WALTHER FACTORY AT THE END OF WW2 (1945) DIGGING into WALTHER PPs, PPKs, P.38s, PRE-1946 WALTHER PISTOLS

Hey guys and welcome to another video. This one is part of our educational series on Walther PPs and PPKs. I usually like to show you a gun and then tell you a story. Today, I'm going to reverse it. I'm going to tell you a story and then show you some guns, mostly Walther PPs and PPKs. The story is, what happened to the Walther Factory at the end of the war. 

Big Thank You To Ron
It's a great story and actually I want to thank Ron Clarin, who is a moderator for the P38 Forum on the internet. If you look at the P38 Forum, he's a moderator on there and he did a lot of research on what happened to the Walther Factory at the end. And that really came out of the fact that his uncle was in the 90th Infantry Division and was one of the people who occupied the factory at the end of the war. So he gathered a lot of this research and actually got some of the vets to tell stories and write letters. I'm going to go over some of that with you. So I printed off what he put together. It's an article online and this is…it's like, I don't know how many pages, but it's a lot of research that he put together about the Walther Factory.
 

The Walther Factory History

The Walther Factory History

You can see a picture here of the Walther Factory. It was actually many buildings, it was a sprawling complex which became more and more busy during the war years and certainly toward the end of the war. It was the 90th Infantry Division and the 11th Armored Division that rolled up to the Zella-Mehlis Town and Factory on April 4th of 1945. So right at the end of the war, April 4th they rolled in. A lot of different units rolled in and rolled out over various times. There's letters from different people who came in. What I noticed, is nobody stayed there very long, that these troops were constantly on the move. But the first elements that came into the factory they said they were met by… as they went into the town of Zella-Mehlis, which was actually two towns that had been combined, Fritz Walther - the head of the Walther Factory and the Mayor of the town, I think they called him the Burgermeister, they actually met the Americans at the entrance of the town and told them that they surrendered. They of course had been told by the SS to fight to the last man.

Everybody was to sacrifice their life for the fatherland. They had in fact three divisions of Volkssturm which were actually…you seen pictures of the young boys, sometimes girls and older men, people who are not able to be in the army yet, they were called the Civil Defence League Volkssturm and they were told to defend to the last man. Now actually there were many battles where the Volkssturm did fight to the last man, particularly in Berlin and it was basically carnage because they were out-gunned and out-manned. But when they came to this town and several other towns the Mayor of the town would just surrender, just to keep all those young boys and women and older men from being killed; and plus he knew the town would be destroyed. The Armored Division and the Infantry would have completely overwhelmed and destroyed the town. So they were trying to avoid that. 

The Reluctant Nazi

The Reluctant Nazi

We actually did a video called The Reluctant Nazi that had a similar story where the Mayor and Hans Plesch surrendered the town of Munich, the entire city of Munich so a much bigger city. So that that happened in some of the circumstances, some of the Nazis were actually giving up and some of them did give their life. We'll do another video about some of the party leaders. 

The Surrender

So when Fritz Walther and the Mayor surrendered the town, they actually took the Mayor in a jeep and they drove him around the town. They said it was like a ghost town when they first came in. There's actually letters here that described, the town was like a ghost town, there was nobody there. The Volkssturm actually exited, they left the city to go fight someplace else or go back home to their mommies. I'm not sure but they left the town, the place was a ghost town. But the Mayor, they took the Mayor all around the town with a loudspeaker saying surrender come forward. And they said people just came out of the houses waving white flags in surrender. 

Great Strategy to Get Souvenirs

Great Strategy to Get Souvenirs

They got to the factory and one of the first things they did is they wanted to get the Walther Brothers, Fritz Walther had several brothers, I think it was three brothers who all worked at the factory, they all surrendered. They drove them to their homes and asked them to surrender their weapons which I think was pretty strategic in terms of getting souvenirs; because they said their houses were filled with all kinds of treasures of engraved guns and rifles and presentation pieces. I actually have seen guns, very expensive guns that had notes saying this came from one of the Walther Brothers homes at the end of the war. So the GIs brought them home. It's often not well documented, so I've always been sceptical, how would you know unless you had the serial numbers. But they did… The Walther Brothers surrendered all their weapons as did most of the town.
 

