P-38 (cyq) Spreewerk

The P-38 pistol was one of the most important German service weapons during World War II. It was developed as a successor to the Luger P08 pistol, which was technically more complex and costly to produce. Development of the P-38 began in the 1930s at the Carl Walther GmbH factories and its design was intended to offer reliability, ease of manufacture and modern features such as a double-action trigger mechanism.

Series production of the P-38 began in 1939 and it soon became the standard service pistol of the German Army. The gun was manufactured by three major German companies, Walther (AC), Mauser (BYF) and Spreewerk (CYQ). Metallwarenfabrik Spreewerk GmbH, which had factories in Spandau, Germany, and Grottau (now Hrádek nad Nisou) in what was then Czechoslovakia, played a key role in the production of the gun. In total, approximately 1.2 million units were produced during the war, with Spreewerk supplying around 280 880 pistols.

The P-38 was the first military pistol to make extensive use of the double-action trigger mechanism (DA/SA), which meant that the first shot could be fired by pulling the trigger without having to manually cock the hammer. This system later influenced the design of many post-war service pistols. The P-38 also had a chambered cartridge indicator, which increased safety when handling the weapon.

The gun was chambered for the 9 mm Luger caliber (9×19 mm Parabellum) and had a capacity of 8 rounds in a single-row magazine. The barrel measured 125 mm, the overall length of the weapon was 216 mm and the weight was around 960 grams.

The P-38 pistol was widely used not only by the German Army, but also by other armed forces, including the Luftwaffe. After World War II, it came into the hands of the Allied forces and was used in various armies around the world. Production continued after the war under the designation Walther P1, when some parts of the weapon were replaced with more modern materials, such as an aluminium frame instead of steel.

Thanks to its reliability and innovative design features, the P-38 remains one of the iconic military pistols of the 20th century. Post-war examples are still popular with collectors, and original wartime pieces with individual factory production codes are now valuable historical artifacts.