With his Glock pistol, the trained plastics engineer created a weapon that was significantly lighter and simpler than the known models at the time, but significantly cheaper and more reliable.
Special units around the world were “Glock” world famous, the German GSG 9 – despite having a domestic supplier Heckler & Koch – relied on the production of the Lower Austrian company Deutsch-Wagram under its belt. Glock is not personally used to this popularity; He was considered media shy and society was not his thing.
But he could not escape the boulevard altogether; The million-dollar War of the Roses against his ex-wife caused an uproar in the jungle. Glock has two sons and a daughter, and a marital dispute recently strained his relationship with them.
For companies “with vision”
Glock “took the foresight to ensure the company's continuity and stability,” the company wrote. “The life's work of Eng. Gaston Glock will continue in his spirit into the future.” We cannot answer any further questions. For example, it's not clear what shares Glock bequeaths to his children and his second wife in the company and private trust.
Last year, handgun manufacturer Glock turned over nearly 830 million euros and made a profit of more than 146 million euros. The company employs around 2,500 people and supplies the forces of France and Great Britain in addition to the Austrian armed forces. In the United States, Glock handguns are the handguns most commonly sold to private individuals.
From plastic technician to weapons manufacturer
Klock was born in 1929 and was originally a plastics technician until 1963 when he founded an arms manufacturing company in Lower Austria, Deutsch-Wagram. Now has branches all over the world, including a plant in the US. According to media reports, 80 percent of American police officers rely on Glock pistols. Initially, there was a strong headwind against it in the US from established arms manufacturers, who accused the unsavory competitor of making “plastic pistols” that terrorists could carry on planes unnoticed by metal detectors.
In 1999, Glock survived an assassination attempt; The attacker, armed with a hammer, was missing some teeth. “You shouldn't mess with Gaston Glock,” wrote Forbes, America's leading business magazine, about him at the time.
Case against Amnesty International
When Amnesty International (AI) wanted to know from Glock how his pistols got to the civil war country of Sudan, he sued the human rights organization, among others, the Romanian Honorary Consulate in Carinthia for €65,000 in damages. Ultimately, AI claims to have won the legal dispute.
Tax evasion probe closed
Glock had a run-in with tax investigators, which culminated in a search of his home. After the information became public, then-Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Graser appointed an internal audit department to find the leak in his ministry. The investigation into tax evasion was later closed. Gaston Glock's name has surfaced around a group of investors in the emergency nationalized hypo Albe Adria, but his exact role is unclear.
A horse lover, he was also known as a philanthropist. At Christmas 2012, the billionaire donated a total of 550,000 euros to hospitals in Vienna and Klagenfurt. To this end, he funded the Gaston Glock Center for Invasive Cardiology and Electrophysiology, which specializes in the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias.
The War of the Roses with Longtime Wife
Glock was in the headlines in the last years of his life due to his protracted “War of the Roses” with his first wife, in which he was sued in the United States in 2014 for $500 million (then €393 million). After 49 years of marriage, Helga separated from Glock in 2011 and married a 52-year-old woman from Villach. On January 1, 2021, Kathryn Glock became Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Glock GmbH.