The Invasion of the Factory

The Invasion of the Factory

So then the guys begin to go into the factory and what happened was the first guys that came through just started grabbing guns. I actually have letters, I'll read a few, where they just started grabbing things and sticking them in their bags or their pockets. Four and five guns at a time, getting what they could. Again, they rolled in and out, so they got what they could but then they had to leave when the next group came in. They actually began to post guards. Post guards for one reason, the slave laborers, actually foreign Polish… Mostly foreign Polish laborers who there's about a thousand of them, they wanted to destroy the equipment, that's documented.

They wanted to destroy the equipment so the American army had to post guards to protect the Walther Family from being killed, it actually says that they wanted to kill the Walther Family, and to protect the equipment because they wanted to… There was a lot of prototypes and a lot of blueprints that they wanted to see what technologies that Walther was working on. I actually read one letter that said they found a robot flying machine, today we would call that a drone, but evidently Walther was experimenting with radio technology drones. So pretty cool stuff.  And intelligence units came in. They talked about that, the intelligence units came in to question some of the workers about some of the new designs. So that was all part of the capture of the Walther Factory.
 

They Grabbed Anything They Could

They Grabbed Anything They Could

So when I read some of these letters, I'll just pull out some highlights, but they talked about going through the factory and you can hear the amazement in their voice about all the weapons they found. Again, it's a huge complex and they just went from building to building with thousands and thousands of guns. I actually…a friend of mine gave this to me, it's one of the souvenirs from one of the people that went through the factory. It's a piece of glass from… Broken glass. So it was probably a display case or something like that. And the GIs were just grabbing any souvenirs. So I could see somebody breaking a display case. This says Walther Waffen, so it came from the Walther Factory, a GI brought it home as a souvenir.
 
Sergeant Harry Schaeffer's Letter
So let me read one of my favorite letters from a Sergeant Harry Schaeffer who was there at the time and he recalls his story of being in the Walther Factory. We took the Walther Family and put them in the jail house to keep the liberated Polish slave laborers from killing them. I believe there was over a thousand of them that we liberated. I, Sergeant Harry Schaeffer, was guarding a prisoner who was a private until the OSS came to pick him up. They wanted him for interrogation. When they picked him up, I asked the translator to tell the prisoner that I was a Jew. When he heard this he broke down and cried. 

 

Sergeant Llewellyn's Story

So actually this was an interview that was written down with Sergeant Llewellyn and he talks about coming into the factory, that they surrendered and then he said, I took seven pistols these were PPS and PPKs. I took seven pistols from the factory that day. He told me that he realized he couldn't carry them all, so he handed five of them over to tank guys, must have been from the 11th Armored Division. Sergeant Llewellyn was in the 90th Infantry and he was handing out guns to the guys in the tanks. That was nice of him. He ended up with two that he put in his duffel bag to take home. He said later on when he looked at one gun had been stolen and so he was left with one more.  He gets a serial number, I actually looked up that gun and it would have been a Waffen PP from about 1943. So why it was in the factory? We're not sure, but it would have been a Waffen proof PP that he brought home with him.
 

A Large Find Documented by Joe Carey

A Large Find Documented by Joe Carey

Another GI by the name of Joe Carey, he'd actually must have been charged with doing inventory because he talks about finding a large cache of weapons. There were 1600 P38s, there were almost 5,000 PPs and PPKs, there were sniper rifles some with scopes and some without scopes, but they were about 2,000 of them put together and complete, probably K43s. There was also some experimental guns, including about 2000 machine guns in various stages of being assembled.


What Did They Actually Find in the Factory?

What Did They Actually Find in the Factory.

So what did they find when they came to the factory. I've got some guns here that were actually taken from the factory by the GIs. How do I know that? Well these have to have been in the factory. Here's two PPs, you'll notice it's kind of got crude machining, they have the wooden grips because the black plastic was in short supply. It required oil and of course they were running out of oil, it's a petroleum product. So they were making wood grips at that point. And what these two guns have in common if you look at the reverse, there are no proof marks. If you look at a common PP you'll see it has a proof mark in the ejection chamber and on the slide.

These have no proof marks. They also are marked AC, which was the code for the Walther Factory. On the side where there's usually was a legend, these are completely blank. So they skipped the legend, they skipped the proof marks, the GI said that they found P38s, PPs in crates ready to be shipped. All matching one would have been put together by the factory workers and ready to be shipped. The ones that are mismatched are considered correct mismatched, in that they may have been put together by GIs. Some people say the GIs didn't have time for that, and that actually the Polish workers were putting them together and giving them to the Americans as souvenirs and probably doing that for a pack of cigarettes or a loaf of bread. So they were working, putting together these mismatched PPs.
 

