Hi Historians,
This dagger was recovered by my great uncle while fighting for the US Army in the European theater of WWII. He told us he got into hand-to-hand combat with a Nazi officer, and after killing him took the dagger as a trophy. We are not 100% sure where or when this was, but my grandfather told us he thought it was in the Hedgerows in 1944 before he passed a few years ago.
I was wondering if /r/AskHistorians can tell me anything about the dagger, such as who might of been carrying it (i.e. unit or rank), its significance, what the inscription means (I think it may be the firm that manufactured it), or anything else someone might know. I may cross-post to /r/WhatIsThisThing but this is one of my favorite subreddits, so I figured I might try here first since I knew what it is and it's a historical artifact!
Link to Imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/8ngMW
So I did some searching online and the closest thing I could find to the particular dagger you have is this. The manufacturer on the blade is different than your dagger's, but they vary a lot. Here's another website that shows a dagger very similar to yours, with yet another manufacturer.
As far as I can tell from the pictures, your dagger seems to be a 1st Model Luftwaffe Officer's Dagger. There are a bunch of manufacturers, and the one on your dagger is listed here (just scroll down to L, it's the first picture). There seems to be a lot of variance with materials used for the dagger and for it's scabbard, both of which are rather hard to tell from your pictures. My best guess would be a 1st Model Luftwaffe Officer's Dagger though.