From another forum: Here are a few pics of surrendered Mausers and other light arms during the German 9th Army surrender to U.S. forces on the Tangermünde Bridge on the west side of the River Elbe---May 1945.
As mentioned by some in the thread, notice there are no large piles of bolts that have been separated from the rifles/carbines prior to surrender and all the rifles in the piles appear to be intact. This seems to call into question one rumor for the large number of mismatched Mauser bolts on imported rifles....
http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?599865-98K-capture-Piles-River-Elbe
:o
Fascinating pics!
Oddly enough, the field camo and visor cap donned by the young SS officer are worth more than any firearm found in those pictures, except for maybe the Stg44 or mp40.
Something else I noticed- a huge percentage of the Mausers in those piles have cupped butt plates. That feature was introduced post-1940, so most of those are "new" guns.
Another sadder speculation. Considering the mind-bogglingly massive numbers of import marked, bastardized, Russianized, Yugonized, parts guns, chopped, Bubbaed, shellacked, sanded, and faked rifles available in the US, it might be fair to say there are more righteous matching guns in just one of those piles than what will ever be available to us today.
Not meaning to get off topic, but I love pics of like those, and figured I would post this...
Pyramid built from Imperial German helmets after WW1 in front of Grand Central Station.
(https://twistedsifter.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/pyramid-of-german-helmets-near-grand-central-terminal-new-york-1918.jpg?w=2480&h=2064)
Oh my gosh....I wonder how many helmets it took to create that. Incredible!!