Hitler’s Control-The lessons of Nazi history

This week's CBS miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil tries to explain the conditions that enabled a manifestly evil and abnormal individual to gain total power and to commit mass murder. The CBS series looks at some of the people whose flawed decisions paved the way for Hitler's psychopathic dictatorship: Hitler's mother who refused to recognize that her child was extremely disturbed and anti-social; the judge who gave Hitler a ludicrously short prison sentence after he committed high treason at the Beer Hall Putsch; President Hindenburg and the Reichstag delegates who (except for the Social Democrats) who acceded to Hitler's dictatorial Enabling Act rather than forcing a crisis (which, no matter how bad the outcome, would have been far better than Hitler being able to claim legitimate power and lead Germany toward world war).

Acquainting a new generation of television viewers with the monstrosity of Hitler is a commendable public service by CBS, for if we are serious about “;Never again,”; then we must be serious about remembering how and why Hitler was able to accomplish what he did. Political scientist R. J. Rummel, the world's foremost scholar of the mass murders of the 20th century, estimates that the Nazis killed about 21 million people, not including war casualties. With modern technology, a modern Hitler might be able to kill even more people even more rapidly.

Indeed, right now in Zimbabwe, the Robert Mugabe tyranny is perpetrating a genocide by starvation aimed at liquidating about six million people. Mugabe is great admirer of Adolf Hitler. Mugabe's number-two man (who died last year) was Chenjerai Hunzvi, the head of Mugabe's terrorist gangs, who nicknamed himself “;Hitler.”; One of the things that Robert Mugabe, “;Hitler”; Hunzvi, and Adolf Hitler all have in common is their strong and effective programs of gun control.

Simply put, if not for gun control, Hitler would not have been able to murder 21 million people. Nor would Mugabe be able to carry out his current terror program.

Writing in The Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law Stephen Halbrook demonstrates that German Jews and other German opponents of Hitler were not destined to be helpless and passive victims. (A magazine article by Halbrook offers a shorter version of the story, along with numerous photographs. Halbrook's Arizona article is also available as a chapter in the book Death by Gun Control, published by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.) Halbrook details how, upon assuming power, the Nazis relentlessly and ruthlessly disarmed their German opponents. The Nazis feared the Jews — many of whom were front-line veterans of World War One — so much that Jews were even disarmed of knives and old sabers.

The Nazis did not create any new firearms laws until 1938. Before then, they were able to use the Weimar Republic's gun controls to ensure that there would be no internal resistance to the Hitler regime.

In 1919, facing political and economic chaos and possible Communist revolution after Germany's defeat in the First World War, the Weimar Republic enacted the Regulation of the Council of the People's Delegates on Weapons Possession. The new law banned the civilian possession of all firearms and ammunition, and demanded their surrender “;immediately.”;

Once the political and economic situation stabilized, the Weimar Republic created a less draconian gun-control law. The law was similar to, although somewhat milder than, the gun laws currently demanded by the American gun-control lobby.

The Weimar Law on Firearms and Ammunition required a license to engage in any type of firearm business. A special license from the police was needed to either purchase or carry a firearm. The German police were granted complete discretion to deny licenses to criminals or individuals the police deemed untrustworthy. Unlimited police discretion over citizen gun acquisition is the foundation of the “;Brady II”; proposal introduced by Handgun Control, Inc., (now called the Brady Campaign) in 1994.

Under the Weimar law, no license was needed to possess a firearm in the home unless the citizen owned more than five guns of a particular type or stored more than 100 cartridges. The law's requirements were more relaxed for firearms of a “;hunting”; or “;sporting”; type. Indeed, the Weimar statute was the world's first gun law to create a formal distinction between sporting and non-sporting firearms. On the issues of home gun possession and sporting guns, the Weimar law was not as stringent as the current Massachusetts gun law, or some of modern proposals supported by American gun-control lobbyists.

Significantly, the Weimar law required the registration of most lawfully owned firearms, as do the laws of some American states. In Germany, the Weimar registration program law provided the information which the Nazis needed to disarm the Jews and others considered untrustworthy.

