How many kids did Gaston Glock have? Family explored as founder of namesake pistol dies aged 94

Austrian engineer and businessman Gaston Glock, the inventor of the namesake gun, died on Wednesday, December 23, 2023, at the age of 94. The unfortunate news was announced by the Glock Company news in a statement shared on their website.

"Gaston Glock charted the strategic direction of the GLOCK Group throughout his life and prepared it for the future. His life’s work will continue in his spirit," they wrote.

Born in 1929, the entrepreneur graduated from a college in Vienna with a degree in mechanical engineering. In 1963 he founded his eponymous company in Deutsch-Wagram, just a few miles away from Vienna. Its Glock pistol has since become a cult artifact used by the police, military, and private individuals across the world.

Glock married Helga, his first wife, in 1958, and the two share two sons, Gaston Glock Jr., and Robert Glock, together. Following an alleged bitter divorce after after 50 years of marriage, he married Austrian businesswoman and activist, Kathrin Glock, with whom he shares a daughter, Bridget.

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Gaston Glock was known for his private nature and was often described as the "reclusive Austrian businessman"

Gaston Glock has hit headlines several times in the past, including a 1999 murder attempt and during his alleged bitter divorce with Helga.

In 2011, the engineer divorced his wife, Helga, at 82. While the details of the reason behind the divorce remain unclear, it was followed by litigation that accused him along with four of his business associates and 13 other companies of racketeering, fraud, tax evasion, and hiding assets from the family in 2014.

Helga sued Gaston for $500 million, accusing them of misusing company funds to hire strippers who would represent the brand and even buying extravagant gifts for Kathrin. Additionally, the 350-page lawsuit claimed he treated his family "with the senseless and self-destructive rage of Shakespeare's King Lear."

The case was eventually dismissed in 2017 as Helga's case did not have standing as she did not suffer an injury in the U.S. In the aftermath of the case, Gaston fired his own children, who, along with Helga, were crucial in the growth of the company.

He remarried Kathrin Tschikof, almost 50 years his junior, and made her the sole inheritor of his company.

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Gaston Glocks murder attempt

The Austrian company started by manufacturing military products like field knives, and consumer goods like curtain rods. According to its website, in the 1980s, seeing an opportunity to develop a "new self-defense pistol, with a reduced weight and safe and simple operation," Glock invented his "polymer-framed semi-automatic Glock pistol."

While The Glock Company has since hit several cultural milestones including revolutionizing small arms weapons and even opening a branch across the Atlantic in the U.S., along with success came darker tides.

Following a feud with Charles Ewert, who managed Glock's business in Luxembourg, the man tried to have him unsuccessfully killed by having him attacked in a car park with a hammer. Gaston sustained head injuries as a result.

Charles as well as the person he hired were both tried for the crime and sentenced to 20 years in Jail.

Gaston Glock is survived by his wife Kathrin and three children.