Gun Control in the Third Reich (27 page)

It is tempting to surmise that the anonymous possession of firearms by the German Jews would have made no difference either in the 1938 pogrom or later in the Holocaust when the majority of remaining Jews were deported and killed
with bullets and gas. Yet how many individual stories might have been written differently had the October disarming and then the November Reichskristallnacht not been so devestatingly thorough? A fatalistic view ignores that the Nazis themselves perceived armed Jews as sufficiently dangerous to their policies to place great emphasis on the need to disarm all Jews. Indeed, as accounts in the
next chapter
suggest, some who defended their homes, families, temples, friends, and selves with firearms were occasionally, albeit rarely, successful in driving off their Nazi attackers.

Until now, it was by no means certain that Jewish armed resistance movements could not develop and even less certain that individual Jews would not use arms to resist arrest, deportation, and attacks by the Nazis. It was only after Reichskristallnacht, when the Jewish population was largely and systematically disarmed, that the Nazis' iron grip on the country was evident for everyone to see.

1
.
See
Gerald Schwab,
The Day the Holocaust Began: The Odyssey of Herschel Grynszpan
(New York: Praeger, 1990).

2
. Quoted in Friedrich Karl Kaul,
Der Fall des Herschel Grynszpan
(The Case of Herschel Grynszpan) (Berlin: Akademie, 1965), 8–9. See Vincent C. Frank, “Neuer Blick auf die Reichs kristallnacht,”
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
, Nov. 4, 1998,
http://www.hagalil.com/archiv/98/11/pogrom.htm
/ (visited May 7, 2013).

3
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
(The Diary of Joseph Goebbels), Teil I, Aufzeichnungen 1923–41, Band 6, Aug. 1938–June 1939, ed. Elke Fröhlich (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1998), 176–77 (entry for Nov. 8, 1938), 178 (entry for Nov. 9, 1938).

4
. Anthony Read and David Fisher,
Kristallnacht: The Unleashing of the Holocaust
(New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1989), 64.

5
. In German: “Helldorff läßt in Berlin die Juden gänzlich entwaffnen. Die werden sich ja auch noch auf einiges anderes gefaßt machen können.”
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 179 (entry for Nov. 10, 1938).

6
. “Nazis Ask Reprisal in Attack on Envoy,”
New York Times
, Nov. 9, 1938, 24.

7
. Both quoted in “Nazis Ask Reprisal in Attack on Envoy.”

8
.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
, Nov. 8, 1938, 2.

9
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 180 (entry for Nov. 10, 1938).

10
. Read and Fisher,
Kristallnacht
, 64–66; Schwab,
The Day the Holocaust Began
, 20.

11
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 180 (entry for Nov. 10, 1938).

12
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 180 (entry for Nov. 10, 1938).

13
. Schwab, The Day the Holocaust Began, 22; Lionel Kochan,
Pogrom: 10 November 1938
(London: Andre Deutsch, 1957), 63–64 (citing Urteil des obersten Parteigerichts in dem Verfahren gegen Frühling u.a.); Rita Thalmann and Emmanuel Feinermann,
Crystal Night: 9–10 November 1938
, trans. Gilles Cremonesi (New York: Holocaust Library, 1974), 59 (citing Orders of the SA Commander of the “Baltic Group”).

14
. Quoted in Heinz Lauber,
Judenpogrom: “Reichskristallnacht” November 1938 in Grossdeutschland
(Pogrom Against the Jews: Reichskristallnacht, November 1938, in Greater Germany) (Gerlingen, Germany: Bleicher, 1981), 86–87.

15
. An alle Stapo Stellen und Stapoleitstellen, Berlin Nr. 234 404 9.11.2355, Bundesarchiv (BA) Lichterfelde, R 58/3512 (emphasis in original). See also
Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal: Nuremberg, November, 14, 1945–October 1, 1946
(Buffalo, NY: William S. Hein, 1995), 25:377.

16
. Der Bürgermeister Nauen bei Berlin, Ulten betreffend Aktion gegen Juden, Nov. 10, 1938. Brandenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Potsdam, Rep. 8 Nauen, Nr. 101.

