Gun Control in the Third Reich (3 page)

Hitler wrote
Mein Kampf
during his nine-month prison sentence for treason. Although largely raving about liberals, Jews, and Bolsheviks, he opined on how German youth should be training: “To me boxing and jiujitsu have always appeared more important than some inferior, because half-hearted, training in shooting.” Ideology, not arms, would protect the “folkish State” from its enemies: “Then the best protection will not be represented in its arms, but in its citizens; not fortress walls will protect it, but the living wall of men and
women, filled with highest love for the country and with fanatical national enthusiasm.”
⁴⁸

The aftermath of all these disturbances saw the creation in 1924 of the largest paramilitary group, the republican Reichsbanner. Although overwhelmingly SPD, it included German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei) and Center Party (Deutsche Zentrumspartei) members.
⁴⁹
Not to be outdone, the Communists formed the Red Front Combat League (Roter Frontkämpferbund, or RFB).
⁵⁰
Already in existence was the Stahlhelm (Steel Helmets), which required members to have served six months at the front in the Great War and which was open to Social Democrats, Jews, and conservatives alike.
⁵¹

Fueled by unemployment and extremism, violence flared in 1925–26 between the KPD, the NSDAP, the Stahlhelm, and the Reichsbanner. They fought with flagpoles, bicycle chains, brass knuckles, and knives.
⁵²
Berlin authorities banned the carrying of walking sticks and prohibited sticks and other weapons at political rallies—all to no effect.
⁵³

Licenses to carry weapons for self-defense were theoretically available, but denial of a license by the police was not subject to judicial review.
⁵⁴
Neglect to renew a license was grounds for a conviction for unlawful possession of a weapon.
⁵⁵

Whether the 1919 Weapons Possession Decree was intended to confiscate all firearms or only military firearms remained unsettled. Noting recent cases of confiscations of and prosecutions concerning private firearms, legal scholar
Hugo Preuss argued that even though the law referred to “all firearms,” it distinguished rifles and carbines, military designations for the infantry rifle and the shorter carbine. If literally all firearms were included, the law would have similarly distinguished shotguns, target rifles, hunting rifles, and even air guns, he claimed.
⁵⁶

Fritz Kunze, an official with the Reich Commissioner for the Protection of Public Order (Reichskommissar für die Ueberwachung der öffentlichen Ordnung), responded that the 1919 decree was intended to confiscate military firearms as well as all other rifles and handguns, but not .22-caliber rifles and
teschings
, small-caliber salon or parlor rifles.
⁵⁷
But in a 1926 decision the Reich Court (Reichsgericht) held that the duty to surrender “all firearms” under the 1919 law included all firearms without any exceptions, including parlor rifles.
⁵⁸

Many hunters and sport shooters owned small-caliber firearms without permits and thus were not in compliance with the law as interpreted by the court's decision, noted a retired judge from Leipzig. Pointing out that the case involved a Baden farmer who had possessed an unlicensed parlor rifle for years, he admonished the need for publicity of this ruling given the large number of small-caliber sports clubs.
⁵⁹

As usual, the liberty of ordinary persons to pursue such harmless activities was clouded by political strife. In 1926, rightist paramilitary leagues began taking up legal small-caliber rifle shooting. The leftist Reichsbanner founded its own republican small-caliber shooting association.
⁶⁰

Yet firearms played only a minor role in some parties' increasing radicalization. On May Day 1927, a major fight broke out between Communists in
Berlin's Scheunenviertel District and the police. The Communists largely used rocks, knives, and other hand weapons, but not firearms. A single policeman out of fifty-one injured was shot.
⁶¹

Unlike the Communists, the Nazis did not prepare for armed conflict with the police. Joseph Goebbels, the future Nazi propaganda minister, wrote: “At the present time, all resistance against the police and the state is senseless, because you will always be weaker than they.”
⁶²
The Nazis wished to co-opt the police for their own agenda.

