Schusswaffen aus fünf Jahrhunderten

| 259 Born in 1938, Manfred Knothe has been an ardent collector from the early days of his youth when, as a small boy, he would fill his pockets with cartridges, shell cases and similar, war-related finds – the begin- ning of his lifelong passion for collecting. After studying physics, he worked as a research assistant at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, first in space exploration, later in applied research. In 2002, he and his team won the Academy Award for Technical Achievement and the Joseph-von-Fraunhofer-Preis for their innovative measuring devices. For more than twenty years, born of his fascination with technology and construction, Manfred Knothe acquired an outstanding collec- tion of early (pre-1910) self-loading pistols, plus the matching cart- ridges, clips and loading frames, patent specifications, assembly instructions and accompanying literature. He contributed his expertise not just to the "Waffen Digest" series published by Stocker- Schmid (Switzerland), but also to countless reference works of renowned authors, such as Josef Mötz and Joschi Schuy ("The Origins of the Automatic Pistol"), John Schroeder, Fred Datig and John Moss. Above all, not least thanks to his patriotism for his home region, his main area of interest was Bergmann pistols and their ammunition. Worldwide, the diversity of his extensive collection of Bergmann ammo boxes is second to none. For reasons of ill-health, Manfred Knothe is now disposing of his prized collection. The Manfred Knothe Collection PREFACE