Walther P.38 semi-automatic pistol

The Walther P38 (originally written as Walther P.38) is a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol developed by Carl Walther GmbH as the service pistol for the Wehrmacht at the onset of World War II. It was designed to replace the Luger P08, which was complex and expensive to produce. However, the transition to the more easily mass-producible P38 was slower than anticipated once World War II began, resulting in the P08 remaining in production until September 1942 and still being used in service until the end of the war.

From 1945 to 1946, several thousand P38 pistols were assembled for the French armed forces. These versions, often referred to as "grey ghosts" due to their parkerized finish and grey sheet metal grips, marked a distinct postwar use. It was only in 1957 that the P38 was produced again for the German military. As West Germany sought to rebuild its military capabilities, Walther retooled for new P38 production, anticipating that the military would once again require their firearms. Using wartime pistols as models along with new engineering drawings and machinery, Walther resumed P38 production. The first batch of these new P38s was delivered to the West German military in June 1957, some 17 years after the pistol had initially seen action in World War II. From 1957 to 1963, the P38 served as the standard sidearm for the Bundeswehr.

The P1, which was used by the Bundeswehr, is a postwar military model of the P38. Adopted in late 1963, the P1 can be identified by the "P1" stamping on its slide. Unlike the original P38, which had a steel frame, the postwar P1 models feature an aluminum frame. Starting in June 1975, the aluminum frame was reinforced with a hex bolt above the trigger guard, and a slightly modified, stronger slide design was introduced to enhance durability. Throughout the 1990s, the German military began replacing the P1 with the P8 pistol, eventually phasing out the P1 completely by 2004.