Two Pieces of the Berlin Wall

• Anschütz/Anderson Friendship

Two Pieces of the Berlin Wall

Two pieces of the Berlin Wall - Front

Two Pieces of the Berlin Wall - back

In 1945, at the end of World War II, U. S. military officials evacuated the Anschütz gun-making family out of Zella-Melis, Germany, just ahead of the Red Army that was taking over what was soon to become communist East Germany.  U. S. authorities relocated the Anschütz family in Ulm, Germany.  They were not able to resume manufacturing guns until 1950, but the fact that U. S. officials had rescued them from Soviet domination was clearly reflected in the Anschütz family’s later affection for USA shooters.  By 1959, the Anschütz M1954 smallbore match rifle was beginning to enjoy international successes in the hands of the German shooters and it was beginning to attract the attention of U. S. Army shooters who were growing frustrated with the rifles the Army had Remington and Winchester make for them.  

This was also the time when Dieter Anschütz was becoming active in the management of their newly resurrected factory.  Dieter wisely recognized that if the best shooters in the world used Anschütz rifles, other shooters would buy their products.  He became a regular visitor at international rifle championships where he developed close relationships with the top shooters.  Every day Dieter came to the range with his toolbox to provide service for the Anschütz rifles that were there. 

 Dieter Anschutz  at the Rome Olympic range (1960).  Dieter has his toolbox on the shooting table and is repairing an Olympic competitor’s rifle.

Gary first met Dieter in 1960 in Wiesbaden, Germany where the U. S. Army International Team made its first stop on a five-nation tour of major shooting countries in Western Europe (See “Wheaties and the Olympics”).   While they were there, they discussed how Army team members were unhappy with the Remington rifles the Army provided for them.  Gary described the stock on his rifle as a "modified fence post."  Dieter promised to meet them in Lucerne, Switzerland, which was to be the last stop on the tour, and to bring some Anschütz smallbore rifles for team members to try.  The first Anschütz Gary tried in Lucerne was a right-handed rifle, but he was encouraged enough with its performance that Dieter had a left-handed stock shipped down from Ulm.  It arrived the next day and Gary decided to shoot that rifle in the competition on that day.  Gary did not win, but he was satisfied enough that he bought that rifle from Dieter for $165 and brought it back to the USA.  After trying both his old Remington and his new Anschütz (M54, serial no. 21,158) for several days, he decided to switch to the Anschütz.  Gary used that rifle to win his first 50m 3-Position National Championship that fall as well as his National and World Championship victories in 1962.  He never used another smallbore rifle from that point on and Dieter always made sure he had a great rifle to shoot.

Gary with his first Anschütz in 1960

One of Gary’s fondest memories of his long relationship with Dieter and his family came from the 1962 World Championship in Cairo.  On the night before the 50m individual events, Gary had dinner at the Nile Hilton Hotel with Dieter and his wife Elfi, along with Dieter’s parents.  After dinner, they all took a long walk along the Nile River.  It turned out to be a great way to relax while preparing for what was then the biggest competition of his life.  None of them expected that the next day Anschütz rifles would win all three 50m position championships or that Gary would set his first World Record that day while using his Anschütz.   (see "1157")

Gary in Cairo with the 50m rifle provided by Dieter Anschütz

In 1963 and 1964, Gary attended college and Army Infantry OCS at Fort Benning so he did not go with the Army Team when it went to Europe to compete.  However, by the summer of 1965, he graduated from college and it worked out that he could go to Europe with the Army Team.  The competitions that summer began with the team assembling in Wiesbaden, Germany.  They then traveled to Lucerne, Switzerland for a competition with Switzerland, Italy and Czechoslovakia.  That was to be followed by a competition back in Wiesbaden with the USSR and German teams on the ranges that would host the 1966 World Championship.  The matches in Wiesbaden were especially important because they were the first head-to-head showdown between the USA and USSR since the 1962 World Championship in Cairo, where the USSR retained its number one nation status, and the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, where USA shooters won the medal count.  The big question for USA shooters was whether their victorious Tokyo results were a lucky break or whether the USA really had overtaken the Soviets. 

