Gustloff-Werke
 

I was lucky enough to get this pistol from a real Gentleman.

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/gustloffwerke.jpg

Nice score! You can't just walk down to your corner Gustloff-Werke store and pick up one of these. The slide is a little spotty but still good and the grips are great. They appear to be Bakelite, most of the ones I have seen are wood.

The vet 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.

I've never even heard of these, and can't find them mentioned in my books. Anybody have a reference reference?

Dave
There is a nice writeup in Hogg's Pistols of the World.Apparently very few were made since it was a prototype 1938-1939 and then abandoned. Bill

David,

I'm not sure there is much about the gun out there as it never really went into production. Here is a little history.

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 & Sohn Model 38. 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, stainless steel etc.

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.

Mark

Bob Adams seems to be quite the G-W collector. Has a few on his web site and even photo'd one with bakelite grips :

http://www.adamsguns.com/gustloff.htm

And Horst Held has this one for sale...pretty high price considering it came for much less via Herman Historica auction in DE :

http://www.horstheld.com/0-Gustloff.htm

Interesting stuff. Fortunately I don't have an extra $16K.

My pistol didn't cost anywhere near that price.

I also received news yesterday that the estate has found the capture papers and second spare matched numbered mag. I have the holster as well and will post more photos of the complete "rig" once I get the papers and spare mag.

'Quite a find" Really something to come up with the capture papers & spare mag. Congratulations

Ah, glad you got this here too. Just wondering what some Luger guys thought too.

I'm gonna post a thread on the Tom Knox NAPCA forum (as well as here) when I get the rest of my photos together with the holster, capture papers and spare matched mag. Also a brief oral history of the capture.

Pete, I saw that Adams had the Gustloff info on his website, I emailed last year at some point, wanting to see what he might shed on the "Simson" connection; never received a reply back.


ed

Ed,

Maybe Bob is saving this good stuff for his book...;)

Bob is usually at Tulsa...you might want to drop in and chat with him in October at Tulsa...

Info. on Fritz :

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...y/Sauckel.html

http://www.nndb.com/people/921/000087660/

I just received the capture documents and spare matched mag, here is a scan of the papers. The second paper is one I have never seen before.

I'll post photos of the entire rig this weekend.

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/gustloffdocs.jpg

Very nice find! Interesting reading.. looking forward to see pictures of the rig

Here are the rest of the photos.

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload...ke_holster.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload...werke_mags.jpg

Wow amazing score Mark! I have a close friend who owns one.. it is currently on display at the NRA museum...