An apparatus for splicing of optical waveguide sections is in the form of a handheld splicer. The splicer comprises a preprocessing unit, which may comprise a plurality of processing devices for carrying out removal, cleaning and cutting steps. The optical waveguide sections are clamped in a holding apparatus and are prepared in the preprocessing unit. The holding apparatuses are inserted with the prepared optical waveguide sections into a splicing unit, where they are spliced. The spliced optical waveguide sections can be fed by means of a transfer station to a shrinking oven for shrinking a shrink sleeve on. The preprocessing unit, the splicing unit and the shrinking oven can be controlled by means of one hand of an operator, while the splicer is held with the other hand.