POTD: Eva Braun’s Personal 6.35mm Ortgies Pistol
Sam.S 12.29.21
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have the ever-so-boring Ortgies pistol, but this one has a strange tie to World War II Germany. The Ortgies pistols are only typically deemed boring since they are a simple straight blowback using weak cartridges. They are incredibly common as bring backs from United States soldiers post World War II which is why they are very common today. The model made in 32 ACP was the most common. They hit the market in the late 1920s, but were later acquired buy a German government entity and further pursued.
“This pistol is documented as being the “One of A Kind”, personal 6.35mm pistol that was given to “Eva Bruan” personally by Adolf Hitler. This pistol itself is a rather plain and diminutive, Deutsche Werkes Ortgies semi-automatic that was made in 1939 and is not what you would expect from someone in her position, or one that was given by the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler. However the accompanying documents substantiate the historical lineage from the time it was removed from Eva Bruan’s house in Munich in 1945, by the Munich Chief of police to the present day consignor. It has been a known fact that Eva Braun carried a small 6.36mm pistol that was given to her by Adolf Hitler. The exact make and model of that pistol were generally unknown until this pistol and documentation surfaced. The original owner of this rare pistol was a Captain Showalter, (Ret.) who at the time was a 1st Lieutenant stationed in Germany in1945 and was responsible for overseeing the cleanup of left over war material in and around Munich.”
Lot 3350: Deutsche Werke Ortgies Pistol 6.35 mm auto. (n.d.). Rock Island Auction Company. photograph. Retrieved December 28, 2021, from https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/63/3350/deutsche-werke-ortgies-pistol-635-mm-auto.