17
. Thalmann and Feinermann, Crystal Night, 60. See Eberstein's testimony in
The Trial of German Major War Criminals Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany
, Aug. 3, 1946, 252,
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-20/tgmwc-20-194-03.shtml
(visited Feb. 9, 2013).

18
. Thalmann and Feinermann,
Crystal Night, 60–61
.

19
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 180–81 (entry for Nov. 10, 1938).

20
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 181 (entry for Nov. 9, 1938).

21
. “Waffenbesitz für Juden verboten,”
Völkischer Beobachter
, Nov. 10, 1938, 1;
Berliner Börsen Zeitung
, Nov. 10, 1938, 1;
Der Angriff
, Nov. 10, 1938, 7.
See also
Joseph Walk,
Das Sonderrecht für die Juden im NS-Staat
(Special Law for Jews in the National Socialist State) (Heidelberg: Muller Juristischer, 1981).

22
. Edward Crankshaw,
Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny
(London: Greenhill Books, 1956), 90.

23
.
Entscheidungen des Preußischen Oberverwaltungsgerichts
, Nov. 10, 1938, in
Juristische Wochenschrift
(1939), 382. See also Ernst Fraenkel,
The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship
(New York: Octagon Books, 1941), 28.

24
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 181 (entry for Nov. 10, 1938).

25
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 182 (entry for Nov. 10, 1938).

26
.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
, Nov. 13, 1938, 2.

27
. Hugh Wilson, “Pogrom in Berlin and Reich,” Nov. 10, 1938, U.S. National Archives, Microfilm Series LM 193, No. 23, 862.4016, pp. 140–41.

28
. “Ueberall spontane Kundgebungen: Demonstration gegen das Weltjudentum auch in Hamburg” (Spontaneous Rallies Everywhere: Demonstration against World Jewry in Hamburg),
Hamburger Tagblatt
, Nov. 10, 1938, cited in Peter Freimark and Wolfgang Kopitzsch,
Der 9./10. November 1938 in Deutschland: Dokumentation zur “Kristallnacht”
(November 9–10, 1938, in Germany: Kristallnacht Documentation) (Hamburg: Ludwig Appel & Sohn, 1978), 22.

29
.
New York Times
, Nov. 11, 1938, 1.

30
. “Nazis Smash, Loot, and Burn,” 4. A London newspaper similarly reported Himmler's decree: “Any Jew found with arms will be imprisoned for twenty years.” Quoted in “Anti-Jew Riots Raging,”
Evening News
, Nov. 10, 1938.

31
. “Nazis Smash, Loot, and Burn,” 4.

32
. 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), 333–34.

33
. “Vienna's Temples Fired and Bombed,”
New York Times
, Nov. 11, 1938, 2.

34
. Quoted in Sigrid Schultz, “Homes Burned; Stores Looted; Terror Reigns,”
Chicago Daily Tribune
, Nov. 11, 1938, 1, 2B.

35
. Verordnung gegen den Waffenbesitz der Juden,
Reichsgesetzblatt
1938, I, 1571.

36
.
Id
. § 1.

37
.
Id
. § 3.

38
.
Id
. § 2.

39
.
Id
. § 4.

40
. The regulation was widely noticed in the English-speaking press. See, for example, “Jews Pay for Nazi Damage,”
London Times
, Nov. 14, 1938, 12A; “Ban on Firearms for Jews,”
Boston Globe
, Nov. 12, 1938, 2.

41
. Schwab,
The Day the Holocaust Began
, 25.

42
. Peter Padfield,
Himmler
(New York: MJF Books, 1990), 242.

43
. Michael Stolleis,
The Law under the Swastika
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 143.

44
. “Waffenbesitz für Juden jetzt durch Reichsgesetz verboten,”
Völkischer Beobachter
, Nov. 12, 1938, 1; the subtitles in German are: “Gefängnis und Zuchthaus neben Schutzhaft,” “Die erste Antwort auf die Herausforderung durch das Weltjudentum,” and “Weitere Maßnahmen hervorsichernd” As was typical, identical or similar text appeared throughout Germany. See, for example, “Das Waffenverbot für die Juden” (Weapons Prohibition for Jews),
Berliner Börsen Zeitung
, Nov. 12, 1938, 12.

