I have recentlly beeb given a German hand gun that has a name on the holster. My moms uncle attacked a machine gun nest that was holding his unit down and killed all the men. He retrieved a pistol that i wanted to try and locate the family of this man as his name is on the holster. Any help or info. would be appreciated as I know nothing of this area
What exactly is the name and when/where is this supposed to have happened?
the name is Stuhl on the holster. I actually remember reading about this in a book about my moms uncles battalion. it has been so long ago that i cant remember where. My mom has died and with it much info., I was thinking I had some papers from his discharge will look for that as it would give his unit… For now this is all that I have to go on, except that the german man was supposedly a leiutenant. The gun is a carl walther cal 7.66 it also says selbstlace-E.stcl
A PPK like James Bond used to carry?
not sure what james carried, but it looks a lot like that. i was checking the walther web site and there were many pistols like mine.
The pistol probably is - as mentioned by Nickdfresh - a Walther PP or PPK, very popular among German officers who oftenly purchased these privately.
Both the PP and the PPK are self-loading pistols, in German “Selbstladepistolen” or “Selbstlader” - so much for the first part of the holster’s marking.
“E. Stuhl”, could that be rest of it now?
FTG is correct as always, a PP, or a PPK. Walther produced P-38’s (Mfg. code “AC” for Walther, although a large number of other Mfg’s produced the P-38. Numbers following the prefix indicate the year of manufacture) but they were not chambered for the 7.65mm, or 7.62 pistol cartridges. Only military contract firearms would be impressed with a Mfg code, so if your pistol has none, its most likely a commercial model purchased privately. some pictures would be a giant help if you can post some.
The best Bond with his best gun…
Though in the beginning, Bond used a Barretta until his Superior “M” made him change to the Walther. (Dr. No) PPK (left) PP (right)
It was after Bond was nearly killed in a fight in which the Barretta failed to stop the opposition. “M” brought in an armourer who tweaked Bond’s manhood over the small caliber of his .22LR pistol. Bond retorted that it didn’t matter if you put the bullets in the right places, but the armourer said the 9mm Short was “like a brick through a plate glass window” and M retorted he needed a heavier pistol. It was out of sequence with the films, IIRC…
I remember that Bond still tried to sneak the Barretta along after wards… The .380 is no pumpkin roller, but its alot more than the Barretta. they should have given him a Lilliput. :mrgreen:
LOL Yeah, I think the idea was the PPK offered the best ratio of size to stopping power back then, without bulging out of his tux…
A bulgy Tuxt just isnt done in polite 00 society, Of course he might have asked some concealment advice from Dirty Harry or Sterling Archer 
The .380 is the best choice, even compared to the .32 caliber pistols like the Ortgies, or the Webley Scott.
actually all the info i gave was from the gun. the only thing on the holster was his name, which was in ink and it was Stuhl… I am assuming that was the officers name. any idea on how to check officers who died on the german side to check this name?
Let’s hope it was his name, “Stuhl” is the German word for chair but I can’t see what this has to do with a gun holster.
According to the database of the German War Graves Commission there were 25 casualties in WW2 by the name of Stuhl (which is not a too common one).
But there’s no officer among them, although with some the ranks are missing.
Why would you disturb a family with a creepy thing like this?
The family may well think Stuhl is still on the ‘missing’ list, & ‘closure’ might not be unwelcome, if done in an empathetic manner…