Retrieved 15 February 2017.1) SIG SAUER MODEL P232. "Walther Splits with Smith & Wesson. Mostly".
^ Walther-Werke (in German), KZ Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, retrieved, Seit diesem Zeitpunkt stellten Häftlinge Pistolen und Karabiner (Metallwerke Neuengamme, Zweigbetrieb des thüringischen Waffenherstellers Carl Walther.
Harrisburg, PA: The Military Service Publishing Company. Archived from the original on 16 November 2018.
^ "Innovationsregion Ulm: Carl Walther".
In 2012, the PW Group formed a new subsidiary, Walther Arms, Inc., located in Fort Smith, Arkansas, to take over distribution of Walther arms in the United States. In 1999, the US based Smith & Wesson company became the authorized importer for Walther Firearms. The German Walther company is known as Carl Walther Sportwaffen. who continued to manufacture under the Walther name in Ulm and Arnsberg. In 1993, the Walther firm was acquired by Umarex Sportwaffen (now part of PW Group) of Arnsberg, Germany. When Fritz Walther died in December 1966, his son, Karl-Heinz, took over the company, which then concentrated on the sports sector. The company resumed production of the P38 (renamed the P1) in 1957 in order to equip the new West German Army, the Bundeswehr, with sidearms. Fritz Walther started anew and began manufacturing in Ulm, West Germany in 1953. With his factory destroyed in World War II and Zella-Mehlis in the Soviet occupation zone, Walther was reduced to just a collection of designs and patents. The Hannover-Ahlem subcamp of Neuengamme concentration camp after liberation, 11 April 1945įrom 1942 until 1945, the company used slave labour at the Neuengamme concentration camp, and operated its own factory at the camp. In 1938, Nazi Germany awarded the contract for that replacement to Walther for the 9mm P38. The PP models were the first mass-produced pistols with stamped parts, but the overall increase in dependability and high quality of production with lower relative manufacturing costs made them the best option to replace the P-08 Luger. This was followed in 1931 by the first of the PPKs ( Polizeipistole Kriminalmodell, or Police Pistol Detective Model). In 1929 they began to make the popular Walther PP Polizeipistole (police pistol) models. Its rarity has made it highly sought after on the collectors market. It used blowback rather than a locked breech and proved unsuccessful, with only around 1,000 made. The Model 6 was Walther's first attempt at a 9mm Luger pistol. Models 1 to 5 and 7 to 9 were in calibers. It was not until 1908 that, under the initiative of Fritz Walther, the oldest son of Carl Walther, they began to make pistols. Then in 1888, he married Minna Georgine Pickert, daughter of Christian Friedrich Pickert, from the well-established revolver manufacturer "Arminius Waffenwerk", in the same town. The company originally manufactured hunting and target rifles. This small shop was established in 1886 in Zella-Mehlis, in what is today Thuringia. It was the granddaughter of Gustave Wilhelm Pistor who married August Theodore Walther whose son Carl Wilhelm Freund established the factory that employed apprentice Carl Walther. This plant was operating in 1780 and made pistols and other weapons. Pistor is the ancestor of the Walther family. The history of Walther started with the factory created by Matthias Conrad Pistor who was the chief armorer of the Kassel Armory.