World War II was a massive undertaking and had repercussions across the world, including for the soldiers that were lucky enough to come home at the end. Many of those soldiers brought home the spoils of war, as it would be, in the shape of foreign firearms they had captured from the enemy combatants. One of my ancestors was no different, supposedly bringing home a Walther P38 pistol from a German soldier.
The family story was that my great uncle had gotten the 9mm Walther P38 pistol off a dead German officer somewhere in Germany. But unfortunately for the family, he was notoriously tight-lipped about where he served or what battles he was in, so there was no easy way to verify what he said. Not that we didn’t believe him; I was just hoping for further verification of the lineage of the pistol. All we knew is that he was a tank driver in Patton’s division. (As a side note, I completely understand him not wanting to talk about what he experienced. I can’t imagine the things he could have seen.)
Thankfully, I still have access to check out the Walther P38 and check the serial number and markings on it. Looking into that one pistol would lead me down a rabbit hole and lead to other pistols I didn’t know I could get my hands on as well. As a self-proclaimed history nerd, I loved the journey I went on. So, here’s what I learned.
Why did the P38 happen?
The Walther P38 came around with the rearming of the German military forces after World War I. For those that may have forgotten, Germany was ordered to disarm a majority of their military forces as a punishment for their actions around World War I. The German military wanted to replace the very popular Luger pistol since it was expensive to manufacture, and they wanted a design that was more modern while being easier to produce.
In 1938, the Wehrmacht (the German defense force) adopted the design submitted by Carl Walther Waffenfabrik, dubbing it the Pistole 38 or the P38. The company already held the contracts for the PP (Polizeipistole) and the PPK (Polizeipistole Kurz), so it was natural that the company would submit for the new pistol design. The first submission prior to adoption was the Model MP (Militarishe Pistole) which was larger than the PP but was overpowered.
The second submission was the AM (Armee Pistole) which featured a delayed-blowback operation from a locked breech. It also featured a double/single action (DA/SA) fire control system, an internal hammer, and a 4-7/8” round barrel. The Heer (army) liked the design but wanted an exposed hammer so the soldier would have an option for manual cocking of the pistol. With a few minor changes to the design, it was adopted in 1938 and went into mass production in the 1940s until the end of the war.
What made the Walther P38 different from the Luger?
The Walther Pistole 38 (P38) was a major design jump forward for pistols when it was adopted and put into production. The first design feature that set it apart from the rest was that the Walther P38 was the first pistol to combine a locked breech with a double-action/single-action trigger. What this means is that it was the first pistol to have the first shot requiring a double action (cocking the hammer and then pulling the trigger to get the shot off (double action), but the cycling of the firearm after that initial shot would pull the hammer back automatically then subsequent shots would be single action. This design would be used by many other manufacturers until the advent of striker-fired pistols.
The second revolutionary feature of the Walter P38 was that it was the first pistol to have a loaded chamber indicator. The pistol had a small rod that would protrude out of the top rear of the slide when a round was loaded in the chamber. Also, the design incorporated the use of a wedge-shaped falling block that would lock the slide and barrel together until enough pressure had dissipated after firing for the slide to reciprocate safely. Essentially it would slow the slide down on recoil and keep it in place, at a fraction of a second, before allowing the slide to continue traveling rearward to cycle the weapon.
The pistol would also feature a recessed lanyard ring on the left grip panel and walnut grips on the original production. However, due to early war shortages, the grips would ultimately be made of Bakelite. The P38 had a fixed front blade sight with a fixed notched rear.
Production of P38
Over the course of the war, from 1938-1946, nearly 1.2 million Walther P38 pistols were produced for the German army. The pistol wasn’t made solely by Walther, however, Walther did produce the majority of the pistols, and it was manufactured by Mauser and Spreewerk factories as subcontractors.
Each manufacturer had its own markings that would be stamped onto the pistols to denote where they came from, aside from the obvious manufacturing differences. Additionally, each Walther P38 was inspected and if accepted by the German army, the pistol would have the eagle stamp added to it. The design of the eagle would depend on which manufacturer made it and when For example, Walther is an eagle with the number 359 under it, but Mauser’s design included the number 135 and looked different depending on when it was made.
The Walther-made P38 pistols would come to have an “ac” stamped on the frame and pieces along with a year and serial (ex.: ac44 for a 1944-made P38). During the course of the war, Walther produced nearly 600,000 Walther P38 pistols for the German army. Mauser had the “byf” series that produced over 300,000 pistols between 1942-1945, while the “SVW” series was manufactured between 1945 and 1946. The last company that manufactured the P38 was Spreewerk and its markings were “cyq” and they produced just under 300,000 pistols between 1942 and 1945.
War Time and Beyond
The Walther P38 may not have been as popular as the Luger to foreign soldiers as souvenirs, but it was far more reliable in the field. On top of that, the P38 was issued to far more troops during WWII than the Luger, since the P38 replaced the Luger as the standard issue for the German army. So, the commonly held story in the family of the pistol being a war take-home is not that far-fetched.
After the war, there were replicas of the P38 created, to the amount of around 600,000 units. The pistol remained Germany’s service pistol of choice well into the 1990s when it was replaced by the P1 pistol. With the growing popularity of the P38, Walther attempted variants including a .38 Special, .45 ACP, and a .22LR version. Obviously, those didn’t take off when compared to the 9mm original.
Evaluation of the P38
In looking at the markings of the pistol, I was able to ascertain that given the markings, the pistol was indeed a bring-back from WWII, and most certainly was a German army-issued sidearm. The serial number on the frame matched the serial number on the slide as did the military markings and the manufacturing markings. The pistol was the 164th Walther P38 produced at the Walther plant in 1944, which is pretty neat to narrow down.
When discussing the pistol with a collector I know, they showed me their collection of P38s, as well as Lugers, and some 1911A1 pistols used by Allied forces. It was great to see all the different variations in the markings and pinpoint where these pistols were manufactured and how they looked and functioned when compared to the Luger. The collector helped provide some more information regarding their pistols and lead me further in my research.
When I realized the family story was accurate, I was able to narrow down the timeframe of when the relative came across the pistol, given historical information and his role in the army. Since the pistol was a general army-issue weapon, I can’t say for certain it came from an officer but it definitely came from a German soldier of some type. The timeline lends itself to the Allied push toward Germany in the last half of 1944 and into 1945. All in all, it’s a great heirloom and story to pass on.
