Gun Control in the Third Reich Read online

  The Reich Association of German Gunsmiths and Firearm and Ammunition Dealers (Reichsverband Deutscher Büchsenmacher, Waffen und Munitionshändler) protested to the Reich interior minister that the new regulations disarmed the law-abiding population while the smugglers and black market traffickers provided radicals with arms. So many restrictions had been imposed that the lawful trade could not survive without relaxation of the rules. “We for our part still think that draconian penalties would be the best solution for any willful offense against the Firearms Law and also for the misuse of arms.”70

  On “Bloody Sunday,” July 17, 1932, in Altona, a working-class suburb of Hamburg, Communists shot it out with police at a Nazi demonstration; eighteen people were killed, and many more wounded.71 Carl Severing, formerly the Reich interior minister but now holding that position in Prussia, sought to curb violence from the left and right by cracking down on illegal possession of weapons and authorizing local officials to prohibit demonstrations.72 This tactic may have heralded a new phase in the struggle against political violence, but it was no more successful than the other disarmament measures decreed since 1918.73

  As 1932 progressed, one shaky government replaced another as the Weimar Republic went into its death throes. In mid-January 1933, the short-lived Reich chancellor General Kurt von Schleicher made a futile stab at removing the Versailles Treaty’s strict limits on the German armed forces. That was a primary issue on which the Nazis were winning electoral support. Speaking as defense minister, Schleicher demanded an equality of arms with the Great War’s victors, reflecting: “Since time immemorial the right to bear arms has been to a German the sign of a free man. Our opponents know well that they struck at Germany’s very marrow when they rendered her defenseless and, thereby, a second-class people. The army, which after all represented the German people under arms, felt nothing to be so unkind, undeserved, disgraceful, and, yes, unchivalrous on the part of her enemies as the prohibition to bear arms.”74

  This concept of a “right to bear arms” was in the Hegelian statist tradition, meaning compulsory military service rather than an individual liberty. German military leaders rejected the Swiss militia system of “a people in arms” in which the citizen soldier kept his arms at home.75 In post–World War I Germany, this rejection manifested itself as a standard of police and state protection of individuals.

  Schleicher hoped that channeling young men into military service—a million of them younger than twenty-five were unemployed in Germany at the time—would reduce the appeal of National Socialism. He even suggested the combining of the Reichsbanner and the Stahlhelm into a militia to promote national defense and to stabilize the domestic scene.76 But it was too late for such illusions.

  In the years from 1918 through 1932, Germany had gone from a brutal policy that in times of unrest entailed immediate execution for mere possession of a firearm to a modern, albeit imperfectly executed, gun control law. Passed by a liberal republic, this law initially ensured that the police compile records of all lawful firearms acquisitions (but, of course, not of unlawful ones) and that the lawful keeping and bearing of arms were subject to police approval. In its final period, the Weimar Republic authorized the registration of all firearms and the confiscation of arms at the discretion of the authorities.

  Yet the attempts to control violence in the country meant that private and generally harmless citizens were primarily the ones whose names found their way onto firearms lists. This period also established a chaotic legal environment for gun control laws. Police authorities were given limitless discretion, and the laws themselves would be decreed and redecreed to focus on whatever weapon or activity (such as public demonstrations) needed controling for the moment. This firearms control regime and generally the power to issue emergency decrees would be quite useful to the coming Nazi regime.

  The ad hoc, arbitrary execution of ever more stringent and “progressively modern” gun control restrictions was a constituent part of Germany’s political order and was thus as unstable and uncertain as that deteriorating order. It was a dangerous dance between political parties, police forces, and state controls on the backs of the citizens at large. And firearms prohibitions became a key opening step for the Nazi Party as the spotlight turned to shine on it.

  The dance would soon end, for the volcano that roiled beneath Germany erupted.

  *

  1. Wilhelm Elfes Polizeipräsident to Reichsminister des Innern (RMI) Dr. Wirth, Mar. 20, 1931, Bundesarchiv (BA) Lichterfelde, R 1501/125939, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 3, 1929–31, S. 475–76.

  2. Gesetz gegen Waffenmißbrauch, Reichsgesetzblatt 1931, I, 77, § 3.

  3. Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, July 15, 1931, S. 949.

  4. Decision of July 9, 1931, Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, Dec. 15, 1932.

  5. Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, Aug. 1, 1931, S. 1015.

  6. Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, Sept. 1, 1931, S. 1171.

  7. Hsi-Huey Liang, The Berlin Police Force in the Weimar Republic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 112.

  8. Niederschrift über Ministerkonferenz, Sept. 26, 1931, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125940, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 4, 1931–32, S. 198–99.

  9. Dem Herrn Min., Nov. 23, 1931, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125940, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 4, 1931–32, S. 275–77.

