Suhl

On the second Saturday of June, while the membership of the Utah Schuetzen Society is enjoying the temperate climes of scenic and historical Promontory, I hope to be in Germany celebrating a Schuetzenfest and the re-opening of the arms museum in Suhl.

This city, later dubbed “The Arsenal of Europe,” has a history of armsmaking and metal work that extends back to the Bronze Age when the receding glaciers of the last ice age left malleable metal ores available to the primitive miners. The forests provided fuel and, later, the streams motive power. By the fourteenth century, the city had hammer forges. The city is also quite near an ancient trade route that extended from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. In those days most all food and fiber were produced and consumed locally. The major trade goods were salt and metal wares which the men of Suhl produced in all varieties. When firearms came into use, they were produced here in such numbers as to attract the attention of the objects of these weapons. The city, mines, forges, and workshops were destroyed during the Thirty Years War.

It is hard to keep good folks down however, and the arms industry (and those industries related to machine and metal work) flourished up to 1945 when considerable downsizing occurred after a sharp drop in demand. Manufacturers such as JP Sauer, Krieghoff, Heym, and Anschütz, although now located elsewhere in Germany, had their homes once in Suhl. It is still the home to Merkel and several smaller gunmakers.