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Reich Marshall Hermann Goering presented this Walther PPK pistol along with a ceremonial dagger to US Lt. Jerome Shapiro to mark his surrender of him at the end of the war.
Goering, fleeing for his life from his own side, surrendered his gold-plated pistol to Shapiro when he was arrested near Radstadt, Austria, on May 6, 1945. Goering also had a Smith & Wesson revolver with him unloaded which, it is said, he asked to keep so that he could present it in a formal surrender to General Eisenhower. Finally, on Oct 15, 1946, he committed suicide by ingesting a potassium cyanide capsule.
In the good times...
Lt. Jerome Shapiro was allowed to keep the gun, but when Shapiro died in the 1970s, his widow de ella gave the gun to a friend of her late husband's who lived near them in Delaware, who sold it about 20 years later to a private collector.
Taken completely aside from it's historical attribution, this nice factory engraved Walther PPK semi-automatic pistol, showing a fine gold finish and over 90% coverage factory engraving.
Goering, fleeing for his life from his own side, surrendered his gold-plated pistol to Shapiro when he was arrested near Radstadt, Austria, on May 6, 1945. Goering also had a Smith & Wesson revolver with him unloaded which, it is said, he asked to keep so that he could present it in a formal surrender to General Eisenhower. Finally, on Oct 15, 1946, he committed suicide by ingesting a potassium cyanide capsule.
In the good times...
Lt. Jerome Shapiro was allowed to keep the gun, but when Shapiro died in the 1970s, his widow de ella gave the gun to a friend of her late husband's who lived near them in Delaware, who sold it about 20 years later to a private collector.
Taken completely aside from it's historical attribution, this nice factory engraved Walther PPK semi-automatic pistol, showing a fine gold finish and over 90% coverage factory engraving.