  10. Ulrich Herbert, Best: Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft 1903–1989 (Best: A Biographical Study of Radicalism, World View, and Reason) (Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz Nachfolger, 1993), 112–19. See also Hubert Beckers, “Das Boxheimer Dokument vom November 1931” (The Boxheimer Document of November 1931), http://www.shoa.de/content/view/590/102/ (visited Feb. 3, 2008).

  11. Quoted in Martin Loiperdinger, “Das Blutnest vom Boxheimer Hof” (The Bloody Nest of the Boxheimer Hof), in Hessen unterm Hakenkreuz (Hesse Under the Swastika), ed. Eike Hennig (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1983), 435, and in Anton Maria Keim, “Entwurf einer Diktatur: Am 26. November 1931 wurden die ‘Boxheimer Dokumente’ enthüllt” (Blueprint for a Dictatorship: The “Boxheimer Documents” Revealed on November 26, 1931), Mainzer Vierte1jahreshefte 4 (1981), 117, 119.

  12. Loiperdinger, “Das Blutnest vom Boxheimer Hof,” 436–38.

  13. Loiperdinger, “Das Blutnest vom Boxheimer Hof,” 438–65.

  14. “Repudiators,” Time, Dec. 7, 1931, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,930407,00.html?promoid=googlep (visited April 19, 2013).

  15. Loiperdinger, “Das Blutnest vom Boxheimer Hof,” 449; Herbert, Best, 129–30, 449.

  16. Hans Bernd Gisevius, To the Bitter End: An Insider’s Account of the Plot to Kill Hitler, 1933–1944, trans. Richard Winston and Clara Winston (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998), 184.

  17. Herbert, Best, chaps. 4 and 5.

  18. Ordonnance concernant la détention d’armes et de radio-émetteurs dans les territoires occupés (Decree Concerning the Possession of Arms and Radio Transmitters in the Occupied Territory), on display at the Musée de l’Ordre de la Libération, Paris; Harold Flender, Rescue in Denmark (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963; reprint, Washington, DC: Holocaust Library, n.d.), 40–41; Werner Best, Dänemark in Hitlers Hand: Der Bericht des Reichsbevollmächtigten Werner Best (Denmark in Hitler’s Hands: The Report of Plenipotentiary Werner Best), ed. Siegfried Matlok (Husum, Germany: Husum Druck GmbH, 1988), 52–53.

  19. Wilhelm Elfes, “Die Waffen heraus!” (Weapons Out!), Kölnische Volkszeitung, Dec. 1, 1931.

  20. Albert Esser, Wilhelm Elfes, 1884–1969: Arbeiterführer und Politiker (Wilhelm Elfes, 1884–1969: Labor Leader and Politician) (Mainz: Matthias-Grunewald, 1990); Ingrid Schupetta, “Die Geheime Staatspolizei in Krefeld—von Polizisten und Schreibtischtätern” (The Gestapo in Krefeld – The Police and Masterminds), Der vollständige Aufsatz—mit Bildmaterial und Fußnoten—erschien in der Zeitschrift Die Heimat, Jg. 76/2005, S. 115–27.

  21. RMI to Polizeipräs. Elfes, Dec. 3, 1931, BA Lichterfelde, R 1
501/125940, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 4, 1931–32, S. 286.

  22. RMI to Innenminister der Länder, Dec. 1, 1931, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125940, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 4, 1931–32, S. 280.

  23. Bremische Gesandtschaft, Dec. 3, 1931, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125940, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 4, 1931–32, S. 282.

  24. Vermerk, Dec. 3, 1931, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125940, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 4, 1931–32, S. 312.

  25. Hans Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 361.

  26. “Germany Will Enforce Truce for Christmas by Barring Meetings and Controlling Arms,” New York Times, Dec. 5, 1931, 1.

  27. Loiperdinger, “Das Blutnest vom Boxheimer Hof,” 443.

  28. Vierte Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zur Sicherung von Wirtschaft und Finanzen und zum Schutze des inneren Friedens vom 8. Dezember 1931, Achter Teil, Kapitel I, Reichsgesetzblatt 1931, I, S. 699, 742. See also William L. Patch, Heinrich Brüning and the Dissolution of the Weimar Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 172, 210–13, 227–29; Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, 378.

  29. Vierte Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten, at 1(1).

  30. Id. at § 1(2).

  31. Id. at § 1.

  32. Id. at § 2, amending 16(1), first sentence, of the Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition (Law on Firearms and Ammunition) of April 12, 1928, Reichsgesetzblatt I, S. 143, 144.

