Use of 1871 Mauser Black Powder Cartridge Rifle in 1944-5?

I'm reading Anthony Beevor's The Battle of Arnhem. On page 162 he wrote: "Many of them were armed with rifles froom the First World War and even, Harmel claimed, from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870." Beevor cites as his source: B'Archives MA N756 162. Oberst Harmel commanded "railway security guards, a few local militia, members of a police band, a few scattered SS men, and other units' that defended Nimijen.

Can anyone else confirm the use of the 1871 in WW II? I can't see an old rifle like that used outside of Germany and by anyone other than the Volksturm. The book "Crack! Thump" mentions an old German dressed in his hunting clothes and who fired his flintlock, missed and was sent home by the GI (who broke the rifle on a tree ).