45
. “Der Fall Grünspan,”
Völkischer Beobachter
, Nov. 12, 1938, 1.

46
. Emil Ludwig,
Der Mord in Davos
(Amsterdam: Querido, 1936), translated as
The Davos Murder
(London: Methuen, 1937).

47
. Wolfgang Diewerge,
Anschlag gegen den Frieden: Ein Gelbbuch über Grünspan und seine Helfershelfer
(München: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1939), 99–100.

48
. “Erläuterungen zu der Verordnung gegen den Waffenbesitz,”
Völkischer Beobachter
, Nov. 13, 1938, 2.

49
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 183–84.

50
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 185–86.

51
. Bericht des Polizeichefs Heydrich an Göring, betr. Aktion gegen die Juden, translated in
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), 5:854.

52
. Verordnung über eine Sühneleistung der Juden deutscher Staatsangehörigkeit,
Reichsgesetzblatt
1938, I, 1579.

53
. “More Arrests, Jews to Pay for Nazi Damage,”
London Times
, Nov. 14, 1938, 12A; Jonny Moser, “Depriving Jews of Their Legal Rights,”
November 1938: From “Reichskristallnacht” to Genocide
, ed. Walter H. Pehle, trans. William Templer (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), 127.

54
. “German to Keep Dieckhoff at Home,”
New York Times
, Nov. 27, 1938, 46. See also “German Jews Approach a Deadline,”
New York Times
, Dec. 11, 1938, 89 (among other prohibitions, the article stated, “[t]hey are barred from hunting”).

55
. Richard L. Miller,
Nazi Justiz: Law of the Holocaust
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995), 194 n. 372.

56
. “Der Vernichtungsfeldzug gegen die deutschen Juden” (The Campaign of Annihilation against the German Jews),
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
, Nov. 15, 1938, 1.

57
.
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels
, Teil I, 195.

58
. “Germany ‘Will Wipe out Jews If…'”
Daily Herald
(Chicago), Nov. 30, 1938, quoted in Martin Gilbert,
Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction
(New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), 179.

59
. “Ist die Judenfrage gelöst?”
Der Strümer
, no. 48 (Dec. 1938), 1.

60
. Abschnitt Nord, Besondere Vorkommnisse im Monat November 1938, Nov. 29, 1938, RG-14.006*04, copy from Leipzig city archives in United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.

61
. Klage des früheren Rechtsanwalt Dr. Paul Kahn, Dec. 22, 1958, Landesarchiv Baden-Wuerttemberg, Staatsarchiv Freiburg, Bestand: P 303/4 Nr. 444.

62
. Geheime Staatspolizei Staatspolizeileitstelle München, B.Nr. 39859/38 II G Ma., den 19.Dezember 38, An Polizeipräsidium München et al., Betreff: Waffenablieferung durch Juden, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, München (BHStA).

63
. Der Amtsgerichtspräsident, Strafmaß bei Bestrafung von Juden Auftrag vom 16. Dezember 1938, Jan. 13, 1939, BA Lichterfelde, R 3001/alt R22/1129.

64
. Quoted in “A Gypsy Census,”
London Times
, Dec. 15, 1938, 15C.

65
. Gisevius,
To the Bitter End
, 335.

66
. Gisevius,
To the Bitter End
, 582. Footage of Freisler's interrogation of Helldorf can be viewed in the DVD
Geheime Reichssache: Die Angeklagten des 20.Juli vor dem Volksgerichtshof
(Secret Reich Case: The Defendants of July 20 before the People's Court) (Potsdam Babelsberg: Chronos, n.d.).

67
. Abschrift Chef OKW 6840/38 Fernschreiben, copy by Wehrkreiskdo XIII Nr. 2936/38, Nov. 17, 1938, sent to subdivions of WK XIII, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchi Freiburg, RH 53–13/446 Wehrkreis XIII.

IN A PERVERSE WAY
, all members of the German Jewish community were victims of the Nazi ideological pretext that every Jew was dangerous and must be disarmed. Given the premise that any Jew with a weapon threatened the Reich, the universally cited excuse to ransack Jewish houses, businesses, and synagogues during Reichskristallnacht was to search for and seize weapons of any kind. Those who actually possessed weapons had them seized and were subject to twenty years in a concentration camp. Some personal reminiscences and other accounts relate these victims' experiences, and some, though few, of the stories here show what kinds of self-defense were possible for Jews under threat of arrest and attack.

