Hellrieger 1915

Last crawled date: 4 years ago

Little is known about the Standschütze Hellriegel Model 1915. The only source of information about the Hellriegel is several photographs stored in the photo archive of the Austrian National Library under the name “Maschinengewehr des Standschützen Hellriegel”. The photographs are dated October 1915 and they show the weapon being tested at a firing range. Its name and magazine size indicate that it was an automatic firearm, and its designer was someone named Hellriegel from the Austrian militia unit Standschützen, tasked with the defence of Tyrol and Vorarlberg regions of western Austria, the former bordered neutral Italy. It was most likely a prototype and therefore explains its unfinished look and design.