What was the Germans equivalent of Bell Target?

[ptdunk]

Hi Matt,

Marksmanship training was a prominent part of a Hitler Youth and pre teen Hitler Youth's training. Proficiency was encouraged through the awarding of medals and badges. A German language handbook I have has a thorough chapter on the subject and includes line drawings of the Haenel 33, Mars and Diana 30. Only trouble is the book is in German and I can't understand it!

I understand firearms ownership was curtailed by the Nazis, so prior to 1933 Schutzenfests were probably the most popular. The Germans and Eastern Europeans in general have a proud hunting heritage and a Schutzenfest was the ideal opportunity to show off your prowess with a rifle, then enjoy some beer. Postwar, certainly 10 metre match air rifle had its origins in Germany.

John

Thanks John.
If you get the Google app on your phone and take a photo of the text it will translate it for you.
(If you want you can email it to me and I’ll do it) I’d be interested to see what it says.

It’s a tricky subject, I’m doing a vid on my ‘33 soon but will concentrate on the mechanics of the rifle and might even refer to the Hitler Youth as ‘cadets’ not sure yet. It’s a mechanical work of genius how that mech works.

What I’m really interested in is that period pre WW1 in Germany, when the precision hand made gallery guns of the late 1800’s were falling out of favour, and over in the U.K. we were going nuts over Bell target with LJ BSA’s.
I wonder if the Schutzenfest’s had an airgun section, or people shot short range Airguns in clubs.

I know that arms restrictions combined with the German tradition of competitive target shooting led to the development of 10m match rifles but pre ww1 is a bit of a transitional period from gallery guns to German LJ BSA clones.

My 1902/03 Oscar Will catalogue still has gallery guns for sale, so maybe that tradition carried on till WW1?
Cheers,
Matt