The Nazi disarmament campaign that began as soon as Hitler assumed power in 1933. While some genocidal governments (such as the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia) dispensed with lawmaking, the Nazi government followed the German predilection for the creation of large volumes of written rules and regulations. Yet it was not until March 1938 (the same month that Hitler annexed Austria in the Anschluss) that the Nazis created their own Weapons Law. The new law formalized what had been the policy imposed by Hitler using the Weimar Law: Jews were prohibited from any involvement in any firearm business.

On November 9, 1938, the Nazis launched the Kristallnacht, pogrom, and unarmed Jews all over Germany were attacked by government-sponsored mobs. In conjunction with Kristallnacht, the government used the administrative authority of the 1938 Weapons Law to require immediate Jewish surrender of all firearms and edged weapons, and to mandate a sentence of death or 20 years in a concentration camp for any violation.

Even after 1938, the German gun laws were not prohibitory. They simply gave the government enough information and enough discretion to ensure that victims inside Germany would not be able to fight back.

Under the Hitler regime, the Germans had created a superbly trained and very large military — the most powerful military the world had ever seen until then. Man-for-man, the Nazis had greater combat effectiveness than every other army in World War II, and were finally defeated because of the overwhelming size of the Allied armies and the immensely larger economic resources of the Allies.

Despite having an extremely powerful army, the Nazis still feared the civilian possession of firearms by hostile civilians. Events in 1943 proved that the fear was not mere paranoia. As knowledge of the death camps leaked out, determined Jews rose up in arms in Tuchin, Warsaw, Bialystok, Vilna, and elsewhere. Jews also joined partisan armies in Eastern Europe in large numbers, and amazingly, even organized escapes and revolts in the killing centers of Treblinka and Auschwitz. There are many books which recount these heroic stories of resistance. Yuri Suhl's They Fought Back (1967) is a good summary showing that hundreds of thousands of Jews did fight. The book Escape from Sobibor and the eponymous movie (1987) tell the amazing story how Russian Jewish prisoners of war organized a revolt that permanently destroyed one of the main death camps.

It took the Nazis months to destroy the Jews who rose up in the Warsaw ghetto, who at first were armed with only a few firearms that had been purchased on the black market, stolen or obtained from the Polish underground.

Halbrook contends that the history of Germany might have been changed if more of its citizens had been armed, and if the right to bear arms had been enshrined it Germany's culture and constitution. Halbrook points out that while resistance took place in many parts of occupied Europe, there was almost no resistance in Germany itself, because the Nazis had enjoyed years in which they could enforce the gun laws to ensure that no potential opponent of the regime had the means to resist.

No one can foresee with certainty which countries will succumb to genocidal dictatorship. Germany under the Weimar Republic was a democracy in a nation with a very long history of much greater tolerance for Jews than existed in France, England, or Russia, or almost anywhere else. Zimbabwe's current gun laws were created when the nation was the British colony of Rhodesia, and the authors of those laws did not know that the laws would one day be enforced by an African Hitler bent on mass extermination.

One never knows if one will need a fire extinguisher. Many people go their whole lives without needing to use a fire extinguisher, and most people never need firearms to resist genocide. But if you don't prepare to have a life-saving tool on hand during an unexpected emergency, then you and your family may not survive.

In the book Children of the Flames, Auschwitz survivor Menashe Lorinczi recounts what happened when the Soviet army liberated the camp: the Russians disarmed the SS guards. Then, two emaciated Jewish inmates, now armed with guns taken from the SS, systematically exacted their revenge on a large formation of SS men. The disarmed SS passively accepted their fate. After Lorinczi moved to Israel, he was often asked by other Israelis why the Jews had not fought back against the Germans. He replied that many Jews did fight. He then recalled the sudden change in the behavior of the Jews and the Germans at Auschwitz, once the Russian army's new “;gun control”; policy changed who had the guns there: “;And today, when I am asked that question, I tell people it doesn't matter whether you're Hungarian, Polish, Jewish, or German: If you don't have a gun, you have nothing.”;

— Richard Griffiths is a doctor of psychology with research interest in gun issues. Dave Kopel is a NRO contributing editor.

