Salinger inspired artwork featuring Ortgies pistol. Others were sold to the Finnish and Dutch Armies and continued to be used as late as the 1960s. A number of guns were also sold in Germany itself, mainly for Weimar-era police and border guard use. These will have a Czech lion proof on the slide. Some Ortgies were made for a contract to the Czech Army in the 1920s and, after the absorbsion of that country by Hitler in 1938-39 were repurposed to German armories. Both tales are untrue, as the mark simply denotes a nitro-proof of the steel. Some gun show experts incorrectly attribute the “N” proof mark with a crown often found as denoting a sale to Norway, or possibly a super rare contract to Russian Tsar Nicholas that was never filled due to the start of the First World War. Ortgies appears famously in JD Salinger’s first successful short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.” Salinger, incidentally, was no stranger to guns, having served in the 4th ID in WWII landing at Utah Beach on D-Day and fighting in the Battle of the Bulge as well as the Huertgen Forest campaign. John Dillinger carried and used at least one. They sold well and found their way into the hands of many average Americans. Relatively innovative designs produced in recently war-torn Europe in popular calibers and exported to the United States at affordable prices. Orgies pistols with sleek, streamlined design and finish.įundamentally, the Ortgies was the Springfield XD of the 1920-1940s eras. 32ACP, and 380 in North America, sold like hotcakes to US importers for as little as 65-cents (due to the low value of the German deutschmark at the time) who in turn marketed them for $6-$8 from Boston to Chicago to San Francisco throughout the prohibition and depression era. Deutsche Werke guns are plainly marked and will bear the designation “Ortgies’ patent” and have a very art-deco looking couchant cat design on both the grips and the slide.īy 1924, some 435,000 of these handy little pistols had come off the assembly lines in 6.35mm, 7.65mm Browning, and 9x18mm Kurz. It was under this company that most were produced. In 1921, the company had transferred operations to Deutsche Werken AG. Henrich apparently knew the value of his product and when a large arms consortium offered to buy his company’s trade names, inventory, components, and tooling, he took it and retired. Ortgies set up a factory for his innovative little pistols in Erfurt, creatively named Ortgies & Co (and marked as such) in 1919. Proofmark showing ‘Ortgies Patent’ imprint.
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