  33. Vierte Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten at § 3.

  34. Id. at § 4–6.

  35. Quoted in Franz von Papen, Memoirs (London: Andre Deutsch, 1952), 145.

  36. Reichsgesetzblatt 1931, I, 750.

  37. Id. at § 1.

  38. Id.

  39. Id. at § 2.

  40. RMI to Landesregierungen, Dec. 12, 1931, Durchführung der Massnahmen geg. Waffenmissbrauch, Teil 8, Kap. I der Vierten VO des RP 8.12.31, RGBL I, p. 699, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125940, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 4, 1931–32, S. 314–15.

  41. Werner Hoche, “Die neuen waffenrechtlichen Vorschriften” (The New Weapon Law Regulations), Reichsverwaltungsblatt, Dec. 26, 1931, S. 1025–27. See also Werner Hoche, Schußwaffengesetz (Firearm Law), (Berlin: Vahlen 3rd ed. 1931), 3.

  42. RMI to Landesregierungen, Feb. 8, 1932, Massnahmen gegen Waffenmissbrauch, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125940, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 4, 1931–32, 416–17.

  43. Bericht über einen polit. Vorfall, Oct. 4, 1938, Alfred Flatow, A Rep Pr. Br. Rep. 030/21620 Bd. 5, Haussuchungen bei Juden 1938–39 (FB Bd. 5), Landesarchiv Berlin.

  44. Der Polizeipräs, Potsdam to Reg. Präs., Feb. 21, 1932, Kriegsgerät, Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv (BrLHA), Pr. Br. Rep. 2A Reg, Potsdam I Pol/3492, Ablieferung von Waffen Bd. 8, 1923–33. The decree he refers to is the War Equipment Law. Kriegsgerätegesetz, Reichsgesetzblatt 927, 239.

  45. Reg. Präs. Potsdam to Landräte, Feb. 20, 1932, Massnahmen geg. Waffenmissbrauch, BrLHA, Pr. Br. Rep. 2A, Reg. Potsdam I Pol/3492, Ablieferung von Waffen Bd. 8, 1923–33.

  46. Landrat d. Kr. Westhavelland to Reg. Präs., Mar. 1, 1932, Massnahmen geg. Waffenmissbrauch, BrLHA, Pr. Br. Rep. 2A, Reg. Potsdam I Pol/3492, Ablieferung von Waffen Bd. 8, 1923–33.

  47. Polizeiverw. Brandenburg to Reg. Präs., Feb. 3, 1932, Massnahmen geg. Waffenmissbrauch, BrLHA, Pr. Br. Rep. 2A, Reg. Potsdam I Pol/3492, Ablieferung von Waffen Bd. 8, 1923–33.

  48. Bürgermeister Eberswalde to Reg. Präs., Feb. 24, 1932, Massnahmen geg. Waffenmissbrauch, BrLHA, Pr. Br. Rep. 2A, Reg. Potsdam I Pol/3492, Ablieferung von Waffen Bd. 8, 1923–33.

  49. Section 17(2), Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition, Reichsgesetzblatt 1928, I, 143, 145.

  50. Landrat d. Kr. Teltow to Reg. Präs., Feb. 29, 1932, Massnahmen geg. Waffenmissbrauch, BrLHA, Pr. Br. Rep. 2A, Reg. Potsdam I Pol/3492, Ablieferung von Waffen Bd. 8, 1923–33.

  51. Pol. Präs. Potsdam to Reg. Präs., Feb. 26, 1932, Massnahmen geg. Waffenmissbrauch, BrLHA, Pr. Br. Rep. 2A, Reg. Potsdam I Pol/3492, Ablieferung von Waffen Bd. 8, 1923–33.

  52. Kurt Bader and Alfred Schühly, eds., Sammlung badischer Polizeiverordnungen (Collection of Baden Police Ordinances) (Berlin: Verlag für Recht und Verwaltung, 1936), 4.

  53. Bader and Schühly eds., Sammlung badischer Polizeiverordnungen, 5.

  54. Bader and Schühly eds., Sammlung badischer Polizeiverordnungen, 5.

  55. Bader and Schühly eds., Sammlung badischer Polizeiverordnungen, 5–6.

  56. Anordnung des Regierungspräsidenten in Oppeln v. 19. Febr. 1932—Abl., S. 69, cited in “Artikel 48, 102 der Reichsverfassung” (Article 48, 102, of the Reich Constitution), Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, Jan. 15, 1934, 150.

  57. Decision of January 21, 1937, Regional Court (Landgericht) Allenstein, Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts in Strafsachen (Decisions of the Reich Court in Criminal Matters) (Berlin: Gruyter, 1938), Band 71, S. 40.

  58. Rudolf Reger to Hindenburg, Mar. 3, 1932, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125941, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 5, 1932–33, S. 4–5.

  59. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers 1932, vol. 2: The British Commonwealth, Europe, Near East, and Africa (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947), 288–89, 289, and 290 for dispatch of April 7, 1932.