We are nowhere near that extreme point presently.

How near or how far away we are will besomething for historians to decide after we have crossed that point. I am not saying we are near that point what I am saying is I have no way to accurately tell what others are thinking in this regard nor does anyone else.

I doubt that we ever will be.I share this hope anyway but I will posit the underlying threat that we could get there acts as a governor on an engine that always could go out of control.

Now as to what form it would take should it ahppen that is a matter for discussion at any time in history. The original thread is discussing Hiter's rise to ower and while Hitler had his supporters the majority of people were non political and did not think political griences should ever come to violence. The Nazis did recieve the largest number of parliamentary seats in the last frtee election which gave Hitler the chance to form a government. What happened subsequently may be viewed as having a number of causes including the lack of an armed populace whose firearms could not be secured by the government.

Until now i have ignored your pusilamious comments. If one is going to condemn something at least have the talent to compose a rational phillipic. I defy anyone to show a post anyplace which can reasonably be construed as cop hating. The original discussion here was Hitler's rise to power. In 1931 the evil that was Adolf Hitlers rule could not have been imagined by mst of the citizens of the weimar Republic. The police of that Republic had a reputation for protecting everyone. Brown shirts had been sent to jail for some of their crimes. Ten years later the nature and really most of the personel of the police in Germany had totally changed.

If you had carefully read the posts on this subject you would have seen that much of what you had been interpreting as anti-police rhetoric aimed at our current situation was merely a recognition that there is nothing unique about the German people's susceptibility to a charismatic tyrant and that the Second Ammendment could provide a mechanism to short circuit that rise to power.

Now I am glad you and Kevin Curry are so sure about who and what will be on the scene in the future. Could one of you please tell me the winning six numbers for the next lotto drawing in private by e-mail since you have such good quality crystal balls.

Now in point of fact there were some in the 1930's who though FDR was a tyrant and there were even some who tried to get a military coup d'etat organized using the Marine General as the supposed public figurehead. That is historical fact. Had the general in question not been true to his oath then we would have possibly seen tyranny in the USA.

I hereby suggest you learn the difference between order and law and order. I further suggest you re-read the Constitution and the posts on this page.

A discussion of hypotheticals and history and the underlying meaning of the Second Ammendment extrapolated to the 21'st century and possible future threats to our Constitutional form of government is a fair subject for discussion with some idiot flaming away because tehy do not understand what is being said.

I defy anyone to show a post anyplace which can reasonably be construed as cop hating.

How about this load of crap?:

"We are not talking about gforeign troops in the USA we are talking about American troops having to use force on other Americans the Soviet experience is not relevant because the Soviet troops' families were not living in the nation they were ravaging. Body armor and other weapons can be obtained. We are talking first about taking on the police type units which if loyal to the tyranny will not have the support of the full army."

That was a hypothetical based upon the premise that an unconstitutional tyrant got control of the National command authority in response to another posters suppositions about the effect of body armor. I was making the point that American troops would have a hard time implementing a large body of unconstitutional orders. Clearly you can understand without the neutrality and in some cases the support of the General staff for Hitler's rise to power he could not have become the all powerful dictator. Further even Hitler did not turn his army loose upon the german people as a whole unlike the Soviet example.

What is the matter do you love Hitler and the Soviets and the way they terrorized their people? That is what it is sounding like to me. Why don't you find a nice totalitarian board to take yoru comments to. This discussion of Hitler and totalitarianism has gon on many tangents but this quote out of context could only be interpreted as anti police by either a cretin or an insane person or someone who is both.

Res ipso loquitor.

That's pretty sad. You continue to insult people who have served this nation with distinction and take their oaths to the Constitution seriously. People you apparently know nothing about. Every post you make trying to sling your barbs and bravo sierra at them makes it more and more apparent to the many people on this board who do know them.

The advise I gave you some time ago still stands. Try and find out something about the people you insult before you do so. It is good advise for all of us. I hope you will make that attempt before you make a larger spectacle of yourself.

