Lessons from Gun Control in the Third Reich

Gun control crusaders reject America’s heritage of liberty as enshrined in the Second Amendment but they also ignore the lessons of history, according to GUN CONTROL IN THE THIRD REICH: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State,” by Stephen P. Halbrook, the first book to address the Nazi firearms laws and policies that disarmed German citizens, in particular political opponents and Jews.

The 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the Night of the Broken Glass, the Nazi program against Germany’s Jews happened on Nov. 9-10, 1938. Historians have documented most everything about it except what made it so easy to attack the defenseless Jews without fear of resistance. Their guns were registered and thus easily confiscated.

To illustrate, turn the clock back further and focus on just one victim, a renowned German athlete. Alfred Flatow won first place in gymnastics at the 1896 Olympics. In 1932, he dutifully registered three handguns, as required by a decree of the liberal Weimar Republic. The decree also provided that in times of unrest, the guns could be confiscated. The government gullibly neglected to consider that only law-abiding citizens would register, while political extremists and criminals would not. However, it did warn that the gun-registration records must be carefully stored so they would not fall into the hands of extremists.

The ultimate extremist group, led by Adolf Hitler, seized power just a year later, in 1933. The Nazis immediately used the firearms-registration records to identify, disarm and attack “enemies of the state,” a euphemism for Social Democrats and other political opponents of all types. Police conducted search-and-seizure operations for guns and “subversive” literature in Jewish communities and working-class neighborhoods.

Jews were increasingly deprived of more and more rights of citizenship in the coming years. The Gestapo cautioned the police that it would endanger public safety to issue gun permits to Jews. Hitler faked a show of tolerance for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, but Flatow refused to attend the reunion there of former champions. He was Jewish and would not endorse the farce.

By fall of 1938, the Nazis were ratcheting up measures to expropriate the assets of Jews. To ensure that they had no means of resistance, the Jews were ordered to surrender their firearms.

… firearms were confiscated from all Jews registered as gun owners. As this was occurring, a wholly irrelevant event provided just the excuse needed to launch a violent attack on the Jewish community: A Polish teenager who was Jewish shot a German diplomat in Paris. The stage was set to instigate Kristallnacht, a carefully orchestrated Nazi onslaught against the entire Jewish community in Germany that horrified the world and even the German public.

Under the pretense of searching for weapons, Jewish homes were vandalized, businesses ransacked and synagogues burned. Jews were terrorized, beaten and killed. Orders were sent to shoot anyone who resisted.

In 1942, Flatow was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he starved to death.

The National Socialist experience, Stephen P. Halbrook argues, confirms that totalitarian governments will disarm their subjects to extinguish any ability to resist crimes against humanity. Dictators do not respect constitutions or human rights, but an armed populace with a culture of constitutional and natural rights is less likely to fall under the sway of a tyranny. If they do, they are more likely to offer armed resistance.

Today gun control crusaders such as Barack Obama and Dianne Feinstein ignore the Second Amendment and exploit tragedies from Columbine to Sandy Hook to promote their agenda of gun bans, restrictions, and registration regimes. Gun Control in the Third Reich provides a timely and long overdue historical perspective on the disastrous effects of disarming a population.

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