Legendary firearm
Pistol developer Gaston Glock is dead
December 28, 2023, 12:04 a.m
In 1980, Gaston Glock revolutionized the handgun market with his invention. Around 80 percent of law enforcement officers in the USA now carry a pistol made by the Austrian. The entrepreneur has now died at the age of 94.
He made a name for himself as the developer of the Glock pistol – now the Austrian entrepreneur Gaston Glock has died at the age of 94. His company named after him announced this on its website in the evening. The rather discreet Glock founded his weapons company in Lower Austria in 1963, and the arms company now has branches worldwide.
The plastics engineer Glock, born in 1929, initially produced consumer goods made of plastic and metal as well as knives at his headquarters in Deutsch-Wagram, northeast of Vienna. When the Austrian Army needed a new handgun in 1980, Glock offered to develop the pistol – and invented the legendary Glock 17. The semi-automatic pistol in 9 millimeter caliber is easy to assemble and is made mostly of plastic. Subsequent models only differ from the Glock 17 in different frame sizes, barrel lengths and calibers.
With the Glock 17, Gaston Glock’s career took off.
(Photo: picture alliance / Frank Duenzl)
The Glock company, with around 2,000 employees, supplies not only the Austrian armed forces but also the armies of France and Great Britain. In the USA, around 80 percent of police officers now carry Glock pistols. In Hollywood films, heroes and villains are often equipped with this weapon. Among others, Bruce Willis in “Die Hard 2” and Tommy Lee Jones in “The Hunt” carried a Glock. Some gunmen, such as the Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik, also used a Glock pistol for their crimes.
Glock himself rarely appeared in public. In 1999 he survived an assassination attempt in an underground car park in Luxembourg. A former business partner of Glock’s who ordered the attack with a hammer was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in prison. In June 2011, Glock divorced his first wife Helga after 49 years of marriage and a month later married Kathrin Tschikof, 52 years his junior, who later held various functions in Glock’s corporate group.
The War of the Roses after Glock’s divorce also made headlines. His ex-wife unsuccessfully sued him for $500 million in 2014. Glock leaves behind three children from his first marriage. His assets were recently estimated at around 1.5 billion euros.