What Ever Happened To Hitler's Revolver?

A couple of points.

1. In almost any book written by Europeans, it's extremely common to have any handgun described as "a revolver" even when it was clearly an automatic.
I can't count the number of times I've read of German soldiers and police "drawing his revolver".
In Europe, especially Germany, "revolver" seems to be synonymous with pistol.
As example, like many senior Nazi's, Reinhard Heydrich carried a Luger.
A number of books written in Europe have Heydrich "drawing his revolver" and chasing the commandos who ambushed his car in Prague.

2. As a number of people who knew Hitler stated, he almost always carried a Walther PPK in a special pocket custom tailored inside his brown coat.
It was almost certainly this PPK that he took his own life with.
People who saw it said it was a plain non-engraved, more or less standard Walther that Hitler preferred because he saw himself as a soldier, and like all German officers, considered fancy pistols to be ostentatious and something no true soldier would carry.
As a soldier and not really trusting anyone, he was almost always armed, especially later in the war.

He did have any number of highly embellished pistols given to him as gifts, but he never actually used them.
One famous Walther PP with high level engraving and inlaid "AH" letters in gold was found in his apartment.

After his suicide, a German officer took his personal PPK and said that he would hide the gun away "for another day" meaning a Nazi resurgence.
That officer was apparently killed attempting to escape Berlin and no one knows what happened to the Hitler PPK.
Since it was an apparently plain gun with no special markings, it could be owned by an unsuspecting person who thinks it's just an ordinary Walther PPK or it could be rusting away under a Berlin street.

A quick search shows at least three other handguns, all pistols, that are purported to be Geli's suicide gun. At least the S&W Ladysmith is a different idea.

One line of research would be to follow up on Sivi through his family and U.S. Army records.

Jim

When Goering surrendered to Allied troops, He turned over his Smith & Wesson .38 revolver.

John

I once ran across a claim that Hitler did himself in with a Mauser zig-zag revolver. The claim is a somewhat dubious, but at least it was clearly a revolver in the story.

That is an odd article, part hero worship, part actual fact and part surmises or just plain guesses.

The main point seems to be that Hitler carried a .22 caliber S&W Ladysmith revolver for a good many years. OK. And that the piece was in his pocket during many episodes of his political career. OK. I have no problem with the idea of that.

But, in the article, the actual proof of that is kinda missing.

That the gun was found by Sivi and where it was found he has a trail of. That's true. But that Hitler loved that particular gun and carried it often and that gun is the one Hitler shot into the ceiling of the Beerhall putsch is murkier.

It is known that the Nazis' often awarded Walther PPs and PPKs as trophy guns to each other. Also known that Walther awarded one to Hitler.

On the Walther pistol given to Hitler...

However, the fact remains that by 1939, Hitler did not need to carry a gun because at this time he was guarded by the SS and didn’t need a personal gun and probably never even carried this Walther.

Click to expand...

Hitler may not have carried or used the particular engraved gun Walther gave him. I'm not sure anyone cares or offers proof that he did. But it is interesting that the author uses odd reasoning to argue that he didn't carry or have in his desk any pistol...the SS guarded him. The one thing has nothing to do with the other.

Anyway an odd article. The author clearly admires Hitler.

tipoc

Hitler was a very interesting guy. So were the other high ranking Axis forces. The history of WW2 is fascinating.

Hitler was not a gun person. Unlike Göring, he did not collect guns, or hunt, or have guns made for him. He, like many political agitators, carried one for personal protection in the early years, but reports are that he did not especially like guns or want them around. (Armed bodyguards "came with the territory", as they do for heads of state and many political personages.)

The missing areas here would be police evidence that such a gun was found at the suicide scene, that it showed up in registration records as belonging to Hitler, and/or that it was identified by a knowledgeable person as having belonged to Hitler. As of the end of the war, the police reports were still available and, since at that time Hitler did not have the absolute power he gained later, they have been accepted by historians as valid. The problem is that I don't have access to them, and secondary sources are notoriously unreliable. The statement by a distraught woman who had witnessed the destruction of her country and who is unlikely to have been a gun expert is simply not viable without supporting evidence. She might well have told the American conquerors anything she thought they wanted to hear.

Jim

More speculation and guesswork. And we don't KNOW that Hitler ever had a revolver of any kind, let alone an S&W Ladysmith, #709. We have only the writer's word that S&W sent that letter or that that gun went to France, and only speculation that Hitler somehow acquired it.

A general comment. A factory letter is about worthless unless the person involved requested and received it himself and knows that the gun cited is the one he has. With a little bit of work, I can produce a factory letter proving that my Colt M1911A1 was shipped to Julius Caesar or that my Model 19 was sold to Robert E. Lee.

Jim

No offense intended here, but the linked article is verbose to the extreme and rather poor at making any historical case. It is truly interesting to contemplate this tiny revolver as Hitler's and where it may now be. There isn't anything else here that I can discern. The allied soldier's account of finding it would be sufficient to generate at least modest collector interest.

Wow, I browsed other links in the site and it is shockingly pro hitler. They seem to try to play the "historian" card, but fail miserably. It is a shame people are so ignorant and hatefull