Argentina lawsuit alleges police stole Hitler-linked $42 million Luger pistol

Juan Pablo Ruppel, a resident of rural Buenos Aires province, has filed a lawsuit against the provincial Ministry of Security after a 2016 police raid allegedly confiscated a rare Luger Parabellum.45 calibre No. 5 that he says belonged to Adolf Hitler and was gifted by his great-uncle Hans Ruppel, a former SS Leibstandarte guard. The firearm, one of only five 1907 prototypes crafted by Georg Luger and noted in an Interpol notice as bearing Hitler’s name, was never returned after being placed in state custody.

A civil court awarded the ministry $15,000 plus interest, pending an independent valuation that Ruppel estimates at $42 million. Two officers who led the raid are slated for trial on aggravated theft and breach of duty charges. British investigative journalist Laurence de Mello, leading an independent probe, stresses the pistol’s historic significance and the suspicious circumstances of its disappearance.