
ABOVE: Soldiers of the Waffen-SS equipped with an early PzB 38 during exercises. After the annexation of the Sudetenland and the destruction of Czechoslovakia as…

Much has already been written about German military weapons. But still today some real treasures are left to be discovered. Some of them are re-discovered – like the Erma EMP44 of the Erfurter Maschinenfabrik (in short “Erma”)….

At the beginning of 1938, the Erfurter Maschinenfabrik (ERMA) received an official order for the development a new submachine gun from the Heereswaffenamt (office for army weapons). Already a few months later, at the beginning of June 1938, ERMA presented the Maschinenpistole MP38. This achievement is impressive; however the time interval seems to be much too short for developing such a new weapon. This fact must arouse suspicions that a (nearly) ready draft must have slumbered in the drawers of ERMA….