Gaston Glock
Shrewd businessman who invented the Glock 9mm pistol used by police, armies and rappers
GASTON GLOCK, who has died aged 94, ranked with Samuel Colt and Mikhail Kalashnikov as the inventor of an epoch-making firearm with which, in the 1980s, his name became synonymous; Glock pistols, the first to be manufactured largely from plastic, now have two-thirds of the US civilian market for handguns and made their Austrian creator a billionaire.
In 1980, Glock, a maker of curtain rods and window fittings, as well as plastic handles and sheaths for field knives for the Austrian army, overheard a conversation between two senior officers. They were discussing a competition to supply the service with a new sidearm. When Glock asked if he could enter, they scoffed. “You don’t laugh at Mr Glock,” said an employee of his later. “He takes that personally.”
Glock was then 50 and had no knowledge of weapons beyond a stint in the Wehrmacht as a 15-year-old at the end of the war. Moreover, the specifications required were exacting. The army needed the pistol to be cheap and easy to use, to have a large magazine, and to be safe if dropped from a height of six feet on to a steel plate.
He approached his task with characteristic dedication, consulting experts across Europe and test-firing prototypes with his left hand. If an accident ensued, he reasoned, he could still draw blueprints with his right.
Glock used plastic injection moulding and a tough nylon resin to make a semi-automatic pistol which only had 36 pieces, so less likely to suffer a breakage. The slide – the topmost part of the gun including the barrel – was the sole part made of metal. The magazine in the grip contained 17 rounds, but its name, the Glock 17, derived from its being the 17th patent that its maker had taken out.
Its advantages included its comparatively light weight (less than 1kg when loaded), its having less recoil than a conventional pistol and its lack of a safety catch, being readied instead by the pull of the trigger. It also worked well even when fouled. In a test with competitors such as Beretta and Browning it came out top, and in 1982 the Austrian military ordered 20,000.
Gaston Glock had already divined, however, that since the pistol would not need replacing perhaps for decades, this was not likely to be a source of repeat business. Instead, he set his sights on the US.
His timing was good. Police forces were starting to be outgunned by drug gangs, and they soon began adopting the Glock. Its creator was as good at marketing as he was at design, and offered the gun at a heavy discount, knowing that if police officers used it that would give it credibility. It was later revealed that his employees also entertained police chiefs in strip clubs.
There was initial resistance to the “plastic pistol”, with traditionalists comparing it unfavourably to the Smith & Wesson favoured by the likes of “Dirty Harry”. Cannily, however, Glock also embedded his product in popular culture, ensuring that it appeared in Hollywood films such as Die Hard 2 and in video games. It also became the – lyrical – weapon of choice for gangsta rappers including Tupac Shakur and Dr Dre.
In 1988, the Glock 19 was introduced, its more compact barrel making it still easier to conceal. The gun was inevitably implicated in mass shootings and in 1994 was among those targeted by the Clinton administration’s ban on pistols holding more than 10 rounds. Yet Glock anticipated the measure and his plant in Smyrna, Georgia, had been working around the clock to produce pistols, as those made before the law came into force were exempt. The firm stockpiled enough to see it through the decade-long ban, even though the prohibition increased demand for Glocks.
It was estimated in 2003 that the gun could be made for $75 and retailed at $500. By 2014, Glock was racking up sales of $500 million in the US alone. In 2016, the FBI made Glock pistols standard issue and they are used in 50 militaries worldwide, among them the US and British special forces.
Glock controlled his assets through a complex web of companies. For a time, he employed one Charles Ewert – also known as “Panama Charly” – to do this for him. In 1999, Glock received a tip-off that Ewert had been siphoning off scores of millions of dollars for himself.
Ewert invited him to a meeting in, naturally enough, an underground car park in Luxembourg. Glock was induced to stop and look at a sports car. From behind it sprang a 67-year-old French hitman, Jacques Pêcheur, who had formerly wrestled under the nom de ring “Spartacus”.
He hit Glock about the head with a rubber mallet. Even at 70, however, and bleeding profusely, the tycoon was no pushover, for he swam several miles daily. He punched the assassin in the eye, knocking him out. Both men then collapsed, with Pêcheur being found by the police with his arms outstretched “like Jesus Christ” atop Glock.
The Frenchman, who had lost almost two pints of blood, was rushed to the operating theatre. Yet Glock had not got where he had by not having his priorities straight. Staring down the surgeons, he summoned his private bankers to his bedside, for Ewert had access to all his accounts.
By the end of the day, he had managed to transfer $40 million to safety, while reportedly Ewert had helped himself to another $30 million. Ewert was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. Pêcheur received 17.
The son of a railway worker, Gaston Hellmut Glock was born in Vienna on July 19 1929. He studied engineering at the Federal Trade School and then joined a company making drills as a plastics technician.
In 1962, he married a secretary he had met at a holiday resort. He and Helga settled outside the capital at Deutsch-wagram, where he ran a factory making car radiators. Using money that they had set aside to buy an apartment, Glock then set up his own plastics business. Helga took administrative roles in it, as did their two sons and daughter. But in 2010, Glock locked his wife out of their mansion and ejected her and the children from the business.
A year later, having divorced Helga, he married Kathrin Tschikof, who at 30 was 51 years his junior. Aided by his purchase for her, at $15 million, of the world’s most expensive horse, called London, she set up an equestrian centre and campaigned for animal rights.
Helga Glock, meanwhile, sued Glock for $500 million, claiming that in 1999 he had used the establishment of a family trust to reduce her share in the company from 15 per cent to just 1 per cent. She also alleged that Glock was a racketeer and used shell companies to hide money. Judges found against her in Austria and America, although she did secure alimony payment.
Disgruntled Glock employees who made similar assertions never proved their case, comparing its corporate culture to the Mafia’s one of omertà. Glock himself was reclusive, using his influence to keep his name and line of work out of the Austrian media.
After Forbes, the magazine known for its tracking of the world’s wealthy, claimed in 2021 that he was worth $1.1 billion, Glock deployed lawyers to object to its valuation of the company. When he travelled, he preferred to fly his own Cessna Citation jet, claiming that there were fewer idiots in the skies. In the main, however, he kept to his lakefront house on the Wörther See, near Klagenfurt. His few friends were said to include, perhaps improbably, Pope John Paul II, and Jorg Haider, the former leader of Austria’s Freedom Party.
In 2002, Glock made a rare public appearance when he and Haider called on Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi dictator’s personalised Glock now hangs in the George W Bush Museum, Dallas.
Glock is survived by his wife, Kathrin, and by the children of his first marriage.