Erma Werke

Berthold Geipel’s Erfurter Maschinenfabrik bought Heinrich Vollmer’s submachine gun designs in the early 1930s and turned them into the EMP series, and from there into the weapon the German army adopted in 1938. After 1945 the company was rebuilt in Bavaria and spent forty years on rimfire sporting arms and replicas before entering bankruptcy proceedings in 1997. The brand passed through Merkel and Heckler & Koch and no longer appears on firearms.