In late 1944, Siemens and I.G. Farben had developed medical lasers long before the US and such research led to SS attempts to develop a weapon from it. These never went past the drawing board stage and the SS tried to destroy all of its secrets, but the US captured many of them. Apparently the German laser weapon idea became a US laser rifle idea in the 1960s, by which time Federal Germany was allowed to build weapons and co-operated with the US Army on a range of ideas from attack helos to small arms. One of these weapons was the XLM-2, the second version of the XLM-1 laser rifle which was built in the US in 1963 by perhaps GE or another special military projects builder, but not a conventional small arms manufacturer AFAIK. The Germans were consulted on the basic design and the battery pack to operate this weapon which was more of an early dazzler than true laser rifle. It could fire 10,000 times, but the strength of the laser beam was nothing more than a mild annoyance to pojected US Cold War enemies like the Soviets, Cubans, or WP nations. And with a low range of just 1.5 km and no burning power whatsoever, the project was dropped. I have one pic below from a German magazine similar to Popular Mechanics for the time period, but am not certain if it is the XLM-2 or another US prototype. The fact that it is featured in the German mag makes me lean towards the XLM-2...

http://cdn5.thefirearmsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/lasergewehr-sut-1964.jpg