Tonight I will show that no government can successfully turn on its own
citizens when they own guns.  No government in history turned on its own
people as malevolently or on as large a scale as Hitler’s Third Reich.  It
killed seven million of its own citizens, six million of them Jews --- and
the Nazis could not have done this, if they had not first confiscated all
guns owned by Jews.  It is an axiom of human conduct that a wise aggressor –
whether a nation-state or a gangster – will attempt to render its victims
defenseless before proceeding against them.

                                 ---------------------

I. My analysis of gun control laws in Germany – and gun confiscation without
legal authority – will begin at the end of WWI. The Treaty of Versailles
specifically restricted gun ownership in Germany.  Article 169 of the Treaty
states that all German citizens must surrender their arms and war materiel
to the Allied governments to be destroyed.

II. Later the same year, in 1919, Germany’s new democratic government passed
a law (“Regulations on Weapons Ownership”) with similar provisions.  It
further provided that anyone found in possession of a gun or ammunition was
subject to five years imprisonment and/or a fine of 100,000 DM (the
equivalent of approximately $3,000).  At modern German’s beginning no
individual could lawfully own a gun.

III. In 1928 Germany elected the liberal-left Weimar government.  It
specifically repealed the 1919 gun ownership ban, and put into effect a
strict firearms licensing scheme.  Germans could possess firearms, but they
were required to register them in unique categories.  They needed separate
permits to own guns, to sell guns, to carry firearms (including handguns)
and to manufacture firearms.

·The 1928 law was in effect when Hitler and the Nazi Party took over the
German government in March 1933.

·On the surface it would seen that a broad-based liberalization of the
firearms law was not helpful to the Nazis’ long-term goal of disarming
minorities, particularly Jews.  But the registration of all guns provided
the Nazis with a detailed list of exactly what kind of firearms everybody in
the population owned.

·Additionally, a minor clause in the Weimar gun law – and the devil is in
the details – fit perfectly into the Nazi scheme of things.  It left
administration and enforcement details to local police and military
authorities.

IV. For the first five years under itler guns were confiscated alwfully ---
Hitler guns were confiscated lawfully --- "Third Reich Style.”  This was
accomplished through the Nuremberg Laws of 1935.  These were the first
anti-Semitic laws put on the books in Germany by the Nazis.  The death camps
and killing factories came later. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 had two basic
aspects:

·First, “The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor.”  This
statute forbade Jews to intermarry with Germans, as well as having sexual
relationships with Christians.  The penalties were severe.  (At this time
the international banking firm of Warburg & Co. established a whorehouse in
Hamburg with Jewish women so that Jewish young men could avoid going to jail
for having sex with German women.  Similar Jewish brothels were established
in most of Germany’s big cities.)

·Second, the Nuremberg Laws prohibited Jews from entering in the civil
service or the army, and practicing professions like teaching, law and
medicine.

·As part of enforcing these laws, guns were regularly and methodically,
confiscated.  The legal basis for this confis-cation was a clause in the
firearms law mandating that ownership of firearms should be denied to people
of “doubtful reliability” (this was conveniently interpreted to mean Jews).

·The police chief in Berlin issued an order in 1936 that made it possible to
make confiscate guns owned by Jews. The order from Berlin read, “People, who
according to Nuremberg Law are regarded as Jews, are forbidden to possess
weapons.  Violators will be prosecuted.”  (The specific penalties were not
spelled out.”)

V. Holocaust historians generally date the beginning of the Holocaust (the
mass murder of 7 million Europeans) from November 10, 1938, Kristallnacht
(the Night of Broken Glass).

·On that date the Third Reich became a “criminal enterprise” (a term used
repeatedly by Nuremberg prosecutors). Until then the Nazis operated a
bigoted and hateful government, but nonetheless one that – at least
superficially – acknowledged the rule of law.

