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The East Germans may have been where StG-44s that wound up in Iraq orginated: I remember seeing some news footage of a raid on a cache near Najaf, and instead of the expected AKs, there were a number of StG-44s found. Hopefully, the unit that captured the weapons knew what they'd found, and sent one or two back home to the divisional museum, and maybe gave the rest to SOF.
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They were, indirectly. During the very early Cold War they handed over StG-44s to the Syrians and various other fraternal socialist brothers in the Middle East and Africa. The ones that turned up in Iraq were most likely the results of various people within the Syrian government paying that gesture forward.
There were enough StG-44s still in (maybe semi) official government service in different nations that the DDR was making 7.92x33 ammo for them up to the point where the walls came down. (Along with the Yugoslavians, who were still using them in some limited way, as well.)
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That said, I have to say, even old and abused, the StG was remarkably good in CQB.
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The one I got to play with was here in the US, but I have to agree, +/- the metal handguards getting hot enough to fry bacon after relatively limited use. Either a design flaw, or an intentional feature to discourage German troops equipped with them from throwing the thing on auto and burning through their whole basic load of ammo in the first two minutes of an engagement.