Always loved Lugers. I even recall the Luger squirt gun I had in the early '60's. In 1997 I was visiting an elderly uncle and we got to talking guns and he went and pulled a Luger out of his closet. A 1916 Erfurt. He was born in 1919, to a German family in Rochester NY, he was raised in a German American neighborhood in Rochester and grew up Bi-lingual ( Rochester even had a German language newspaper up until the late '50's- early 60's). He was a ground crewman for B-17's in England in WWII and in the spring of 1945 Uncle Sam was looking for servicemen who spoke German. Long story short -- As soon as Germany surrendered the U.S. went in and cleaned out the German V-2 Rocket factory at Nordhausen, Germany known as the Mittleworks at Nordhausen. He was there as a translator to communicate with all the Germans who had been hired to help out with packing the entire place up and shipping it here. He and another American walked into an office area of the factory that was completely intact. Even had a large glass display case on the wall with a Nazi parade flag and the Luger in it. A deal was made whereby my uncle got the Luger and the other guy got the flag. Unfortunately he never got capture papers for it. He said the war was over and suddenly nobody cared; G.I.'s were just grabbing souveniers everywhere. I inherited it in 2001 and while it's not mint, it functions well and has become one of those hand it down through the family heirloom guns.
