ok actually it isn't working either with curl or wget. So probably this is not a python problem, it seems more something in the underlying libs:

Output from curl on the machine, where python 2.7 is working:

fertig@hornisse:/home/fertig > curl --insecure 'https://172.23.6.222/' --verbose
* About to connect() to 172.23.6.222 port 443 (#0)
*   Trying 172.23.6.222... connected
* Connected to 172.23.6.222 (172.23.6.222) port 443 (#0)
* successfully set certificate verify locations:
*   CAfile: none
  CApath: /etc/ssl/certs/
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Client hello (1):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Server hello (2):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, CERT (11):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Server finished (14):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Client key exchange (16):
* SSLv3, TLS change cipher, Client hello (1):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* SSLv3, TLS change cipher, Client hello (1):
* SSLv3, TLS handshake, Finished (20):
* SSL connection using AES256-SHA
* Server certificate:
*        subject: C=DE; L=Munich; O=Siemens Enterprise Communications; OU=Enterprise Systems; CN=optiPoint - WBM
*        start date: 2007-04-11 12:26:43 GMT
*        expire date: 2022-04-10 12:26:43 GMT
*        common name: optiPoint - WBM (does not match '172.23.6.222')
*        issuer: C=DE; L=Munich; O=Siemens AG; OU=Com Enterprise Systems; CN=Siemens Com ESY HD Security Office; emailAddress=hipath_security_office@siemens.com
*        SSL certificate verify result: self signed certificate in certificate chain (19), continuing anyway.
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.21.2 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.21.2 OpenSSL/1.0.0c zlib/1.2.5 libidn/1.15 libssh2/1.2.7
> Host: 172.23.6.222
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 405 Method Not Allowed
< Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2012 11:03:02 GMT
< Server: Virata-EmWeb/R6_2_0
< Connection: close
<
405 Method Not Allowed
* Closing connection #0
* SSLv3, TLS alert, Client hello (1):
fertig@hornisse:/home/fertig >


No idea anymore :/ But I fear you can close this ticket...