Gun Control in Nazi Occupied-France Page 27

  56. Laval, Diary.

  57. Shirer, Collapse of the Third Republic, 891–92 (emphasis in original).

  58. See J. Kenneth Brody, The Trial of Pierre Laval (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2010).

  59. Warner, Pierre Laval, 408–16.

  Concluding Thoughts

  PIERRE LAVAL’S 1935 executive action decreeing firearm registration and tightening up the ban on military-style firearms was touted in what today might be called a common-sense gun safety measure. After all, there was violence in the streets, and there were radical groups in society that might disrupt the social order. That only some law-abiding citizens would obey the decree and that many would ignore it, and that actual criminals and subversives definitely would not, did not seem to matter. What did matter was to enhance the power of the government over the citizens.

  Little did anyone anticipate that, just five years later, France would be conquered by Nazi Germany, that under the armistice the French government would enforce German occupation policy, that the Wehrmacht would decree the death penalty for anyone who failed to surrender his or her firearms within twenty-four hours, that the French police would have the gun registration records with the identities of those who had been gullible enough to comply, that countless French citizens would face firing squads for not surrendering their firearms, and that lack of firearms would greatly impede an effective French Resistance. And who would have thought that one and the same Pierre Laval would become the chief collaborator to harness the people and resources of France to the needs of the German war machine?

  Fortunately, not every French farmer or city dweller had registered their firearms in 1935—ignoring diktats from Paris is a wonderful French tradition. If the French government mistrusted gun owners, many gun owners mistrusted the French government. Moreover, they hid their hunting guns and revolvers when the Germans overran France in 1940, and in the ensuing four years of occupation braved the death penalty for doing so. The civil disobedience to Nazi gun control was so pervasive that one Wehrmacht district reported in exasperation, “Illegal weapons possession still represents the core of criminal activities of the French. It appears almost impossible to get rid of it.”1

  What was an occupier to do? After shooting so many for not turning in their guns, offer amnesty to those now willing to do so? Threaten to execute people for not denouncing others who had guns? Since the existence of unknown gun owners in the country threatened the security of the German occupation, and required extra security forces that could be deployed elsewhere, harsh measures were in order to achieve a “gun-free” France.

  That was all the more the case as the Resistance grew and its members armed to protect themselves from capture, particularly when committing sabotage, raiding installations, gaining intelligence, and finally fighting back in groups such as the Maquis.

  The value of an armed citizenry to resist tyranny, either domestic or foreign, can be debated. Guarantees of the right to keep and bear arms were demanded by the Third Estate in France and were considered, but not adopted, in the French Declaration of Rights of 1789. No constitutional tradition existed in France of a right of commoners to possess arms. Without such a tradition, it appears to have been relatively easy for the Laval government simply to decree draconian gun control measures. Yet many French ignored the threat of imprisonment imposed by those measures, and later disregarded the threat of the death penalty. A large number paid with their lives. This is a telling phenomenon regarding the enforceability of gun registration and prohibition.

  The value of the armed forces of a nation state to resist invasion can also be debated. The Wehrmacht’s blitzkrieg crushed the French army in just a few weeks. And that is where the role of the armed citizen became relevant. The “shadow army,” as Henri Michel dubbed the resistance groups that rose all over occupied Europe to fight the enemy, contributed to the defeat of Nazism.2 Guerrilla warfare helped the regular armies by wearing down and demoralizing the Germans. Michel noted, “If the regular armies are initially defeated, guerrillas can play a major part in defensive strategy; once these same regular armies have been reconstituted, guerrillas can assist their offensive operations.”3 He further observed:

  When an army dissolves its war is over, for it will take years to reconstitute and can only be of use if the situation takes a favourable turn—this was what the men of Vichy thought and it was the tragedy of the French Armistice Army. The “shadow army,” on the other hand, can melt away if the enemy offensive becomes too hot; it will do so only to recover its strength through contact with its country and its people….4

  It is telling that the only armed resistance in France until D-Day was conducted by civilians, from the politically motivated men and women who organized into urban cells to the young men who fled labor conscription to fight with the Maquis in the mountains. While they could not liberate France without the help of foreign armies, they helped pave the way for the Allied invasion. Once the Allied armies hit the beaches of Normandy, the Resistance would fight with them to the final victory.

  The phenomena of occupied France during World War II involve countless historical factors, of which gun control in the prewar and occupation periods is only one of many (albeit one that has been wholly ignored by historians). The extent to which the negative experiences of gun control in those periods are remembered today in France or other European countries is unclear and maybe dubious. The European Union appears to have an agenda to disarm the populations to the fullest extent possible.

  But France’s experiences did sway public opinion in the United States, where opposition to firearm registration and prohibition was influenced not just by the National Rifle Association but more so by the major media. As shown in this work, the New York Times regularly published the names of French citizens who were executed for gun possession. While memories about the details have faded, the laws in most of the United States reflect a robust protection for lawful gun ownership and for the right to keep and bear arms.

  The extent to which the pendulum should swing between gun control and gun ownership continues to be debated in Europe, the United States, and the rest of the world. In response to terrorist attacks in France, Belgium, Germany, and elsewhere, the European Union appears to be hell bent to register and prohibit possession of firearms by law-abiding citizens. It is said that those who do not learn from history are apt to repeat it. Whether there are lessons to be learned on this issue from the experiences of the France of Pierre Laval and the Nazis with whom he collaborated is for the reader to decide. Yet it cannot be questioned that France’s nightmare in that era with firearm registration, prohibition, and confiscation, enforced by the firing squad, suggests a telling lesson: be careful what you wish for.

  The defeat of its forces in 1940 and its occupation were not proud moments for France. Yet there was an element of French society that could be remembered as its “greatest generation.” That would be those who refused to submit, who refused to turn in their guns, and who fought back. Many died for those very reasons, and their courage should never be forgotten, as they helped ensure the fulfillment of their slogan: “Vive la France libre!”

  1. BA/MA, RW 35/1264, Lagebericht des Militärverwaltungsbezirks B, Südwestfrankreich, für die Zeit vom 16. November 1941 bis 15. Januar 1942, 19. November 1942.

  2. Michel, Shadow War, 15.

  3. Michel, Shadow War, 290–91.

  4. Michel, Shadow War, 357.

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