Either way, the discussion here about hypothetical situations where the second amendment comes into play is a good one, and one that is healthy for all of us. The quote you brought out of harpseals was a point in case. You seem to ignore the very large conditional statement that he placed in there ... which makes all the difference in the world, it was a conditional statement you yourself included in the quote you pulled ...

if loyal to the tyranny

I have news for you Roscoe, if those folks are loyal to tyranny, then they stop being what I or any other sane person would consider as legitmate police. As individuals who also took the oath to support the Constitution, when they support abject tyranny, they have broken that oath and therefore become the enemy of it. In such a hypothetical situation, like the brown shirts in Germany, they would have crossed over and become a part of the tyranny and it would be our duty to resist them with everything we had. Your own example proves the point that the individual you quoted was not the "wannabe" or the Don Matthews fan you tried to peg him for ... a point that was obvious to everyone before you ever showed up. Please, try and get a grip and stop the mud slinging and insults.

There's nothing wrong with admitting you were wrong. It would be the honorable thing to do IMHO in this circumstance ... it's also entirely your choice and one that in the end says more about you than the people you are trying to paint with such a broad and rancorous brush.

The Weimar Republic had a very liberal constituition that guaranteed rule of law and civil liberties very similar to the guarantees of the American Constitution. Germany was taken over by a charismatic dictator who essentialy trashed that constitution. Any person who claims to know the future with certainty should be able to put that to good use by at minimum having the next Powerball numbers.

As a student of History I further realize that the USA has come close to dictatorships in the past. In the 1930's Smedley Butler was offered the "Presidency," by a group of military officers according to testimony in a later Congressional hearing. The coup d'etat did not come to fruition here because of the nature of General Butler and several other reasons but that it was considered and advanced as far as it did should at least tell everyone there is no inherent immunity from tyrants conffered by the name United States of America. The immunity is conffered by those who value our Constitution and who are willing to defend that Constitution and the rule of law with their lives.

What we are talking about is extraordinary circumstances that could come in the future. In the period from 1861 to 1865 extraordinary circumstances did come to the USA. There have been other times when the USA has come very very close. Some of the Western Range wars, the leadville massacre, some of the union violence like the Molly McGuires, and even the draft riots in NYC were all times we have come close. It can be argued we came close to descending into civil war during the Civil Rights struggle of the early sixties andduring the Vietnam War period.

Further, one should understand a nation does not avoid such strife by ignoring its possibility but it avoids it by the recognition it is possible and by the resulting willingness to compromise on policies to avoid such strife.

Hitler's mother who refused to recognize that her child was extremely disturbed and anti-social; the judge who gave Hitler a ludicrously short prison sentence after he committed high treason at the Beer Hall Putsch; President Hindenburg and the Reichstag delegates who (except for the Social Democrats) who acceded to Hitler's dictatorial Enabling Act rather than forcing a crisis (which, no matter how bad the outcome, would have been far better than Hitler being able to claim legitimate power and lead Germany toward world war).

But he is human... but what about the root causes... but he simply had difficulties expressing himself...

I shudder to think that we have the same ol same ol going on here with Dems, Clintons, their drugs, rapes etc...

For example, until late in WW II, German armament production kept increasing despite Allied bombing. Soviet workers also labored heroically under appalling conditions to help defend Mother Russia, even though they may have been opposed to Communist rule prior to 1941.

Exactly. Some production can be maintained...but the Germans running the production facilities found that those factories using prisoner labour turned out an output that failed final inspections some 25% of the time...and at a time when that output was desperately needed, and the raw materials involved were particularly scarce.

And by the same token, it took the condition of an external threat to their existance to spur the slaves of the Communists on to cooperate for their mutual survival, one greater than the continuing nuisance of remaining under the Communist yoke.

-archy-/-

I could also see foreign troops on US soil after a disputed presidential election where the loser after the court battles does not concede and an incumbent administration backs the loser. It also is pretty far out there but considering the events of November and December 2000 it may not be that far out there.

That possibility was considered by several senior US military officers during the last election, as was the possibility that the sitting president might declare the election results null and void by executive fiat before a final court decision was announced. Accordingly, appriopriate precautions were taken.

Thank God it didn't come to that.

-archy-/-

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.