German-manufactured MG 08 machine guns were produced by the thousands for the German army and had horrific effects on Allied infantry in Europe, helping change warfare tactics during World War I and through World War II. Derived from Sir Hiram Maxim’s original 1884 invention and developed into a distinctive German pattern by 1908, the fully automatic MG 08 used a non-disintegrating cloth belt feed system, had short recoil, and enclosed its barrel in a watertight cooling jacket. It fired a 7.92x57mm Mauser shell at up to 4,000 yards at 450 rounds per minute and required a four-man crew to carry the gun, ammunition, and cooling water. It was held singularly responsible for trench combat and the smoldering French landscape called "No Man’s Land." One surviving gun was built in Berlin in 1918 and another in Spandau, Germany, in 1917. In Amsterdam, Ohio, these weapons were incorporated into a monument dedicated on September 2, 1929, honoring local men for their sacrifices in World War I, including 128 servicemen named on a bronze plaque and three dead: Vernon Lee Teeman, James James, and Konstanty Joseph Bojarski. The monument was built on donated land next to the former Amsterdam State Bank, unveiled by Mayor George L. Turvey and memorial committee president J.K. Smith, and dedicated with an address by Congressman Frank Murphy, supported by the Amsterdam Legion Post and local townspeople. In 1946, two more bronze plaques were added to honor 343 local men and women who served in World War II, including twelve who died: Wendell Brown, Byron Crumbly, Harvey Dillon, Clifford Edwards, Chester Budinski, J. Raymond Jurkiewicz, William Holligan, Robert Ritchie, Metro Repella, Edward Shanley, Jack Worthington, and Jay Wrikeman. In the spring of 2009, local citizens formed a new memorial committee to restore the weathered 1929 structure, which was relocated and rebuilt at Amsterdam Gazebo Park.