Marlene Dietrich's Guns - Hollywood Star's Wartime Trophies

TL;DR

Marlene Dietrich returned from WWII Europe with 10 trophy firearms, including presentation pistols from Generals Patton and Bradley, revealing her remarkable frontline war service.

Key Points

• 1.Dietrich caused a customs incident in July 1945. When her ship docked at Norfolk, Virginia, inspectors found 10 firearms in her luggage — cleared only by a certificate signed by a senior US general.
• 2.General Marshall's memo revealed a massive trophy weapon problem. The same ship carried 4,500 GIs possessing 35,000 German and Italian firearms; in one week, 70 soldiers died and 500 were wounded mishandling captured weapons.
• 3.General Patton gifted Dietrich a chrome-plated, ivory-gripped Belgian revolver in 1944. Made around 1890 and engraved with a gold plate reading 'devoted affection and protection,' it sold at auction in March 2022 for $21,250.
• 4.General Omar Bradley presented Dietrich a 1942 Italian Beretta 9mm Corto pistol, also with an 18-karat gold grip plate; it sold in the same 2022 auction for $43,750.
• 5.Dietrich spent her final 13 years bedridden in her Paris apartment, dying in 1992 at age 90. A small Rome pistol in a Cartier box was found during her New York apartment clearance in 1997 but has never been sold.