“This is a police raid! We are looking for arms in all Jewish homes and apartments and so we shall search the orphanage too!” To these words in the early morning, Yitzhak Herz, caretaker of the children at the orphanage in Dinslaken, opened the door to two Gestapo officers and a policeman. They also searched for money but found nothing and departed with the order: “Nobody is to leave the house before 10 a.m.! All the blinds of the building which face the street must be drawn! Shortly after 10 a.m. everything will be over.”
¹

If orphanages and synagogues were not likely places to find arms, neither were businesses, but all Jewish premises were to be searched. In Hanover, the Schutzpolizei reported: “3d district: Specialty store for jackets at Sedanstrasse
35 has been searched for weapons. No other special events.”
²
Obviously no arms cache was discovered at this clothing shop.

Although arms were more likely to be found in private homes, many contained none. Frau Dzialowski of Mannheim recounted how three Nazis appeared at her apartment door with axes: “When I opened the door, they immediately started to provoke me, but I responded very calmly. ‘Where do you keep your weapons?' ‘I don't need any weapons because I am not planning to kill anybody.' ‘Where is your money?' To that I answered, ‘You have taken my husband away from his family; what else could you possibly want?' All of a sudden the three of them were deeply ashamed and left like common thieves. But my calm was gone. I sank to the floor in exhaustion and cried my heart out.”
³

An anonymous “Frau R.” lodged at the house of her Hamburg employer, Herr Heimann, after work on the night of November 9. “At 6 a.m. the following morning the front door bell rang. On opening the door a Gestapo officer placed his foot in it preventing it from being closed. He entered and immediately went to the bedroom where Mr. and Mrs. Heimann were sleeping. He switched on the light and ordered Mr. Heimann to go with him. He also searched the closets for weapons and gold.”
⁴

In Aachen, Germany's most westerly city bordering Belgium and the Netherlands, the Gestapo searched the houses of numerous Jewish families for weapons. Five Gestapo agents executed a late-night search of the Voss family home, not being deterred by the denial that no weapons were present.
⁵

Armin Keru, reminisced that on November 10, a mob approached his house in Landau when he was a boy:

The door bell rang, and they came in demanding, “We are looking for weapons.” My father answered that we didn't have any weapons. They shouted back, “Get out.” “Oh my god,” said my father, and one of them answered, “God is with us now, no longer with you.” We went outside in the yard—other Gentiles stood around just looked at us never saying a word…. The mob finally left and we went inside….

They had wrecked the furniture. Dishes, glass, and ornaments were broken. Cognac was splashed against the walls,—I remembered the smell for years.
⁶

Alice Oppenheimer recalled: “At our house [in Frankfurt am Main], the men searched my dad for weapons or something and then took him away. We learned later that all Jewish men between 18 and 60 had been arrested.”
⁷

Martha Hirsch, who had a sick father at the time, remembered the following details of the house search by Nazis at Frankfurt am Main:

The day that the assassination took place in Paris, my father came home and cried. He said, “This is it, now terrible things will happen to us.” Of course, we hardly expected the Nazis to burn down the synagogues and take the [Jewish] men to concentration camps, all in one night. But that was what we experienced. I saw furniture fly through windows and men arrested. My father was not sent to a concentration camp. He had a severe case of the flu and was lying in bed. He had not shaved and looked like he was close to death. The Nazis looked at him and said, “Let's leave this one behind.” I still remember the image of SS men standing in my bedroom. I was in bed when all of a sudden these brutes were standing in my room, ripping through my closet and searching for weapons.
Then they staggered out of our apartment and on to the next one. It was Thursday night, the night that the synagogues burned in Frankfurt.
⁸

Professor Arthur Freud (no relation to Sigmund Freud, much to some Nazis' disappointment) related what happened to him in the evening in Vienna, Austria: “[T]wo functionaries came to search my flat very rudely, pretending they were searching for arms.” When they found back issues of an anti-Nazi magazine,
Fackel
, Freud was ordered to burn them or be arrested.
⁹

In yet another unsuccessful search for firearms, a report from Vienna included the following:

Towards 1:00 a.m. they got to the apartment of Ms. Schwagen, a Jewish woman. They requested access to the apartment under the pretext that they needed to search for weapons. Schremmer [one of the Nazis] confronted the Jew, Dr. Rabl, ordered him to exercise in the room, and hit him in the face. Then they searched the apartment extensively….

