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Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and "Enemies of the State"

Based on secret documents from German archives, diaries, and newspapers of the time, Gun Control in the Third Reich presents the definitive, yet hidden history of how the Nazi regime made use of gun control to disarm and repress its enemies and consolidate power. The countless books on the Third Reich and the Holocaust fail even to mention the laws restricting firearms ownership, which rendered political opponents and Jews defenseless. A skeptic could surmise that a better-armed populace might have made no difference, but the National Socialist regime certainly did not think so— it ruthlessly suppressed firearm ownership by disfavored groups. Gun Control in the Third Reich spans the two decades from the birth of the Weimar Republic in 1918 through Kristallnacht in 1938. The book then presents a panorama of pertinent events during World War II regarding the effects of the disarming policies. And even though in the occupied countries the Nazis decreed the death penalty for possession of a firearm, there developed instances of heroic armed resistance by Jews, particularly the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

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Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and "Enemies of the State"

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Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and "Enemies of the State"

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ISBN-13:	9781598133059
Publisher:	Independent Institute, The
Publication date:	08/26/2025
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook has taught legal and political philosophy at George Mason University, Howard University, and Tuskegee Institute. He received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and Ph.D. in social philosophy from Florida State University. The winner of three cases before the U.S. Supreme Court (Printz v. United States, United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Company, and Castillo v. United States), he has testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee, Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and House Committee on the District of Columbia. A contributor to numerous scholarly volumes, he is the author of the books, That Every Man Be Armed: Evolution of a Constitutional Right; A Right to Bear Arms; Firearms Law Deskbook: Federal and State Criminal Practice; Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, 1866-1876; State and Federal Bills of Rights and Constitutional Guarantees; and Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II. Dr. Halbrook’s scholarly articles have appeared in such journals as the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, Drug Law Report, George Mason University Law Review, Journal of Air Law and Commerce, Journal of Law and Policy, Law & Contemporary Problems, National Law Journal, Northern Kentucky Law Review, St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary; Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, Tennessee Law Review, University of Dayton Law Review, Valparaiso University Law Review, Vermont Law Review, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. His popular articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, San Antonio Express-News, Environmental Forum, USA Today, and Washington Times, and he has appeared on numerous national TV/radio programs such as “The Phil Donahue Show” and programs on Court TV, Voice of America, CNN, C-SPAN.

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction xv

Part I Dancing on a Volcano: The Weimar Republic

1 Insurrection and Repression 3

2 The 1928 Law on Firearms 15

3 Keeping Firearm Registrations out of the Wrong Hands? 25

Part II 1933: Enter the Führer

4 The Nazi Seizure of Power 49

5 Disarming the Politically Unreliable: The Case of Brandenburg 69

6 Defining Enemies of the State 79

Part III Gleichschaltung: Forcing into Line

7 From the Night of the Long Knives to the Nürnberg Laws 97

8 The Gestapo 111

9 Hitler's Gun Control Act 123

Part IV Reichskristallnacht: Night of the Broken Glass

10 October Prelude: Arresting Jewish Firearm Owners 145

11 Goebbels Orchestrates a Pogrom 163

12 Jewish Victims Speak 187

Conclusion: Whither the German Resistance? 203

Bibliography 221

Credits for Illustrations 235

Index 237

About the Author 247

Illustrations between 112 and 113

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Editorial Reviews

"Stephen Halbrook’s meticulous research in Gun Control in the Third Reich sheds new and revealing light on the consolidation of Nazi power and the prosecution of the Holocaust. Everyone, including advocates of gun controls, should find this pioneering and thought-provoking book essential reading.”
—James B. Jacobs, Warren E. Burger Professor of Law, New York University; author, Can Gun Control Work?

“Gun Control in the Third Reich, Stephen Halbrook’s excellent history of gun control in Germany, shows that, motives notwithstanding, removing weapons from the general population always disarms society vis a vis its worst elements. In Germany the authorities tried to deal with the Nazi and Communist mobs that were shaking society’s foundations indirectly, by disarming ordinary people. But their cowardice ended up delivering a helpless population to the Nazis’ tender mercies. Halbrook’s richly documented history leads Americans to ask why those among us who decry violence in our society choose to try tightening the vise on ordinary citizens’ capacity to defend themselves rather than to constrain the sectors of society most responsible for the violence.”
—Angelo M. Codevilla, Professor Emeritus of International Relations, Boston University; author, Informing Statecraft, War: Ends and Means (with Paul Seabury), The Character of Nations, and Between the Alps and a Hard Place: Switzerland in World War II and the Rewriting of History

“Gun Control in the Third Reich is a provocative book on what is surely the ‘worst case scenario’ in the history of gun control and an illuminating meditation on the role that the disarming of the Jews played in the Holocaust.”
—Jonathan Kirsch, author, The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan

“What good would private arms do against a totalitarian state? That won’t remain an unanswerable rhetorical challenge for readers of Stephen Halbrook’s calm, detailed scholarly book, Gun Control in the Third Reich. As Halbrook shows, Nazi leaders went to great lengths to extend the gun control laws they inherited from the Weimar Republic. They were obsessed with disarming Jews and other designated public enemies. Potential resistance was not only physically disabled. It was morally and psychologically disarmed. Evil then became irresistible in Germany, not because it was fueled by fanaticism but because shielded by fatalism.”
—Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law

“Even a defense with small arms against a tyrannical regime, if known, can galvanize public opinion which is the ultimate source of all political authority. That is why, as Halbrook authoritatively shows in Gun Control in the Third Reich, the Nazis-despite their massive military force-went out of their way to confiscate even small caliber weapons in Germany.”
—Donald W. Livingston, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Emory University

“‘The devil is in the details’ as the British note. Stephen Halbrook’s excellent and deeply researched book, Gun Control in the Third Reich, has revealed the anticipation of Nazi gun control techniques in Weimar attempts to control incipient civil war between Nazis and Communists [...] History does indeed provide important lessons for contemporary debates and Halbrook’s important research should inform our contemporary debate on gun control.”
—Steven B. Bowman, Professor of Judaic Studies, University of Cincinnati; Miles Lerner Fellow, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; whose books include Jewish Resistance in Wartime Greece, The Holocaust in Salonika, The Agony of Greek Jews 1940-1945, and The Straits of Hell: The Chronicle of a Salonikan Jew in the Nazi Extermination Camps Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Melk, Ebensee

“For Jews left trembling in their homes, powerless to defend against Nazi Stormtroopers, the right to possess a gun took on special meaning in the 1940’s. In Stephen Halbrook’s extraordinary book, Gun Control in the Third Reich, the consequence of disarming a population making them vulnerable to imprisonment and annihilation is told with frightening detail. It is a history with poignancy. With gun controllers in our midst today, who either do not understand the Second Amendment or choose to redefine it for their own ends, it would serve them well to read and digest the powerful arguments in this pathbreaking book.”
—Herbert I. London, President, London Center for Policy Research; former President, Hudson Institute

“With Gun Control in the Third Reich, Stephen Halbrook has written an important and disturbing book. It provides a timely reminder that self defense and the right to bear arms are fundamental human rights.”
—Robert J. Cottrol, Professor of Law, History, and Sociology and Harold Paul Green Research Professor of Law, George Washington University

From the Publisher

Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and "Enemies of the State"

Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and "Enemies of the State"

Paperback(Reissue)

Paperback(Reissue)

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About the Author

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