WW2 German soldiers military comissioned bicycle

[Barkeep]

I found this bike down the street on craigslist and sounded interesting. The mans father was stationed in germany in ww2 and around V.E. Day traded his side arm to a german soldier for his bike. He had trouble getting it shipped back so he brought it back on a war ship. The gentleman went back to germany in the 60s and bought some continental tires for it and never put them on.

So I bought the bike and have started a mild cleanup/preservation till I can find more info..... I know it is a torpedo werke and the hub is dated 39 M, with a serial number of 674512.
It appears to have been made a truppenfahhrad (military commissioned soldiers bike) by the german soldier with many of the associated parts as per german military specs.
If anyone has any info or pictures let me know, and on to some pics!!!

First time home, took a while to figure out that series of rods was a front brake

After a cleaning, greasing, install of nos tires, and rebuilding of bosch dynamo and headlight.

 

[Barkeep]

Here are some more pictures of some neat parts. Most all the heavy duty items are stamped wih the corect german military markings such as the rack, wheel lock, ect.

Inside the bosch light were the og instructions...

Rod brake components...

Dated rear hub 39 M...

And a really cool rear wheel lock with key...

And one last "as found"

 

[Wing Your Heel]

German

Thanks for sharing with us Barkeep. Nice bike - and strange to see it in Texas

I believe the general rule of thumb is that official german military bikes had black components (eg hub). But through the course of the war there was such a shortage of transportation that German soldiers requisitioned any bikes available.

You don't see so many pre-war bicycles made by Torpedo-Werke these days, but Torpedo hubs are very common - which were not made by Torpedo, but by Fichtel & Sachs.

Torpedo started out in 1896 making wheels, then typewriters from 1906 (they became part of Remington Rand in 1931). Not sure when cycle production started.

Here's a WW1 German bicycle photo

 

[sam]

This bit of history is on the web about the hub
http://yarchive.net/bike/torpedo_hubs.html