After the search Ms. Unger was asked whether she kept any weapons in her apartment. Unger said that she would hold her apartment at the men's disposition anytime, but that she preferred the search to take place at 8:00 in the morning instead of during the night. Schmidinger and Hintersteiner did not agree with that and ordered Ms. Unger to get dressed and take them to her apartment so that they could search it. At the house entrance, Hintersteiner and Schmidinger let the other SA members go and followed Ms. Unger to her apartment which they searched for weapons.

The search did not yield any weapons.
¹⁰

A man named “Louis K” from Dortmund reported extortion under the guise of a search for arms. “During the pogrom night in November 1938 about 10 SS and SA men showed up at my door around 2:00 a.m., allegedly to search
for weapons. They told me that they would not leave without receiving at least 1,000 marks.”
¹¹
The victim negotiated the extortion to 500 marks and signed a promissory note to his bank, but at the time of writing his account of these events he did not know yet whether the note had been presented to his bank. His wife's pearls were stolen from the nightstand. Later, an official of the People's Welfare Office (Volkswohlfahrt) forced him to sign a new promissory note to protect him from being placed in a camp. The bank had not notified him, despite his demand, whether the amount had been withdrawn from his account.

In a collection of eyewitnesses of Reichskristallnacht in the District of Borken, Franz Josef Hesse recalled the following snapshot: “Erich Gottschalk reported that on November 9 around 11:00 p.m. several SS men, most of them from Gronau, came to his apartment at Bahnhofstrasse under the pretense that they were looking for weapons. They had forced barber Hilgemann to show them the Jewish apartments at Bahnhofstrasse, although one of the men was from Ahaus. Hilgemann had told them that they would not find any weapons in the apartments of Gottschalk, Katz, and Winkler. The search of Gottschalk's apartment went without a hitch.”
¹²

Mechthild Oenning remembered gangs of young men in Borken attacking Jews, but also defiant women who rebuffed home searches for weapons: “Jewish apartments were attacked at Bocholter Strasse where a Jewish teacher was arrested. Neighbors watched several adolescents from out of town and two or three 15- or 16-year-olds beating a man in the street with sticks. Under the pretense of looking for weapons, apartments were searched and ransacked. In two places this was prevented by female home owners who steadfastly refused to let the Nazis enter.”
¹³

Adalbert Friedrich recalled how Nazis, while taking Jewish men into “protective custody,” searched for weapons and used their own weapons to kill a family's dog: “As the highest party leaders had ordered, Jewish men were taken into ‘protective custody.' At the Elkan house the Nazis took old Mr. Herz and his son Saly and locked them up in the cells of the firehouse together with Emanuel and Nathan Elkan. The houses of the Jews were searched for ‘suspicious documents' and ‘weapons.' When a German shepherd dog put up resistance at the house of Emanuel Rosenbaum, the Nazis killed him with a shot from a pistol.”
¹⁴

Vandalism and plundering characterized the pogrom. In an analysis of the looting and theft, historian Dieter Obst has explained:

Munich had given orders to destroy, but had forbidden looting by private citizens. Many of the local pogrom initiators had told their people accordingly before the ransacking began. However, the initiators themselves extensively and systematically “secured” objects during and after the riots. Each National Socialist organization “secured” Jewish property that had not been destroyed or damaged.