Debate on the meaning of the firearms decrees continued in the courts. In January 1928, the Bavarian Supreme Regional Court in Munich (Bayerisches Oberstes Landesgericht München) ruled, contrary to the Reich Court, that acquisition of a firearm after expiration of the duty to surrender firearms under the 1919 decree did not violate that law.
⁶³

In some cases, such issues were being resolved in the courts, not in the streets by extremist groups, much less by government forces. Yet given that the judicial decisions were contradictory, not communicated to ordinary persons, and not necessarily recognized by the authorities, the enforcement of the laws and decrees was uneven, impractical, and occasionally violent. These qualities of enforcement meant that only the average citizen would have been deterred from obtaining firearms for personal protection and to defend liberty. In any event, there was certainly no well-established legal right to arms, much less a de facto protection of gun ownership. Quite the opposite—the police had unbridled discretion when it came to enforcing the unclear laws surrounding gun possession and ownership.

Conversely, the laws seemed to be largely ineffective in quelling the violence. Extremist factions armed themselves by any means necessary, legal or illegal. Indeed, the street fighting between the Nazis and the Communists would only accelerate the chaos, prompting further revision of the firearms laws.

1
. Hans Mommsen,
The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 32–33; James M. Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977), 23.

2
. “Militärrechtliche Notverordnungen” (Military Emergency Decrees),
Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung
, Jan. 1, 1919, S. 67.

3
.
Reichsgesetzblatt
1918, 1425.

4
. Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
, 28–39; Robert G. L. Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism: The Free Corps Movement in Postwar Germany, 1918–1923
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1952), 59–61.

5
. Verordnung des Rates der Volksbeauftragten über Waffenbesitz,
Reichsgesetzblatt
1919, Nr. 7, 31, § 1.

6
.
Id.
§ 2.

7
.
Id.
§ 3.

8
.
Reichsgesetzblatt
1928, I, 143, 147, § 34(1).

9
. Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism
, 62, 65–71.

10
. Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism
, 72–73, quoting
Vorwärts
, Mar. 10, 1919 (morning edition); Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
, 316 n. 64.

11
. Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism
, 73 and n. 42, citing
Freiheit
, Mar. 18, 1919.

12
. Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism
, 73; Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
, 316 n. 64.

13
. Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism
, 84–87.

14
. Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism
, 92, quoting E. J. Gumbel,
Vier Jahre politischer Mord
, 5th ed. (Berlin, 1922), 111–12.

15
. Rudolf Mann,
Mit Ehrhardt durch Deutschland, Erinnerungen eines Mitkämpfers von der 2. Marinebrigade
(With Ehrhardt Through Germany, Memoirs of a Comrade-in-Arms of the 2nd Naval Brigade) (Berlin, 1921), 71–72, quoted in Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism
, 91–92.

16
. Decision of 10/16/1919, III 490/19, Regional Court (Landgericht) Güstrow, in
Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts in Strafsachen
(Decisions of the Reich Court in Criminal Matters) (Berlin: Gruyter, 1920), Band 54, S. 4.

17
. Charles I. Bevans, comp.,
Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776–1949
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 1969), 2:117–23 (chap. 2). The treaty was signed on June 28, 1919, and was effective January 10, 1920.

18
. Bevans, comp.,
Treaties and Other International Agreements
, 123 (table 3).

19
. Bevans, comp.,
Treaties and Other International Agreements
, 118 (Art. 169). Also in
Reichgesetzblatt
1919, I, p. 926, Art. 169.

20
. Bevans, comp.,
Treaties and Other International Agreements
, 118–19 (Art. 168, 170).

21
. Bevans, comp.,
Treaties and Other International Agreements
, 120 (Art. 177).

22
. Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism
, 172–77, 180–81.

23
. Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism
, 182, quoting
Blut und Ehre
, ed. Maximilian Scheer (Paris, 1937), 43.

24
. Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
, 18, 75.

