German Gun Removed From Kalashnikov Monument in Moscow

We reported last week that a statue recently unveiled in Moscow to stand as a monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the AK-47 assault rifle was discovered to include a diagram drawing on a side panel of a German Sturmgewehr StG44 rifle.

This story from guns.com reports workers cut and ground away the offending German Sturmgewehr StG44 (MP44) rifle on Friday.

The mistake was pointed out by a Russian gun historian on Facebook. Not only was the StG44 used against Russian soldiers in World War II, but the mistake has fed fuel to the story that Kalashnikov had help with his AK design from the German firearms designer Hugo Schmeisser.

From the guns.com story:

"Maxim Popenker, who works for the Kalashnikov Concern and has maintained the expansive historical gun site Modern Firearms since 2000, last week penned an extensive article detailing the developmental history of Kalashnikov’s AK-46, which was largely complete before Schmeisser came to the Soviet Union and was even tested head to head against Alexey Sudayev’s 7.62×39mm AS-44 rifle, with the subsequent redesign into the AK-47 winning out due to its better reliability. Further, he holds that while Schmeisser was in Izhevsk under close custody, Kalashnikov was finishing his rifle at Kovrov which was some 900 km away and the two had no contact."

"The monument, commissioned by the Russian Military and Historical Society and paid for in part by the Moscow city government, has been in the works for three years, and officials were busy making lemons into lemonade after the StG44 gaffe."