In many towns things were “secured” during the search of Jewish apartments for weapons, money, illegal publications, foreign correspondence, or precious metal. The focus of the search varied from town to town. Sometimes its emphasis was on weapons, sometimes on money and sometimes on illegal publications. These searches left the affected apartments in great disarray, but things were not destroyed for the sake of destruction. They should therefore not be confused with the ransacking actions. At the same time, the searchers looted objects without any connection to weapons, money or publications.
¹⁵

Some Jews who still possessed firearms sought to comply with the confiscation orders. The Sinzheimers, a Jewish family with two children, lived in a large apartment on Uhlandstrasse in Berlin. Mr. Sinzheimer was in Paris on business on the evening of November 10, when Mrs. Sinzheimer heard shouting, glass
being smashed, and shooting. Family friend Herr Müller showed up at the door with a large revolver, informing the family of his intention to defend them and to shoot any of “those bastards” who would lay a hand on members of the family. At around 6:00 a.m., she heard over the radio an announcement that any Jew found in possession of a firearm would be shot at once. Mrs. Sinzheimer knew that the fact that her husband had a license for his handgun would mean nothing to the SA if they found it. She called a friendly repairman to break open the secret drawer where the firearm and license were hidden. She then placed the handgun and license in a box of cigars and carried it to the local police station on the Kurfüstendamm. She asked to see a sergeant whom she knew well and presented him with the box of cigars. When he discovered the gun license and handgun, he threw the gun in the garbage when no one was looking and exclaimed: “Hurry home, Frau Sinzheimer, before you give me a heart attack!”
¹⁶

Major Friedrich Solmitz of Hamburg was a highly patriotic, decorated World War I veteran. Although a Protestant convert, he remained Jewish according to the Nürnberg Laws. His wife, Luise, a non-Jewish conservative schoolteacher, kept a copious diary.
¹⁷
She described a fearful atmosphere on November 11, when she and her friend “Gi.” went to town and observed destruction and boarded up windows. No Jews were seen among the silently moving crowd. “In the evening I went to the block warden to discuss the surrender of weapons. Gi. and I had read on the street that Jews had to surrender all firearms as well as stabbing and cutting weapons to the police within four days.” Frau Solmitz continued (referring to Friedrich as “Fr.”): “Fr.'s beautiful hunting rifle, the weapons he used in the war. Everywhere there was bitterness, nowhere a glimmer of empathy, hope, not even a little breather…. After I had read about the weapons' surrender, I rushed home. I was concerned about Fr., relieved when we found him.”
¹⁸

Reflecting her outlook as a schoolteacher, she quoted from Theodor Fontane's classic nineteenth-century novel
Effi Briest:
“Is it that hard to leave the table of life a bit earlier?” In her own literary fashion, Luise continued: “Yes, it was hard for those with ties of love, those who knew the value of life, its beauty, and little daily things that are sacred. It was hard for those who had never violated their duty to the state and had never been unfaithful to the mother country. Himmler's decree threatens concentration camp and protective custody of 20 years (!) for those who fail to surrender their weapons.”

Frau Solmitz wrote again on November 12, describing what happened when she and Friedrich went to the Gestapo office at the city hall at Stadthausbrücke: “Fr. had not yet read the weapons ordinance, otherwise he would not have submitted a request to keep his sword and pistol from the war. The two SS men who were dealing with us in the entrance hall were a bit astonished. ‘Retired major?' said one of them. The official on the floor above said dryly: ‘That is over now.' He added: ‘If I may give you some advice, surrender all your weapons.” Fr. responded that as a former officer he would of course do that.”

Herr and Frau Solmitz returned home and were about to leave when two plainclothesmen from the Gestapo rang the doorbell. They wished to speak with Friedrich alone, but Luise overheard the conversation. They asked about his medals, he responded that he had “all kinds of medals from the war,” and they then wanted to see the documents. Asked whether he was a pilot, he responded that he was one of the first German air force officers and was 50 percent disabled in service. “Keep it short,” implored one of the officials—either they were in a hurry or Friedrich was being long-winded about his service. The interrogation then proceeded: “Fr. said that we had just returned from the Gestapo where we discussed the surrender of weapons. To the official's question whether he had any weapons, he said, ‘Of course, I am an old officer.' The official responded, ‘Make sure you surrender them all.' Fr. repeated that of course he would do so and asked for the reason of this visit. The officials responded that the fact that they were leaving now was proof that everything was in good order.” Solmitz may have been given some deference because of his war record. He was not arrested on the spot, and his house was not ransacked. He exemplified patriotic German Jews who owned firearms and who had no subversive thoughts whatever, but who were disarmed because they were Jews.