Gary in Wiesbaden, 1965

Just prior to reporting for active duty with the Army, on June 13, 1965, Gary and Ruth Ann were married in Cheyenne, Wyoming. (See “Farm Boy Meets City Girl”).  Because Ruth Ann was not authorized to fly with the team on a military (MATS) flight, arrangements were made for her to take a commercial flight to Frankfurt to join Gary and the team in Wiesbaden.  This trip became their “honeymoon in Europe.”    Gary made arrangements for the Team Captain to meet Ruth Ann’s plane at Rhein Main Airport and take her to Wiesbaden to join the team.     For a wedding present, Dieter and Elfi gave Gary and Ruth Ann two Hummel figurines.

"Signs of Spring" and "Barnyard Hero" Hummel Figurines,
wedding gift to the Andersons from Dieter and Elfi

The Army Team traveled from Wiesbaden to Ulm, Germany, enroute to Lucerne.   This trip, like all the others, included a visit at the Anschütz factory and another opportunity to connect with Dieter and his family.  A highlight of the stop in Ulm was a delightful evening at the home of Dieter and Elfi Anschütz.   They hosted a big barbeque for the whole team with swimming in their backyard pool, bratwursts, drinks and camaraderie.  It was a wonderful chance to relax before the big competitions in Lucerne and Wiesbaden.

The competitions in Lucerne resulted in USA domination.  Gary won both the 300m 3-Position and the 300m Army Rifle events.  The latter event was a Swiss speciality that was shot with Swiss M31 straight-pull Army rifles. 

Gary with a Swiss Army Rifle, Lucerne, 1965

The competitions in Wiesbaden ended with big USA victories over the USSR in both the 50-meter and 300-meter rifle team events. USA 50m team members were Tommy Pool, Gary, Lones Wigger and Bill Krilling.  USA 300m team members were Jack Foster, Gary, Lones Wigger and Martin Gunnarsson.   These victories were seen as proof that USA rifle shooters had surpassed the Soviets and they set the stage for the USA to become the leading nation in the 1966 World Championships.

50m team members Anderson, Krilling, Wigger and Pool

300m team Anderson, Wigger, Gunnarsson and Foster

A favorite Anderson family Anschütz story occurred a year later after the USA Team won the Gamal Abdel Nasser Trophy that was to be presented to the leading nation in the World Championship medal count (The Egyptians wanted the trophy to go to the USSR, but no matter how they tried to rewrite the rules for awarding the trophy, the USA still won.)  The entire USA Team had a big victory party in the team hotel and both Dieter and Elfi were there to celebrate with them.   The team uniform was an aging grey color and the team hated the suits, but more especially the ties that went with them.  All of the team members wore their “official uniforms” to the party, but at some point in the evening, a pair of scissors appeared and a tie-cutting ceremony ensued.  All of the truncated ties were deposited in a paper bag. The Team Adjutant, LTC Gene Enterkin, was not well liked by the team because he spent much of his time in Germany hunting and not attending to team needs. Rumor has it that Elfi Anschütz and Gary Anderson delivered the bag of hated ties to LTC Enterkin’s room!  

The hated ties were cut and delivered to the Team Adjutant's room.
Team members Wigger, Pool and Anderson with Elfi Anschütz 

The following year, the big championship for the USA team was the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada.  Dieter and Elfi were there to cheer on the USA team that dominated the shooting events in those Games.  When the 1968 Olympics were in Mexico City, Dieter and Elfi were once again there with their beloved shooters.

By 1969, after Gary graduated from San Francisco Theological Seminary, he and Ruth Ann decided to spend a year in Germany where they could live in a German community where no English was spoken and absorb German traditions and shooting customs.   Dieter Anschütz learned about Gary and Ruth Ann’s decision to live in Munich and during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City; he spoke with Konrad Pfeil, the Shützenmeister (Club President) of the largest shooting club in Munich, the Hauptschützengellschaft (HSG), about this.  Konrad quickly made arrangements for a subsidized, furnished apartment in a Munich suburb and invited Gary to become a HSG member.  In 1969, the HSG did not have any strong competition teams, but after a year of training with Gary, they became one of the dominant shooting clubs in Germany.  For Gary and Ruth Ann, this arrangement provided many wonderful opportunities to learn as much as possible about Germany and German shooting traditions.   