25
. Waite,
Vanguard of Nazism
, 182, 194–95, 200–201, 268, 281.

26
. Gesetz über die Entwaffnung der Bevölkerung,
Reichsgesetzblatt
1920, Nr. 169, I, 1553–57, §§ 1, 7.

27
.
Id.
§ 2.

28
.
Id.
§ 6.

29
. Hsi-Huey Liang,
The Berlin Police Force in the Weimar Republic
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 97.

30
. John R. Angolia and Hugh Page Taylor,
Uniforms, Organization, & History of the German Police
(San Jose, CA: R. James Bender, 2004), 61.

31
. Liang,
The Berlin Police Force in the Weimar Republic
, 6, citing Rumpelstilzchen [Adolf Stein],
Berliner Allerlei
(Berlin Potpourri) (Berlin: Tägliche Rundschau, 1922), 54–55.

32
. Decision of Jan. 27, 1921, “Waffenschein” (Gun License),
Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung
, Oct. 1, 1921, 703.

33
. Decision of Feb. 23, 1922, Regional Court (Landgericht) Kassel, in
Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts in Strafsachen
, Band 56, S. 283.

34
. Mommsen,
The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy
, 126.

35
. Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
, 105.

36
. Kurt G. W. Ludecke,
I Knew Hitler: The Story of a Nazi Who Escaped the Blood Purge
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938), 103.

37
.
Mussolini as Revealed in His Political Speeches
(London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1923), 308–9.

38
. Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
, 133, 141.

39
. Kippenberger and general author Erich Wollenberg wrote the chapter on the Hamburg Uprising in the book
Der bewaffnete Aufstand
(Armed Insurrection), published in 1928 by “A. Neuberg,” a penname for several Comintern-approved collaborators. The translation is used here: A. Neuberg,
Armed Insurrection
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1970), 9, 12.

40
. Neuberg,
Armed Insurrection
, 88–89.

41
. Neuberg,
Armed Insurrection
, 94–95.

42
. Neuberg,
Armed Insurrection
, 96–98.

43
. Neuberg,
Armed Insurrection
, 199.

44
. Neuberg,
Armed Insurrection
, 194–95.

45
. Harold J. Gordon,
Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), 160.

46
. Gordon,
Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch
, 262.

47
. Gordon,
Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch
, 496–98.

48
. Adolf Hitler,
Mein Kampf
(My Struggle) (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1939), 801, 634–35. This was the first full length translation of the work into English, but its translator was not identified.

49
. Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
, 153, 159, 176, 179.

50
. Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
, 184.

51
. Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
, 96.

52
. Liang,
The Berlin Police Force in the Weimar Republic
, 101.

53
. Diehl,
Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany
, 194, 355 n. 133; “Polizeiverordnung betreffend Waffentragen vom 16. February 1926,” in Bernhard Weiss,
Die Polizeiverordnungen für Berlin
(Berlin: C. A. Weller, 1931), vol. 1, 3.

54
. “Polizeiliche Befugnis zur Entziehung von Waffenscheinen” (Police Authority to Confiscate Weapons Licenses),
Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung
, Aug. 1, 1925, S. 1197.

55
. Decision of 11/4/1926, Regional Court (Landgericht) Stade, in
Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts in Strafsachen
, Band 60, S. 419.

56
. Hugo Preuss, “Beschlagnahme von Privatwaffen” (Confiscation of Private Weapons),
Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung
, Jan. 1, 1926, S. 78.

57
. Fritz Kunze, “Zur VO über Waffenbesitz v. 13. Jan. 1919” (Decree Concerning Weapons Possession Dated January 13, 1919),
Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung
, Jan. 15, 1926, S. 161.

58
. Decision of 6/4/1926, I 231/26, Court Sitting with Professional Judges and Lay Judges (Schwurgericht) Mosbach, in
Entscheidungen des Reichsgerichts in Strafsachen
, Band 60, S. 266.