MG34 Waffenwerke Brünn A.-G. (dot) 1945 Czech assembly Post WW2, exported to England. :
- It's quite certain that the MG34 program continued for several months after the war, but that it was mainly assembly work with no major parts produced.
- As the city of Brno was never bombed by the Allies during the Second World War, it survived the war without too much damage, and production must not have been much affected by the fighting in the area. By the end of the war, the factory must have held a number of weapons ready for shipment to the front, as well as weapons that had not yet been completed or assembled.
- Reports from other factories captured by the Allies mention huge stocks of parts and guns, which were never used in combat.
- And the Czech army used the MG34 for a few years before the Communists came to power in 1948.
- From these MG34 stocks, the Czechs delivered several purchasers (customers), including an estimated 4,000 MG34s to Israel.
- The bipods frequently found on these weapons are ZBvz26 bipods. It is not known whether they were manufactured during the war or not.
- We also know that the post-war Czech small arms industry used aluminum handles. And it's highly unlikely that wartime Germany would have used such a strategic material as aluminum for grips that have always been made of wood or bakelite (plastic). Aluminum handle panels have also been observed on MP40, MG34S and MG42 models, with the same conclusion - that they were manufactured after the war.
- Speculatively, we could say that by the end of the war, no more MG 34 bipods would have been delivered to Brno, as transport routes would have been interrupted or the bipod manufacturers would already have been occupied by Allied troops. Brno would therefore have had to resort to bipods of its own production.
