No.14, July 20, 1998

AN AMERICAN DEALER in North Carolina is offering for sale the two Walther pistols with which ADOLF HITLER killed himself. The Nazi Führer carried one with him at all times in the final hours before his death, and used both in his macabre suicide.

Cherry's Fine Guns, of Greensboro, is asking over $3 million for the pair; one a Walther PPK 7.65 calibre, was Hitler's suicide weapon, the other, a Walther Special Model 8, 6.35 calibre, is the gun used by Geli Raubal, Hitler's niece and lover, to commit suicide in his Munich apartment in September 1931.

[Reader's Letter on this item, September 9, 1998: click]

2.

German author Ulrich Völklein, has perused the Soviet interrogation records of Otto Günsche, Hitler's adjutant, and Heinz Linge, his valet. Echoing what he exclusively related to British historian David Irving in 1967 -- who donated copies of the Soviet interrogation records to German archives later -- Günsche said that he, Linge, and Martin Bormann entered the Führer's private rooms in the Berlin bunker when they smelt gunpowder.

Braun was lying on a sofa. Hitler's body was slumped over the right side of a chair.

Irving first described this in his book Hitler's War (The Viking Press, 1977).

"Blood was dripping from his right temple, a pool of blood was already on the carpet," Günsche testified to the Soviets, "It was immediately apparent that he had shot himself from his own pistol, a PPK 7.65mm which eight days previously after an emotional conference [on April 22, 1945] he had taken out of his bedside table and carried with him constantly, loaded."

3.

David Irving (left) interviews Otto Günsche in November 1982

Linge confirmed that he saw the PPK 7.65 on the floor to the right of Hitler's body, and the 6.35 next to his left foot. Günsche sketched the guns' position also for David Irving in 1967.

After burning the bodies, as he also told the British writer, Günsche put both revolvers in his pocket and later gave them to a Lieutenant Hamann, the adjutant to Artur Axmann, head of the Hitler youth movement.

The lieutenant apparently wished to keep the guns as relics. Günsche retained Hitler's fountain pen (which he still has).

Hamann fell into Soviet hands. Stalin is claimed to have kept the 7.65 in his study.

Dealer Kevin Cherry says that the guns were purchased from a Russian source.

"Any buyer will be able to see documents of the guns' provenance, including infra-red documents showing proof of the Russian sale."