Gun Control in the Third Reich (35 page)

Hans Reichmann, a lawyer and syndic for the Jüdischer Central Verein (C.V., or Jewish Central Association), Germany's mainstream Jewish organization. In October 1938, Munich officials told a C.V. representative that “weapons in the hand of Jews were deemed extremely dangerous.” Reichmann himself had to surrender his new Browning firearm. When Kristallnacht descended, Reichmann would be imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He would later escape with his wife Eva Gabriele to England. (Herbert Sonnenfeld, Porträt Hans Reichmann, Berlin Oktober 1936. © Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Ankauf aus Mitteln der Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin.)

Page 2 of Flatow's arrest report

Translation:

8. Criminal act (include pertinent statutory sections) Possession of weapons.

9. Statement of facts: The Jew Alfred Flatow was found to be in possession of 1 revolver with 22 rounds of ammunition, 2 pocket pistols, 1 dagger, and 31 knuckle dusters. Arms in the hands of Jews are a danger to public safety.
Police First Sergeant Weiser
The arms were registered at Police Station 13 on January 26, 1932. Written confirmation is there.

Page 4 of the report (not shown) concluded: “The perpetrator listed under item 1 of this report has been turned over to the Gestapo.” In 1942, he died of starvation at the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

(Left to right)
SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, an Italian police official, Berlin Police President Wolf Heinrich Graf von Helldorf, and Kurt Daluege, head of the uniformed Order Police. As Police President, Helldorf disarmed the Berlin Jews in the weeks before the pogrom known as the Night of the Broken Glass. (Photo courtesy of Bundesarchiv. BArch, Bild 121-0174/CC-BY-SA 3.0))

That the Jews were being disarmed well before the pogrom is strong evidence that the attack was carefully planned well in advance. (
Source: Völkische Beobachter
, Nov. 9, 1938.)

Translation:

Disarming the Berlin Jews

Provisional Results: 2,569 Stabbing and Cutting Weapons, 1,702 Firearms, and About 20,000 Rounds of Ammunition

In view of the Jewish assassination attempt in the German Embassy in Paris, Berlin's Police President made known publicly the provisional results so far achieved, of a general disarming of Berlin's Jews by the police, which has been carried out in recent weeks.

The Police President, in order to maintain public security and order in the national capital, and prompted by a few individual incidents, felt compelled to disarm Berlin's Jewish population. This measure was recently made known to Jews by police stations, whereupon—apart from a few exceptions, in which the explicit nature of the ban on possession of weapons had to be articulated—weapons until now found by the police to be in the possession of Jews who have no weapons permit were voluntarily surrendered.

The provisional results clearly show what a large amount of weapons have been found with Berlin's Jews and are still to be found with them. To date, the campaign led to the taking into custody of 2,569 stabbing and cutting weapons, 1,702 firearms, and about 20,000 rounds of ammunition.

Upon completion of the weapons campaign, if a Jew in Berlin is found still to possess a weapon without having a valid weapons permit, the Police President will, in every single case, proceed with the greatest severity.

Heinrich Himmler, the SS Reichsführer and German Police Chief, with Adolf Hitler on Reich Party Day, September 1938. (Photo #05459 courtesy of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.)

Himmler's order that Jews possessing any weapon may be imprisoned in a concentration camp for twenty years, published the day after the Night of the Broken Glass. (
Source: Völkische Beobachter
, Nov. 10, 1938.)

Translation:

Jews Forbidden to Possess Weapons By Order of SS Reichsführer Himmler

Munich, November 10.

The SS Reichsführer and German Police Chief has issued the following Order:

Persons who, according to the Nürnberg law, are regarded as Jews, are forbidden to possess any weapon. Violators will be condemned to a concentration camp and imprisoned for a period of up to 20 years.

The contents of a cabinet lie strewn around a dining room in a Jewish home vandalized during Kristallnacht. Nazis claimed to be searching for weapons when they went on a rampage against Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues. (Photo #81485 courtesy of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.)

On November 10, 1938, persons walk by a Jewish-owned business that was destroyed during Kristallnacht. Nazi propaganda claimed that the pogrom was a “spontaneous” manifestation of Germans, but in reality it was a carefully orchestrated attack by the SA approved by Hitler, who ordered that the police not intervene. (Photo #86838 courtesy of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.)

Buchenwald concentration camp, November 10, 1938, showing some of the ten thousand Jewish men, heads shaved, who would be incarcerated there during and following Kristallnacht. One pretext for arrest was possession of a firearm by a Jew. (Photo #79914 courtesy of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.)

The following are published by permission of the listed entities. All other illustrations are in the public domain.

Bundesarchiv:

Heinrich Brüning (Bild 119-2600/CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Wilhelm Groener (Bild 102-01049/CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Werner Best (Bild 183-B22627/CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Heinrich Himmler and others (Bild 121-0174/CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Issuance of Weapons Permits to Jews (Erteilung von Waffenscheinen an Juden, R 58/276)

Jüdisches Museum Berlin:

Hans Reichmann (Herbert Sonnenfeld, Porträt Hans Reichmann, Berlin Oktober 1936. © Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Ankauf aus Mitteln der Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin)

Landesarchiv Berlin:

Report Concerning Political Incident (Bericht über einen polit. Vorfall, 4.10.38, Alfred Flatow. A Rep PrBrRep. 030/21620 Bd. 5 Haussuchungen bei Juden 1938-39)

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum:

Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Hitler (Photo #05459)

Vandalized home, Kristallnacht (Photo #81485)

Broken windows, Kristallnacht (Photo #86838)

Buchenwald concentration camp (Photo #79914)