  60. John R. Angolia and Hugh Page Taylor, Uniforms, Organization, & History of the German Police (San Jose, CA: R. James Bender, 2004), 147.

  61. Decision of 5/23/1932, III 235/32, Regional Court (Landgericht) Kassel, Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts in Strafsachen, Band 66, S. 249.

  62. Decision of 5/23/1932, II 496/32, Reich Court, Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts in Strafsachen, Band 66, S. 262.

  63. Der Pr. Min. für Handel u. Gewerbe to RMI, Feb. 29, 1932, Schusswaffengesetz, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125941, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 5, 1932–33, S. 424–29.

  64. Verband Zeller-Mehliser Waffenfabriken e.V. to Thür. Min.d.Inn, Mar. 16, 1932, Aenderung der Ausführungsbestimmungs-VO zum Reichsschusswaffengesetz, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125941, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 5, 1932–33, S. 461–62.

  65. Thür. Min.d.Inn to RMI, Mar. 17, 1932, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125941, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 5, 1932–33, S. 462 (back side).

  66. RMI to Thür. Min.d.Inn, Apr. 4, 1932, Schusswaffengesetz, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125941, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 5, 1932–33, S. 469.

  67. RMI to Landesregierungen, Mar. 29, 1932, Aenderungen der Ausführungsverordnung zum Schusswaffengesetz, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125941, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 5, 1932–33, S. 453–60.

  68. Verordnung zur Änderung der Ausführungsverordnung zu dem Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition (Regulations to Amend the Implementing Regulations of the Law on Firearms and Ammunition), Reichsgesetzblatt 1932, I, S. 253.

  69. Id.

  70. Reichsverband Dt. Büchsenmacher, Waffen-u. Munitionshändler eV, to RMI, Aug. 4, 1932, Schusswaffengesetz, BA Lichterfelde, R 1501/125941, Gesetz über Schußwaffen und Munition Bd. 5, 1932–33, S. 374–72.

  71. Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, 441–42.

  72. Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, 444–45.

  73. Werner Hoche, “Die neue Phase im Kampf gegen politische Ausschreitungen” (The New Phase in the Battle Against Political Riots), Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung, Jan. 15, 1933, 138.

  74. Quoted in “Schleicher Hails Virtures of Army,” New York Times, Jan. 16, 1933, 4.

  75. New York Times, Jan. 22, 1933, 3.

  76. Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, 504.

  PART II

  1933

  Enter the Führer

  4

  The Nazi Seizure of Power

  ADOLF HITLER WAS named chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. Seizing upon the Weimar firearms prohibitions and repressive emergency decrees, the New Order
immediately began a campaign to disarm and obliterate all enemies of the state. To justify confiscating the arms of and repressing their enemies, the Nazis invariably designated their opponents “Communists.” Although Hindenburg continued as president until his death the following year, the old general could do little to restrain the former corporal whom he held in contempt.

  The Nazis instigated aggressive repression against alleged Communists, including police searches of persons and houses to seize weapons, which led to armed clashes and deaths.1 For instance, on February 1 in the Charlottenburg area of Berlin a large police detachment arrived to investigate the alleged shooting deaths of two Nazi Party officers by Communists the night before. “The police closed off the street to all traffic while at the same time criminal detectives conducted extensive raids in the houses. Each individual apartment was searched for weapons.”2 This use of police force was not a sudden or total break from previous policies enacted by the republic, however.

  On February 12, eleven deaths resulted from political clashes in German cities. In Eisleben, a troop of Nazis was allegedly shot at from Communist Party headquarters, and so Nazis stormed the building. In Braunschweig, police fired on two women for failure the leave their windows when a Nazi troop was passing. In Düsseldorf, police claimed to have discovered arms and arrested fifty Communists.3

  Police were given full reign to shoot enemies of the state. Prussian interior minister Hermann Göring mandated on February 17: “Police officers who make use of firearms in the exercise of their duties will, without regard to the consequences of such firearm use, benefit by my protection; those who out of a misplaced regard for such consequences fail in their duty will be punished in accordance with the regulations.”4

  Because Hitler had attained power legally, without violation of the Constitution, none of the parties on the left, center, or right had any plan or support for any kind of armed resistance. Not just the Communists (KPD) and Social Democrats (SPD), but also the German Center Party (Deutsche Zentrumspartei) and the German State Party (Deutsche Staatspartei) were harassed.5 As Leon Dominian, the U.S. consul-general at Stuttgart, described the situation, roving bands of Nazis traveled about, entering homes to enquire whether residents were Nazis or Jews. “As in Italy, these Fascists carry arms openly and it is evident from their manner that their marching about is intended as a deliberate provocation to create disturbances and to intimidate peaceable citizens.” Despite resistance from leftist, center, and democratic circles, it was unlikely that “this opposition will assume the concrete form of an armed civil struggle.”6