While S&S isn't my favorite maker, they are up there with the best of them- far and away better than the givernment owned firms (like anything the givernment involves itself in, they suck..), like Gustloff Werke, Steyr, etc..
Compare this to any Steyr or Gustloff, of the same period, and it is a gem.
Sauer was also the least nazi (the Sauer brothers waited till they had little choice to join the nazi party- 1937) and held a high quality outlook far beyond most others, - while both Mauser & Brno were to hold their standards to the highest longer, that was probably because they had more control over production being in-house manufacturers of their product.
This receiver is a little rougher with the milling marks, but why not place the blame on ERMA, who supplied this receiver? Most ce/43, even after this one, do not have these milling marks.
Anyway, if you like family run businesses, entrepreneurship, then it is hard to beat Sauer. As they were a family run company- at a time most weren't.. even though under the nazi system there was no real individualism or “real” private property as you made what you were told to make pretty much. To get the raw materials or the labor to make anything, you had to have the authorization to receive it.
Surprisingly, and many do not know this, but that was the case in the United States during the war as well.
FDR’s administration was about as totalitarian as we have ever seen, locking people up, givernment intervention in every facet of private industry, profit restrictions unimaginable 20 years before, massive “loans” to certain industries/companies (cooperation with certain companies to build certain facilities, explosives, armor plate, etc - key industries for war production where private industry had no incentive to enter, as what business will “invest capital” in something the profit is eliminated from or has no postwar commercial viability?) with all the regulations and intrusion that brings.
Anyway, as Mauser is the best maker, JP Sauer is the least repugnant company that made rifles for the nazi regime.
