this has become most interesting, we seem to have almost exactly the same design being used by the USA, Holland, Japan and Germany all about the same time near the beginning of ww2. wonder who else was using them.
i've been holding back a tidbit of info to see what developed.
after i had bought the item, i'd had it for about 10 yrs. when i saw that cold steel had made what appeared to be a copy, i found what looked much like it listed as a US navy cutlass, then came across one of them with a cut down guard which had been apparently a captured dutch version modified & reissued by the japanese in se asia, then i saw the references to the dutch klewang origin & it appeared to be a direct match, so i've thought of it as dutch since.
However, when i had initially purchased it here in the UK, i was told that it was a german cutlass 'liberated' by a british MTB officer from a german e-boat (Schnellboot or S-Boot) they had captured during ww2. as i had a father-in-law who had been a MTB captain in the war & lost a leg in battle against an s-boot, it seemed fated to come home with me.
this had seemed less likely up till now after the later developements. however, seems like there was a bit of cross cultural drift of the design to both sides; the very last gasp of the edged sword-length weapon in actual combat issue and all sides used the same one?
edited:
further fodder:
This Link seems to indicate some of the earlier pre-war ones were made in germany (solingen) for the original designer, General Van Heutsz, prior to them being made in hemburg. as they said there , it's an enigma wrapped in a conundrum.