planetary gear unit 3 which is driven on the input side by the motor shaft of an electric drive motor and on the output side drives a spindle 4 which is realized to receive a tool the planetary gear unit 3 can be shifted between two differing gear stages having differing reducing ratio levels for the purpose of setting differing rotational speeds the shifting between the gear stages of the planetary gear unit 3 is effected by means of a gear shift device 5 which has an operating element 6 in the form of a sliding switch and has a transmission member 7 that is coupled to the operating element 6 and transmits an actuating movement of the operating element to a shift ring gear 8 of the planetary gear unit 3 the operating element 6 is located on the outer circumferential surface of a housing 9 in particular of a housing for accommodating the electric motor which housing directly adjoins the gear unit housing 2 axially the actuating movement both of the operating element 6 and of the transmission member 7 that is coupled to the operating element 6 is effected parallelwise in relation to the longitudinal axis 10 of the hand power tool which axis at the same time constitutes the motor axis the various shift stages of the operating element 6 are realized as latching positions the transmission member 7 is realized as a wire bow whose bow halves each have a rectilinear axial portion 7 a fig3 the axial portions 7 a extending parallelwise in relation to the longitudinal axis of the motor the axial portions 7 a are accommodated.