Gun Control in the Third Reich (18 page)

20
. Einheitssatzung in
Deutsche Schützen Zeitung, no.
4 (1935), S. 41–43, cited in Grus, “Allgemeines Verhältnis,” 2.

21
. Walter M. Plett,
Die Schützenvereine im Rheinland und in Westfalen, 1789–1939
(The Shooting Clubs in the Rhineland and in Westphalia, 1789–1939) (Cologne: RVDL, 1995), 466.

22
. Schwartz, “Schützenvereine im ‘Dritten Reich,'” 251 n. 190, 447, 629.

23
. Plett,
Die Schützenvereine im Rheinland und in Westfalen
, 482–83. The Gestapo cited section 1 of the Decree for the Protection of the People and State (Verordnung zum Schutz von Volk und Staat) of February 28, 1933. It also cited either section 14 of the Police Administration Law (Polizeiverwaltungsgesetzes) of June 1, 1931, or the Prussian Decree (Preuß. Verordnung) of August 2, 1933.

24
. Plett,
Die Schützenvereine im Rheinland und in Westfalen
, 452.

25
. Schwartz, “Schützenvereine im ‘Dritten Reich,'” 461.

26
. Schwartz, “Schützenvereine im ‘Dritten Reich,'” 462.

27
. Plett,
Die Schützenvereine im Rheinland und in Westfalen
, 441–42, 443–44.

28
. Schwartz, “Schützenvereine im ‘Dritten Reich,'” 461–62.

29
. Schwartz, “Schützenvereine im ‘Dritten Reich,'” 467.

30
. Schwartz, “Schützenvereine im ‘Dritten Reich,'” 470–72.

31
. Schwartz, “Schützenvereine im ‘Dritten Reich,'” 482–83.

32
. Schwartz, “Schützenvereine im ‘Dritten Reich,'” 483.

33
. Plett,
Die Schützenvereine im Rheinland und in Westfalen
, 447.

34
. Plett,
Die Schützenvereine im Rheinland und in Westfalen
, 452.

35
. StA Nürnberg, Vereinsregisterakte DSB 1938, p. 156/26, cited in Grus, “Allgemeines Verhältnis,” 2.

WHAT MIGHT BE
called the incredibly shrinking rule of law in Nazi Germany was characterized by ever-increasing Gestapo action outside any law. With the Reichstag no longer bothering to legislate, the Hitler cabinet continued to decree formal laws, including—after five years of leisurely consideration—the Weapons Law of 1938, a revision of the 1928 Weimar Firearms Law, under which the courts continued to adjudicate cases.

National Socialism embodied a schizophrenic perversion of law as a set of predictable rules that could be overridden by the führer, acting through institutions such as the Gestapo. But formal laws remained significant because in the usual course of events they were enforced by ordinary police and adjudicated by the courts. They could be ignored in extraordinary cases only if the Gestapo so decided.

Illustrative of the continued usefulness of the Weimar law to the Nazi regime was a case decided by Reich Regional Court (Landgericht) in Allenstein, East Prussia, in January 1937.
¹
Rejecting the argument that the defendant who possessed an unregistered double-barrel gun was unaware of the legal requirements, the court held that he “acted with intent when he purchased and carried the firearm as well as when he failed to register it.” Allenstein decreed the registration of firearms in 1932, and despite the decree's being annulled in 1936, the defendant could still be convicted.

The Reich Court reversed the lower court's decision that all of the offenses—including acquisition of, failure to register, and poaching with the gun—constituted but one criminal offense. “But the failure to register the gun is not part of the other offenses because those offenses were not committed through failure to register.” In short, the lower court sought to ameliorate the piling up of charges for the same act, but the appeals court demanded multiple convictions.

In response to continued discussion about a revised Firearms Law, Wilhelm Frick's Interior Ministry invited Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police Heinrich Himmler and officials of the High Office of Security Police (Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei) to a meeting on February 2, 1937, to resolve differences.
²
On May 5, Frick circulated a new draft,
³
explaining its most important element as follows: “The self-understood principle that
enemies of the people and the state and other elements that pose a danger to public security may not possess any weapons
shall be enforced by giving the police the authority to prohibit such persons from acquiring, possessing and carrying weapons and ammunition and to confiscate without compensation weapons and ammunition found in the possession of such persons.”
⁴