Let's Talk About the PPKs for a Bit

Now the PPKs, we need to talk about that a little bit because I know for…I'm sure that the PPs were produced all the way to 1945. But I believe PPK production stopped in about the middle of 1944. So there were some PPKs still in the factory but they were no longer being made. By the way, there was Model 6s in the factory, Model 9s, Model 4s, so guns that had ceased production were still in the factory. A lot of times there was something wrong with them, they were there for parts or they’re being repaired. We do find PPKs that were in the factory at the end of the war. 

No Serial Number, Why Number 53?

No Serial Number, Why Number 53

This one has no serial number. Again they put a 53 on there, probably it was number 53 put together by one of the Polish workers and he just marked it 53. No slide legend, no serial number other than the 53, no firing proofs. Now here's what's incredible about this one. The ejector you can see its fire blued. They only fireblued them in pre-war guns. So that one got to be a leftover part, we have a blued hammer, a blued trigger guard, we have a gray grip, beautiful gray grip that was made probably on around ’42 - ‘43 and a gray finger extension which is very rare. Of course at the end of the war they would have all been black. So was put together from parts and finally, one other cool piece is if you look at the safety it's actually engraved. So they got an engraved safety, a doral frame, put it on a steel slide and a great grip and brought this one home.
 

An Experimental Gun Picked Up by the GI

An Experimental Gun Picked Up by the GI

Another very rare gun that was picked up by the GIs was an experimental gun. And there were experimental guns and in particular the intelligence officers were interested in these experimental guns. This is a KPK. Very rare, I think there's only three that are known. 


History On The KPK

History On The KPK

This KPK, the theory is…and first of all they never went into regular production but the Germans worked on these for a bit. The theory is, and I heard this from Ian from Forgotten Weapons, great YouTube Channel if you want to check him out, he did a different KPK and his theory was, and I’m sure he heard it from somebody, that the idea was when you got, for tankers and for pilots, when you got in and out, this was tight fit and you catch this on the edge of the door or something and it gets the hammer, it could accidentally discharge theoretically, not sure if that's true, I won't try it out. So what they did is they just extended this back piece, so that it kind of protected it from accidental discharge. But it is a PPK frame, this one is actually aluminium doral and then the slide was altered and they called it a KPK. Again it has a Walther banner probably made sometime during the war but then never put into production. 

 

Where Did This Serial Number Come From?

Where Did This Serial Number Come From

This actually does have a serial number on it which is certainly not factory. My best guess is somebody wanted to bring it home and whoever was in charge that day said you can't bring it in without a serial number. That was not uncommon, I've heard that before. So they just stamped a number on there in order to import it into the United States. 

How Does It Have A Party Leader Grip?
Interestingly it has a party leader grip on it. This was not issued to a party leader. Again my…and look, this magazine doesn't even fit right. Looks like it was made for a different gun, and in fact it probably was. So my guess is this was in pieces at the end of the war, somebody just put it together. The frame may not have even been with the slide, so somebody found the slide put it on here, put together a magazine and found a party leader grip in the factory at the end of the war, stuck it on there because it looks really cool, and brought it home. So that was probably brought home by a GI.
 

What about the P38s?

What about the P38s

Those are some of the PPs and PPKs that were found in the factory, but what about the P38s. Now there's some P38 collectors that are highly insulted that I didn't start with P38. So I'm a member of the P38 Forum, so I love P38 as well, but my first love has always been Walther PPs and PPKs. This is from 1945. You can take a look and you'll see that it's dated ac45, AC Walther Factory, 45 is the year. And it's in the C block; which the C block would have been April.

They made about 10,000 guns per month and the C block would have been the month of April and since this was early April remember they came in on April 4th, this is number 1023. And you can see there's a combination of phosphated parts, you can see the slide release and the trigger are phosphated, the extractor is phosphated. Beautiful gun, beautiful grips but crude machining. We look at the right side of the slide, normally there would be three proofs. This one only has one which means it probably was never finished, certainly it was never issued and so we know this was picked up by the GIs at the end of the war and never issued in April of 1945.
 
More to Come
I hope you enjoyed this video. I have a lot more to say about end of war guns. I’ll do a separate one on some of the engraved guns that were picked up at the end of the war, including the one that belonged to Lieutenant Colonel James Sinclair. I'll talk a little bit about that one. All engraved guns that were found in the factory at the end of the war.

That's a Wrap
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