Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and "Enemies of the State"

282 Pages·2014·3.38 MB·English

by  Stephen P. Halbrook

Gun Control
in the
r .
r
etc
t f
Gun Control
in the
'rhirb iteich
THE INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE is a non-profit, non-partisan,
scholarly research and educational organization that sponsors compre-
hensive studies in political economy. Our mission is to boldly advance
peaceful, prosperous, and free societies, grounded in a commitment to
human worth and dignity.
Politicized decision-making in society has confined public debate to a narrow reconsideration of existing
policies. Given the prevailing influence of partisan interests, little social innovation has occurred. In order to
understand both the nature of and possible solutions to major public issues, the Independent Institute ad-
heres to the highest standards of independent inquiry, regardless of political or social biases and conventions.
The resulting studies are widely distributed as books and other publications, and are debated in numerous
conference and media programs. Through this uncommon depth and clarity, the Independent Institute is
redefining public debate and fostering new and effective directions for government reform.
FOUNDER & PRESIDENT Richard A. Epstein Paul Craig Roberts
David J. Theroux new york university institute for political economy
B. Delworth Gardner Nathan Rosenberg
RESEARCH DIRECTOR
brigham young university stanford university
William F. Shughart II
George Gilder Paul H. Rubin
SENIOR FELLOWS discovery institute emory university
Bruce L. Benson
Nathan Glazer Bruce M. Russett
Ivan Eland
harvard university yale university
John C. Goodman
Robert Higgs Steve H. Hanke Pascal Salin
Lawrence J. McQuillan johns hopkins university university of paris, france
Robert H. Nelson
James J. Heckman Vernon L. Smith
Charles V. Peña university of chicago chapman university
Benjamin Powell
William F. Shughart II H. Robert Heller Pablo T. Spiller
sonic automotive university of california,
Randy T. Simmons
berkeley
Alexander Tabarrok Deirdre N. McCloskey
Alvaro Vargas Llosa university of illinois, Joel H. Spring
Richard K. Vedder chicago state university of new york,
old westbury
ACADEMIC ADVISORS J. Huston McCulloch
ohio state university Richard L. Stroup
Leszek Balcerowicz
north carolina state
warsaw school of economics Forrest McDonald
university
university of alabama
Herman Belz
university of maryland Thomas Gale Moore Robert D. Tollison
clemson university
hoover institution
Thomas E. Borcherding
claremont graduate school Charles Murray Arnold S. Trebach
american university
Boudewijn Bouckaert american enterprise
university of ghent, belgium institute Gordon Tullock
george mason university
Allan C. Carlson Michael J. Novak, Jr.
howard center american enterprise Richard E. Wagner
institute george mason university
Robert D. Cooter
university of california, June E. O’Neill Walter E. Williams
berkeley baruch college george mason university
Robert W. Crandall Charles E. Phelps Charles Wolf, Jr.
brookings institution university of rochester rand corporation
100 Swan Way, Oakland, California 94621-1428, U.S.A.
Telephone: [phone] • Facsimile: 510-568-6040 • Email: [email protected] • www.independent.org
Gun Control
in the
ileich
~hirb
Disarming the Jews and "Enemies of the State"
STEPHEN P. HALBROOK
The INDEPENDENr
INSTIIUTE
Oakland, California
All Rights Reserved. Copyright © Stephen P. Halbrook, 2013
May not be copied, reproduced, or distributed without written permission.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmit-
ted in any form by electronic or mechanical means now known or to be
invented, including photocopying, recording, or information storage and
retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except
by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Nothing herein
should be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Institute or
as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress.
The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way,
Oakland, CA 94621-1428
Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected] Website: www.independent.org
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Halbrook, Stephen P.
Gun control in the Third Reich : disarming the Jews and “enemies of the
state” / Stephen P. Halbrook.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59813-161-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-1-59813-162-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Firearms—Law and legislation—Germany—History—20th century.
2. Gun control—Germany—History—20th century. 3. Jews—Legal
status, laws, etc.—History—20th century. 4. Germany—Politics and
government—1933–1945 I. Title.
KK6010.H35 2013
363.330943’09043—dc23 2013022225
Cover Design: Denise Tsui
Cover Image: Peter Zelei/iStockphoto
Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xv
part i Dancing on a Volcano: The Weimar Republic
1 Insurrection and Repression 3
2 The 1928 Law on Firearms 15
3 Keeping Firearm Registrations out of the Wrong Hands? 25
part ii 1933: Enter the Führer
4 The Nazi Seizure of Power 49
5 Disarming the Politically Unreliable:
The Case of Brandenburg 69
6 Defining Enemies of the State 79
part iii Gleichschaltung: Forcing into Line
7 From the Night of the Long Knives to the Nürnberg Laws 97
8 The Gestapo 111
9 Hitler’s Gun Control Act 123
xi
xii | Contents
part iv Reichskristallnacht: Night of the Broken Glass
10 October Prelude: Arresting Jewish Firearm Owners 145
11 Goebbels Orchestrates a Pogrom 163
12 Jewish Victims Speak 187
conclusion
Whither the German Resistance? 203
Bibliography 221
Credits for Illustrations 235
Index 237
About the Author 247
illustrations between 112 and 113
Acknowledgments
this work would not have been possible without assistance
by others, in particular the research in numerous German archives by Sebastian
Remus and Katya Andrusz. Therese Klee Hathaway assisted with numerous
translations, helped along by Oliver Harriehausen and David Moses. I also am
grateful to Stefan Grus, Jay Simkin, Lisa Halbrook Hollowell, Heather Barry,
Dave Fischer, and Joshua Prince for their research assistance.
The author published some preliminary research for this study in “Nazi
Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews,” 17 Arizona Journal of
International and Comparative Law 483 (2000), and “‘Arms in the Hands of
Jews Are a Danger to Public Safety’: Nazism, Firearm Registration, and the
Night of the Broken Glass,” 21 St. Thomas Law Review 109 (2009). He is grateful
to the editors of those journals for their insights and suggestions.
Once the manuscript was created, Alice Rosengard provided invaluable
advice in helping to make it more readable, and Professor Alexander Tabarrok,
Independent Institute Research Director, challenged me to address hard ques-
tions about the thesis. Gail Saari and Anne Barva greatly assisted in smoothing
out the text. Thanks are due to Independent Institute President David Theroux
and Acquisitions Director Roy M. Carlisle for bringing the book to publication.
I alone am responsible for the interpretations given here as well as for any errors.
xiii