The draft rejected the suggestion that the acquisition of firearms should not require a permit, “given public security concerns.” “Rather, the police must be able to maintain control so that firearms that are easy to handle or can be carried concealed get into the hands of reliable persons only who proved a need.” Although “expensive long rifles, in particular hunting rifles,” did not require a permit under the 1932 regulations, “a special permit must be necessary for those long rifles that fall under the definition of war materials”—that is, military rifles. Further, “
small firearms
(pistols and revolvers)” must also require an acquisition permit.
⁵

The explanation of the new draft provided a little more detail on the prohibition of Jews' playing any role in the firearms industry: “There will be no room
for Jews in the German weapons industry and trade. § 3, paragraph 5, therefore provides that no permit may be issued if the requestor or the person designated to be the technical head of a facility is Jewish. This provision is not limited to the technical head of the business, but also applies to the commercial manager. It applies to both manufacturing and trade (§ 7, paragraph 2).”

Whereas enemies of the state would be totally disarmed, and ordinary persons would be required to prove “need” to obtain a permit to carry a firearm, members of the Nazi elite would need no permits of any kind: “The position of the NSDAP in the German state is taken into account in that those political leaders and leaders of the SA, SS, NSKK [National Socialist Motor Corps (Nationalsocialistisches Kraftfahrkorps)] and Hitler Youth with a certain rank who have been granted the right to carry firearms by the competent party office do not in addition need a police permit to carry firearms or acquire small firearms.”

The German states could not impose other restrictions, the explanation continued, “because pursuant to the First Decree on the New Order of the Reich of February 2, 1934, laws of the
Länder
[states] in general require the consent of the competent Reich minister.” (Following the virtual abolition of the states, that decree required all state laws to be approved by the Reich.
⁶
) However, state laws might continue to “be useful to prohibit Gypsies or persons wandering like Gypsies from owning weapons, until this matter has been settled for the Reich with a Reich law.” For uniformity, state laws regulating slashing or thrusting weapons would be inoperative, except with respect to Gypsies.

It is noteworthy that Frick's 1937 draft would have barred Jews from high-level positions within the firearms industry but would not have officially prohibited Jews from firearm possession. Gypsies were the only ethnic group prohibited from firearm ownership, but all “enemies of the state” were as well, a category into which the Gestapo placed Jews, not to mention political dissidents.

Although Jews were still formally not yet prohibited from firearms possession, in March 1937 the Gestapo proscribed issuance of hunting licenses to Jews because they were considered enemies of the state.
⁷
All hunting permits held by
Jews were revoked.
⁸
Jews neither could be trusted with arms nor should share in the Reich's natural resources.

Frick's draft was sent only to the Reich ministries—the legislature (Reichstag) no longer functioned—which included mostly political, police, and military agencies. The Reich forest supervisor and Prussian land forest supervisor opposed the proposed ban on hollow-point .22-caliber rimfire ammunition, noting: “Hollow-point, grooved or similarly made small-caliber cartridges are extremely useful for hunters to shoot rabbits and to keep the hunting grounds free of small predators.” They continued: “During the quiet hunting season, many hunters carry the small-caliber [.22 rimfire] in their three-barrel gun and under the proposed amendment of the law would no longer be able to use the hollow-point bullets that are much more efficient for hunting purposes. They would be forced to use the normal small-caliber bullets which are entirely insufficient and must be regarded as inappropriate for a hunter.”
⁹

The public had no idea what decrees Nazi officials were discussing behind closed doors, but the forest supervisors' opposition was the only objection made to the proposed new Firearms Law by a ministerial agency with a view of a segment of the public. Perhaps the regime feared use of this ammunition by “enemies of the state.”

Registration of supposed enemies of the state continued apace. A June 1937 directive assigned an SS division known as “Referat II, 112, Judaism” to focus on the complete registration of Jews in the Jewish Registry. The design and implementation of the registry was entrusted to Adolf Eichmann, who would later coordinate the extermination of Jews in the Holocaust.
¹⁰

Specific supposed enemies of the state continued to be rounded up. On July 1, 1937, Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller, a founder of the Confessing Church and opponent of the Nazification of the Protestant churches, was arrested
and would be incarcerated in prison and concentration camps until 1945. Bella Fromm, the Berlin Jewish socialite whose meeting with Hitler at a reception mentioned in a
previous chapter
made her wish she had her revolver, wrote in her diary: “They've arrested Pastor Niemoeller, charging him with subversive activity! They dare anything, knowing there is no armed minority strong enough to oppose their most outrageous acts. It is true that Niemoeller was of the opposition, but it was not a political opposition. Merely an opposition to the encroachment of the state on the Christian faith.”
¹¹

