Just a cursory search mind you, but it appears that Karl Kappes was a shotshell(Schrotpatronen) peddler in Berlin sourcing inland Germany in 1910 and maybe the name was Kappes & Bauer. By the end of WWI in 1919, Karl Kappes expired & Karl Bauer bought into the concern and the name evolved to Bauer & Compagnie. Karl had a son named Gustav who looks to have operated a satellite office in Wroclaw, Poland. And in 1927?, Gustav Genschow & Compagnie absorbed KaBa/Waffenhändler Karl Bauer & Compagnie and the name propagated till WWII. Now there were several Bauer mechanics, but Gustav Bauer had an apprentice named Kurt Seidler and after he attained his master mechanic's sheepskin, he continued some leg of the KaBa empire in the 1930s? Quite a KaBa Gordian Knot that needs to be unwound @ some point.
http://www.germanhuntingguns.com/archives/gustav-genschow-co-geco/Cheers,
Raimey
rse
