operated under German supervision. In fact, to keep its workforce occupied the new Czech government kept the factories running at the end of the war. They turned out German-designed weapons at the CZ & BRNO factories from excess wartime parts & stockpiled the end products. The trouble for the Czechs, though, was how to sell all that wartime & mounting post-war material.
In 1947, Haganah & other groups were fighting a small-scale insurgency, both against the Arabs & against the British (who as late as February 1948 had not formally announced their full withdrawal). The Jewish effort to obtain weapons overseas was code named operation “Balak”. This came at a very opportune time as the communist bloc was, for a very brief period, positively inclined towards a secular Jewish state in the mid-east, which Stalin foresaw as a possible counter to the Egyptian & Jordanian monarchies & the early Syrian nation which had (briefly) shown friendship to France & the USA. This situation seems almost unbelievable today & the window only lasted a brief while before events in the Arab world “flipped” it towards the Soviet side.
Czechoslovakia was identified as an ideal source for arms. A large number of K98k’s which the Brno Arsenal had already began to recondition in 1946 were available, plus Czechoslovakia also inherited a full set of blueprints & production tooling & briefly manufactured the K98k itself after WWII under the name VZ98N. On 14 January 1948 an agreement was reached for the delivery of 4,500 K98k rifles (designated “P-18” in the contract) along with 200 ex-German MG-34 machine guns & around 50 million rounds of ammunition. Most likely all, or almost all of this first batch were actual ex-Wehrmacht weapons from WWII. In Czechoslovakia, the project was code named “DI”, the Czech-language abbreviation for “Classified, Israel”.
In the early 1950’s Israel converted these into 7.62 NATO as marked onto the receiver ring & also on the butt stock making them instantly recognisable for soldiers to use the correct ammunition. This means that you can shoot commercial .308 with this rifle!
These are highly sought after & this is an excellent opportunity to own a Nazi K98k which was genuinely part of this historical event to complete your Mauser or WW2 rifle collection.
This particular rifle was manufactured in 1944 by Gustloff-Werke, Weimar as indicated by the marking bcd 4 on the receiver ring. Only around 348,000 were made by this factory in 1944 so out of over 12M Kar98k’s made, this is a relatively small number.
Unusually, it retains the Nazi proof marks (Waffenamts & acceptance eagles) which were often peened out or otherwise scrubbed & also has numerous Israeli stamps including the Star of David as can be seen in the photos.
Do your own research & you will know if this is for you. Please view the photos carefully & make your decision based on what you see as they form the main description & override all written information. Ask for more if desired.
We think we have described it accurately & correctly but do not claim to be infallible so if we have got anything wrong, it is unintentional & are happy for feedback from people who know more than we do.
Whilst we check these out for serviceability, the warranty has expired & this is sold on an ‘as is’ basis. As with all used guns, we recommend you have this checked by a suitably qualified person prior to shooting.
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