Fall 2026 Militaria and Aviation Auction
Lot 116:
Description
WWII German Sprengmine 35 (S-Mine 35) "Bouncing Betty" Casing Component – Ground-Dug Battlefield Relic, Inert and Deactivated, Circa 1935-1945 Offered here is a casing component recovered from a German Sprengmine 35, the notorious bounding anti-personnel mine that Allied troops came to know as the "Bouncing Betty." As with most ground-dug ordnance relics, no individual recipient, unit, or excavation provenance attaches to this piece; its significance rests entirely in its identification as a widely feared and instantly recognizable item of Wehrmacht ordnance production, offered here for its historical and study interest. Developed in the mid-1930s and produced in quantity through the end of the war, the S-Mine 35 was engineered so that a tripwire or pressure-actuated fuze fired a small propelling charge that launched the inner canister roughly three to five feet into the air before the main charge detonated, scattering approximately 360 steel balls or scrap-metal fragments across a lethal radius. This bounding action made it uniquely feared among Allied infantry, and it was sown extensively along the Atlantic Wall fortifications, throughout the North African desert campaigns, and across the shifting lines of the Eastern Front. Veterans’ accounts from multiple theaters repeatedly single out the S-Mine as among the most psychologically damaging weapons encountered in the war, and its notoriety has made excavated examples a perennial subject of ordnance-relic and militaria collecting.
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