Glasmine 43

The Glasmine 43 was an anti-personnel mine used by the Germans during World War II. In order to make the mine less detectable, the entire body is made from glass. Aside from being less detectable, the use of less metal was beneficial because it saved this valuable war resource for other uses. At first, only mechanical igniters were used; with later models, chemical igniters would be used. Even today there still are minefields of the Glasmine 43 in the "Nationalpark Eifel". In 1944 and 1945 11 million mines were produced, at the end of the war 9.7 million were still in the stocks.