This statement exemplifies the ongoing purge from society of all enemies of National Socialism, as Frick repeatedly stated in his explanations of proposed revisions to the firearms laws. Had a large number of Germans been like Bella Fromm—armed and willing to transcend any Jewish–Christian dichotomies—perhaps there might have been an “armed minority” or, more than that, a minority strong enough to oppose the regime. Niemöller would capture this disunity among groups oppressed by Nazism in the poem he composed at the end of the war:

First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
¹²

The poem presents a partial explanation of how the Nazi regime was able to achieve total power by exploiting divisions in society. Anti-Hitler conspirator Hans Bernd Gisevius would later write:

Niemoeller's incarceration removed the last personality around whom any sort of civilian revolt movement might have gathered.

From the day the dictatorship began, the practicality of individual actions had seemed highly dubious, but a popular movement from below had seemed quite possible. For a time a general strike or other action by the disbanded labor unions appeared quite likely, but this likelihood turned out to be wrong. Thereupon, the resisters all turned their eyes to the Church.
¹³

According to Gisevius, the chance for a popular opposition movement thus ended, and thereafter only a revolt from above could succeed. However, “[t]he ‘sole bearers of arms in the nation' looked on idly as this enslavement of the nation took place. They ‘kept out' of the struggle.” He was referring to the military, adding: “From 1934 on, these ‘sole bearers of arms in the nation' had by their passivity abetted the growth of Nazi totalitarianism.”
¹⁴
With the capitulation of the Wehrmacht to Hitler's will, the last potential force to resist evaporated.

This capitulation was complete by early 1938, when scandals weakened the German High Command, and Hitler both appointed his own selections and assumed the office of the War Ministry. In January, when Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg sought Hitler's blessings to remarry, the führer consented and even attended the ceremony. Berlin police president Helldorf, however, had information that Blomberg's wife had been convicted as a prostitute and had posed for pornographic photos that had been widely sold in Berlin. A Czech Jew had supposedly been her partner. Helldorf then took his evidence to Hermann Göring, who coveted Blomberg's power and so informed Hitler.
¹⁵
An enraged Hitler was able to use the scandal to depose Blomberg and assert total power over the Wehrmacht.

By December 18, 1937, Interior Minister Frick had feedback “from the Reich agencies and the deputy of the führer” and enclosed a semifinal draft of the proposed revisions to the Firearms Law. Unless objections were received within
three weeks, noted Frick, “I will assume that all pertinent agencies agree with this draft to the Weapons Law and will submit it to the Reich cabinet for adoption by circulation because I do not consider it necessary for the cabinet to debate this draft.”
¹⁶

Wilhelm Keitel—just appointed by Hitler as Reich minister of war and commander in chief of the Wehrmacht in the wake of the Blomberg scandal—requested that the draft state that “[w]ar materials may be acquired only with approval of the Reich Minister of War or an agency designated by him.”
¹⁷
This would ensure that citizens could not obtain permits to acquire military firearms, such as ordinary Mauser bolt-action rifles.

Meanwhile, a less orderly form of firearms prohibition and anti-Semitism was taking place outside of Germany. In Rumania, Jewish lawyers were beaten by non-Jewish lawyers, and “in one district authorities were ordered to issue no more firearms permits to Jews, who were ordered to surrender arms already in their possession.”
¹⁸
A newly installed military dictatorship declared its power to conduct house searches and censor the press, and “a proclamation further order[ed] the surrender of all arms and ammunition in private possession.”
¹⁹

In Germany, however, legal forms remained important. Final changes to the draft law were made, and at last, on February 9, 1938, Frick submitted it for final approval by the Reich cabinet by way of circulation and without debate. Not only had the legislature and legislative debate ceased to function, the cabinet apparently engaged in little debate—especially when, as here, “all of the Reich ministries and the Deputy of the Führer have given their approval to the draft.”
²⁰
“The specialist for the Weapons Law at the Reich Ministry of the Interior, senior official Dr. Hoche,” urged that the circulation process be speeded up and kept to a minimum.
²¹

A minor scrambling for an interpretation by Nazi bureaucrats took place at the last minute. A memorandum was inserted into the record that “officials and employees of the security service of the Reich Chancery do not need a firearm license. It is sufficient if they carry a certificate of their agency…. The specialist at the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Dr. Hoche, senior official, agreed with this interpretation.”
²²