Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MG08

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2008)

Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken Aktien-Gesellschaft (German Weapons and Munitions Works), known as DWM, was an arms company in Imperial Germany created in 1896 when Ludwig Loewe & Company merged with several other companies. This included Waffenfabrik Mauser and Deutsche Metallpatronenfabrik Lorenz. The DWM was orchestrated by Isidor Loewe (1848–1910), as his brother Ludwig had died in 1886.

DWM introduced the Pistol Parabellum ('Luger Pistol') in the late 1890s. It was worked on by Georg Luger and Hugo Borchardt. DWM manufactured the Maschinengewehr 01 and Maschinengewehr 08, licenced version/clone of the Maxim machine gun. The MG08 would be the main German heavy machine gun of the First World War. Along with being one of the main arms suppliers of Imperial Germany, the company was at the forefront of small arms technology. They also supplied the non-German world (mostly Latin America) with the Mauser rifle system, becoming one of the world's largest arms manufacturers. Due the fact that the Mauser rifle was one of Germany's main exports before the First World War they proved to be an important part of the pre-war economy. Many of their weapons were still used by German troops up through the Second World War.

The original Ludwig Loewe & Company was also still active at this point as part of a group with DWM - Karl Maybach (who was part of the Maybach company) was employed by the company in 1901.