I recently started a thread on the "Wonder Nine" era and received a great response from members of this forum.
I find the history of the Wonder Nines to be extremely interesting but I'm somewhat ambivalent to most of the actual guns. I admire some of the engineering, I admire some of the actual guns but for the most part I'm drawn to the history more than the actual hardware.
However, that thread got me thinking about a group of similar guns that I DO admire, the WEST German Police Pistols of the late 1970's.
In 1974 the West German government recognized that a new pistol was needed. Terrorism was a factor in that decision. In 1975 specifications were released. 4 companies responded and trials began. By 1976 refinements had been made and Mauser withdraw their entry.
In 1976 the P5 [Walther], P6 [SIG P225] & P7 [H&K PSP or P7M8] were accepted by the Federal Republic of Germany (The former West German government before unification) to be the official police pistols of West Germany. Each West German state was free to chose which pistol of the 3 that they wanted.
It took some time for those pistols to make it into service but they became the pistols of the various West German police agencies and were used throughout the 1980's and 1990's. After many years of service those pistols were withdrawn and they began to appear in the U.S. used gun market. I managed to acquire examples of the P6 & P7. Whenever I found a P5 for sale, poverty conspired against me. That model continues to elude me and they only seem to be going up in price. Oh well, it's good to have a quest I suppose.
There's a strong connection between the West German Police pistols and the "Wonder Nine" pistols. There's also some obvious influence. However, where the high capacity magazine was a part of the "Wonder Nine" definition, the West German police pistols of the 1980's all had single stack magazines.
I welcome comments on this topic.