Hello,

I would like to comment on this matter that many German soldiers reported after the war that the advantage of Russian submachine guns was, that they were specially designed for the conditions of war under "Russian circumstances" (extreme cold, snow and mud in the weapon mechanics). So they still worked at -20 degrees and with a lot of pollution. Under these conditions, the German MP 38/40 showed permanent malfunctions.

In addition, the German side often had problems with the ammunition supply. Russian ammunition, on the other hand, could be easily found in the bags of every Russian prisoner or fallen soldier.

I have a book here, written by an old german veteran...he wrote: "In spring 1944 we often organized counter-attacks against russian positions, just to conquer ammunition and food from the russians."

Many "foreign weapons" were also regularly issued to the Wehrmacht divisions in 1940, which were then build up (so-called 3rd wave). There was simply not enough equipment available to equip these new divisions, so Austrian, Czech and British weapons (captured in Poland) were given to these units. Since there were only limited stocks of ammunition for this weapons, they were mostly replaced by German weapons until autumn of 1941.

Just to tack onto what others have said, you are right to have the suspicion that the NSDAP supporters (as we officially call the WWII "Germans" here in Berlin) well known notions of cultural superiority carried over to the belief in their equipment types compared to what they perceived as their historical "Slavic" enemies prior to the invasion. However on the Eastern Front this only lasted until the Autumn of 1941, when designs such as the T-34, KV-1, and other such sophisticated inventions made it abundantly clear that Soviet equipment could be useful when needed.