It was the early 1970s, and European police forces had a new problem: terrorists. Those LE officers had a miscellaneous assemblage of .32s and .380s in their armories … while the bad guys were starting to use 9mm SMGs.
Not good.
So, the West German Federal police issued a request for a new sidearm, and it was to be in 9mm Parabellum. HK offered up the PSP (which we know as the P7), and Walther offered up a newly built P38 with a shorter barrel, dubbed the “P5.” In-between, the tasking authority dubbed the Sig entry as the P6, the model we know as the P225.
All of the new pistols accepted for use were single-stack 9mm pistols, and that was considered a big step up by the police forces (compared to packing a .32 Auto, any of them would be). All three were approved, and each law enforcement agency or administrative state was free to purchase and issue any of them. The P5 (P38) wasn’t popular, and the P7
