ORAL HISTORY OF THE CAPTURE
The vet who originally captured the
gun was a tanker in WWII and said that he took the pistol from a guard on the
first day of the siege at Suhl. He said that everybody had these pistols and
after the "ground pounders" established themselves there
were non combat related casualties due to too many people who need direct
supervision with too much time on their hands and a surplus of these
pistols and ammo.
He said most of these pistols were
destroyed by order of the commanding
officer after a series of injuries and deaths caused by careless
use.
HISTORICAL FACTS ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
This pistol was developed in 1939 before the beginning of the war at the
instigation of Fritz Sauckel, the Gauleiter of Thuringia. Sauckel was the
founder and patron of the Gustloff-Werke, formerly the Simson-Werke, in
Suhl. The weapon combined elements of the Walther PP and the Sauer 38H.
It was supposed to replace the Walther PP as the service pistol of the NSDAP and the SS. However, due to a shortage of material it never progressed beyond the experimental stage, although Hitler as well as Himmler each received a prototype. The few known authentic pieces were all produced with differing technical equipment and in various materials like cast zinc.
Sauckel was hanged Oct 1946 for war crimes with the part he played in the
slave labor project. He planned on using slave labor from Buchenwald to
produce this pistol.