I hope many others will post their historical photos of Mosin-Nagant rifles in use before 1941. Here's the next:
A 100 year old photo of World War I too. A German Landsturm private too. He is from Landsturm-Infanterie-Bataillon Auerbach, XIX. (2. Königlich Sächsisches) Armee-Korps (peacetime location: Leipzig) with a Imperial Russian Mosin-Nagant 1891 infantry rifle, type from 1909 to 1918 with steel cross bolt and sling slots in the stock, old type barrel bands.
The way he holds his Mosin-Nagant is the typical way German "Jäger" were instructed to hold their rifles in comfortable position. Most probably this guy was in a Jäger-Bataillon in his national service before he joined the Landsturm. "Jäger" were the better educated infantry man, knowing more about camouflage, shooting from all positions, shooting while moving and so on ... the "Elite" at that time.
The Landsturm troops were German units consisting of older but defense capable man that automatically joined the Landsturm after their regular national service and were only called to military exercises or when it is war.
There are 2 interesting points for Mosin-Nagant collectors:
1. The Germans didn't used/issued all Mosin-Nagant rifles that they captured. In WWI in Germany there were many gigantic military warehouses full with captured weapons of all enemy nations. They captured a lot Mosin-Nagant rifles
BUT just a few thousand were really used/issued by/to German units. The biggest part of them were just laying in German military warehouses for all the time in WWI. Regrettable, because it can be a tactical advantage to proceed against Russia while using Russian rifles ... Captured rifles were only issued to second-rate military units.
2.
Nearly all German captured Mosin-Nagant rifles that were really used/issued by/to German units in war
were issued to the Landsturm. Landsturm units used many older German rifles like the Gewehr 88.
Sebastian