  

Membership card for the largest, and oldest shooting club in Munich

Gary and Ruth Ann visited Dieter and Elfi in their home in Ulm several times that year.    On one winter visit, we noticed that the wood burning in their warm and inviting fireplace was reject gun stocks!   Another visit in the summer of 1969 ended with a trip to the emergency room with one of the Anschütz boys.  By then Dieter and Elfi had two sons, Jochen and Ewe.  Dieter was not at home at the time, but we were visiting Elfi.    Their kitchen door had a glass panel that Ewe somehow managed to smash with his arm.   He suffered a deep gash on his arm and was bleeding profusely so we all jumped in our car to take Elfi, Ewe and Jochen to the hospital.  The VW Squareback we drove all over Germany in 1969 became an ambulance on that occasion!    Gary stayed with Elfi and Ewe in the ER while Ruth Ann entertained Jochen in the waiting area.

During that year in Germany, Gary and Ruth Ann were both trying to learn German.  After their language skills progressed, Elfi and Ruth Ann spent many days on the shooting ranges together, with Elfi speaking in German and Ruth Ann speaking in English and both understanding each other very well. 

  

Ruth Ann and Elfi

In 1997, the Anderson Family (Gary, Ruth Ann, son Erik, daughter Kirsten and her husband Ken) visited the Anschütz factory again.    When walking through the factory, we discovered Gary’s picture posted on the workbench of one the gunsmiths.    Gary and Ruth Ann had seen the same pictures in 1965, and they are still there today.

Ruth Ann points out the pictures on the the factory workbench.    Top picture, Gary with Dieter's father Max, and bottom picture, Gary in competition with an Anschütz rifle

Gary with Dieter in his office in Ulm.   

The Anschütz company was founded by Dieter’s  great- grandfather, Julius Gottfried Anschütz, in 1856.  It was originally located in the Thuringian city of Zella-Mehlis, about 10 km from Suhl, which was the arms making capital of Germany through World War II.  Julius Gottlieb Anschütz enlarged the company several times and employed around 550 workers in 1935. 

  

The original Anschütz factory in Zella-Mehlis

When Thuringia became part of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) after 1945, the company was shut down and completely dismantled.   The evacuation of the Anschütz family to the west part of Germany after the war prevented their arms making genius from being used by the communists, but the company’s equipment was expropriated and lost.   In 1950, the company was re-established in Ulm, with 7 workers.   The number of employees rose quickly to 250.  The re-establishment of the company after the war was due to the overwhelming will of the brothers Max (Dieter’s father) and Rudolf Anschütz.   In their new surroundings they led the company to new successes and proved to be veritable successors of their grandfather.   Dieter took over the company in 1968.    He retired in 2008 and today the firm is headed by Dieter’s son Jochen.

The Anschütz factory today in Ulm, Germany

When Dieter took over the company in 1968, the Berlin Wall had been up for 7 years.  It represented a despised physical barrier as well as a symbolic boundary between communism and democracy during the Cold War.     The wall came down on November 9, 1989.  By then Gary had been retired from active international shooting competition for 20 years and had become a leader in the ISSF where he was especially active in promoting international shooting competitions as a way to bring the youth of these two divided systems together.  Just two months after the Berlin wall came down, Dieter presented Gary with two pieces of the Wall mounted on a base and entwined with barbed wire.   The pieces were taken from the wall by a target shooter from the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. The presentation was made at the Shot Show in January 1990 during a Sport Writer’s Breakfast.  

Dieter presents "Two Pieces of the Berlin Wall" to Gary in 1990

The inscription on the memento reads:

"Building People"

On November 9, 1989 the infamous Berlin Wall fell.  Constructed on August 13, 1961 it was a barrier that tyranny had erected between the subjugated peoples of the East and the free peoples of the West.  These pieces were taken from that wall in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin.

This is presented in appreciation to Gary L. Anderson for his untiring efforts as a leader to promote international understanding among young people through shooting competition.  It is a memorial to one of the most significant events in our time and his contribution to it.

J.G.Anschütz GmbH 

January 18, 1990

“International sports competition including shooting competition is one of the great ways to tear down misunderstanding among peoples and build peace.” (-Gary L. Anderson, US Olympic Gold Medalist.)  

Gary later told Dieter that it was a “tremendous honor” to share with him the joy and emotion that resulted from the breaking of the Berlin Wall and the tearing down of the iron curtain.    The Anschütz firm has always represented perfection and attention to detail, but more importantly it strived to help bring shooting sport communities all over the world together.   This gift from Dieter and Elfi Anschütz has become one of the Andersons’ most prized possessions.  We are so honored to count them among our closest international friends.