Introduction
alfred flatow was a German Jew who won first place in
gymnastics events at the 1896 Olympics. In 1932, he registered three handguns
as required by a decree of the liberal Weimar Republic. The government had
warned that the police must carefully store the registration records so that no
extremist group could ever obtain them. That fear was realized, however, when
an extremist group led by Adolf Hitler seized power the following year and
used those very same registration records to disarm “enemies of the state.” In
1938, the records were used to disarm Jewish gun owners such as Flatow, whose
arrest report stated: “Arms in the hands of Jews are a danger to public safety.”1
He would later die in a concentration camp.
Shortly after confiscating firearms from Flatow and numerous other Jews,
the Nazis instigated the pogrom know as the Night of the Broken Glass (Reichs-
kristallnacht) against a defenseless Jewish population, who were threatened
with twenty years in a concentration camp for possession of a firearm.
Countless studies have documented how the Nazi dictatorship repressed
its political opponents, Jews, and other “enemies of the state.” For whatever
reason, historians have paid no attention to Nazi laws and policies restricting
firearms ownership as essential elements in creating tyranny. A skeptic might
surmise that a better-armed populace might have made no difference, but the
Nazi regime certainly did not act on that premise. While many historically
unique factors ultimately led to the Holocaust, Nazi policies prohibiting pos-
session of firearms helped to consolidate Hitler’s power at home, exacerbated
1. Bericht über einen polit. Vorfall, 4.10.38, Alfred Flatow. A Rep PrBrRep. 030/21620 Bd.
5 Haussuchungen bei Juden 1938-39. (FB Bd. 5). Landesarchiv Berlin. For details on Flatow,
see chapter 10.
xv