·Two days prior, on November 8, 1938, a middle level diplomat at the German
Embassy in Paris was assassinated by a Polish-German Jew.  In retaliation
(history has shown that it was long planned), the German government
announced that the police would look the other way, and allow lootings,
beatings and arson against German Jews and their property on the following
night.  As a result, on the night of November 9-10, 1938, thousands of
Jewish homes were ruined, thousands of Jewish stores were looted and a
majority of Germany’s synagogues were all, or partially, destroyed by arson.

·It was the first time the German government officially embrace the idea
that violence against Jews and their property was acceptable – and lawful.
The perpetrators would suffer no consequences.  The laws that had protected
all citizens and their property would no longer protect Jews and their
property.  

·Josef Goebbels, one of Hitler’s closest associates and the Minister of
Propaganda, issued the following instructions before Kristallnacht to ensure
its success.  “All Jews are to be disarmed.  In the event of any resistance,
they are to be shot immediately.”

·Similarly, Heinrich Muller, head of the German domestic police, sent this
message on the night of November 9 to every state police bureau in Germany.
“If during the actions about to take place, Jews are found in possession of
weapons, the most severe measures are to be applied.”

·The New York Times of November 10, 1938, said, “One of (Kristallnacht’s)
first legal measures was … forbidding Jews to possess weapons of any kind
whatsoever and imposing a penalty of twenty years of confinement in a
concentration camp upon every Jews found in possession of a weapon.”

·One of the largest newspapers in Switzerland, “Journal Genève,” on November
16, 1938, reported, “They (the Nazis) have simplified the Jews’ destruction.
One method was to confiscate the Jews’ arms, thereby rendering the operation
without danger….”

·The difference in published reports on the penalty for the possession of
guns by Jews on Kristallnacht is attributable to the total breakdown of the
rule of law the night of November 9-10, 1938.

V. The vast majority of Jews killed in Nazi death factories were killed
between 1942 and 1945 and most were not Germans, but the citizens of
occupied countries like Poland and Lithuania.  Both had far larger Jewish
populations than Germany itself.  (For example, Vilnius, the capital of
Lithuania was considered a “Jewish city.” It had a Jewish population of
approximately 100,000 out of 220,000.)

·WWII began nine months after Kristallnacht. Germany invaded Poland on
September 1, 1939.  One of the first things the Nazi government did after it
occupied Poland was to decree that all Poles would be subject to the death
penalty for the possession of firearms.  Similar decrees were issued in
Holland, Belgium, Norway and France.  Almost immediately after occupying a
nation, the Germans promulgated gun control regulations that made it a
capital crime to own a gun.

VI. A further proof of the importance of gun control during the Holocaust
was the uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto. Between July 22 and October 3, 1942,
310,322 Jews were deported from the Warsaw ghetto to extermination camps.
Information got back to the ghetto what was happening to those people.
After a small cache of arms (two machine guns, fifteen rifles, 500 pistols
and several dozen hand grenades) was smuggled into the ghetto, the Jews
opened fire on the German  soldiers guarding them, and  the Nazis took heavy
casualties. Since the Jews were winning the gun fight,  the Warsaw military
commander gave instructions for all the buildings in the ghetto to be razed,
although the Germans had other plans for that large and  developed area in
the Polish capital.

VII. Some people – Jews and Gentiles alike – still question whether the
possession of firearms by Jews would have made any difference.  To the
doubters there is a simple – and indisputable – answer.  The Nazis
deliberately and methodically disarmed the Jews. They did not begin the
Holocaust until after they were sure the Jews had no guns.

VIII. The axiom with which this talk began – that wise aggressors will
always try to render their victims defenseless before attacking them --- has
a corollary.  An armed citizenry is both the first and last best defense
against tyranny.Tonight I will show that no government can successfully turn on its own
citizens when they own guns.  No government in history turned on its own
people as malevolently or on as large a scale as Hitler’s Third Reich.  It
killed seven million of its own citizens, six million of them Jews --- and
the Nazis could not have done this, if they had not first confiscated all
guns owned by Jews.  It is an axiom of human conduct that a wise aggressor –
whether a nation-state or a gangster – will attempt to render its victims
defenseless before proceeding against them.