When the general public thinks of Nazis—and by that I mean the adherents of National Socialism—they think of zombified authoritarians bent on racial domination and the stripping away of all personal liberties.
Why wouldn’t they? That is the message they have been fed by an agenda-driven media since before the Second World War. So prevalent is this perception that there is even a rhetorical argument known as “Reductio ad Hitlerum” whereby any argument can be invalidating by implying a similarity between that argument and some action or idea promoted by Adolf Hitler and National Socialist Germany.
We’ve seen it used often this election cycle in reference to Trump, but it actually goes back a long way and, ironically, is primarily used by the pro-gun right to fend off attempts at gun-control legislation by the left. Even more ironically, the seed of this lie was planted by the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership in a book published in 1992, their argument being primarily that if the gun control laws in National Socialist Germany had not been so strict, the rise of Hitler would not have been possible. Never mind that Jews represented 1% or less of the population in Germany at the time.
The premise is simple: gun control, registration, and confiscation were hallmarks of Nazi Germany and must therefore be avoided at all costs here in the United States. Or put more simply: Nazi’s want to take your guns and anyone who wants to take your guns is a Nazi.
An alleged quote attributed to Adolf Hitler is often used by guns-rights advocates to drive this point home:
“This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!”
–source: pulled from someone’s ass
This is a fraud. Hitler never said anything of the sort. This quote, often seen without any date or citation or, at times, attributed to an unspecified speech from 1935, has no correlation with any legislative effort by the Nazis for gun registration in 1935, nor would there have been any need for the Nazis to pass such a law, since gun registration laws passed by the Weimar government [in part to address street violence between Nazis and Communists] were already in effect.
Sadly, the belief that Nazis were keen to confiscate all guns, as espoused in the faux quote above, has likely prevented more than one otherwise ideal candidate from joining the ranks of the American Nazi Party and considering National Socialism a viable alternative to our current Judeo-Capitalist system.
This is unfortunate because it simply isn’t true.
First, consider the current position of the American Nazi Party as it regards self-defense and gun-control:
“White Self Defense:
We must have an America in which White men and women can live and work, in their homes and in the streets of our cities, without fear. We must have a government which is not only a guarantor of public order and safety and which preserves the right of White citizens to keep and to bear arms, which is the ancient hallmark of a truly free people, but we must have government which maintains an eternal vigilance against the enemies, both internal and external, of a White America. Every tendency towards degeneracy and subversion, every threat to our racial integrity, every form of organized crime and vice, every element which threatens public terror or chaos must be weeded out and utterly destroyed.”
As I have stated here before, the ANP is not making this up out of whole-cloth, nor are they crafting a message-du-jour. Their stance is taken directly from the original policy of the Third Reich.
An important paper was published in 2004 in the Fordham Law Review titled: “On Gun Registration, The NRA, Adolf Hiter, and Nazi Gun Laws: Exploding the Gun Culture Wars (A Call to Historians)”, by Bernard E. Harcourt. While primarily focused on examining the culture war between pro-gun vs pro-gun-control segments of society, it does a solid job of making the case that National Socialist Germany was actually quite liberal in regards to her gun-laws, loosening many restrictions enacted by its predecessor, the Weimar Republic. As an aside, the author of the article is Jewish.
As the paper by Harcourt states:
“Following Germany’s defeat in World War I, the Weimar Republic passed very strict gun control laws essentially banning all gun ownership, in an attempt both to stabilize the country and to comply with the Versailles Treaty of 1919…Even before the Treaty was signed, the German parliament of the Weimar Republic enacted legislation prohibiting gun possession. In January 1919, the Reichstag enacted legislation requiring the surrender of all guns to the government.
This law, as well as the August 7, 1920, Law on the Disarmament of the People passed in light of the Versailles Treaty, remained in effect until 1928, when the German parliament enacted the Law on Firearms and Ammunition (April 12, 1928)-a law which relaxed gun restrictions and put into effect a strict firearm licensing scheme…
The Nazi gun laws of 1938 reflect a liberalization of [these] gun control measures … enacted by the Weimar Republic with respect to the acquisition, transfer, and carrying of firearms. In this regard, Hitler appears to have been more pro-gun than the predecessor Weimar Republic…[In short] The history of gun control in Germany from the post-World War I period to the inception of World War II seems to be a history of declining, rather than increasing, gun control.”
The paper also quotes at length from a pamphlet entitled Gun Control in Germany, 1928-1945 by William L. Pierce. It sums it up rather nicely I think:
A common belief among defenders of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is that the National Socialist government of Germany under Adolf Hitler did not permit the private ownership of firearms. Totalitarian governments, they have been taught in their high school civics classes, do not trust their citizens and do not dare permit them to keep firearms. Thus, one often hears the statement, “You know, the first thing the Nazis did when they came to power was outlaw firearms,” or “The first thing Hitler did in Germany was round up all the guns.”
Unfortunately for those who would like to link Hitler and the National Socialists with gun control, the entire premise for such an effort is false. German firearms legislation under Hitler, far from banning private ownership, actually facilitated the keeping and bearing of arms by German citizens by eliminating or ameliorating restrictive laws which had been enacted by the government preceding his: a left-center government which had contained a number of Jews. When you have read [and compare the 1928 and 1938 German gun laws], you will understand that it was Hitler’s enemies, not Hitler, who should be compared with the gun-control advocates in America today. Then as now it was the Jews, not the National Socialists, who wanted the people’s right of self-defense restricted. You will understand that those who continue to make the claim that Hitler was a gun-grabber are either ignorant or dishonest. And you will understand that it was not until 1945, when the communist and democratic victors of the Second World War had installed occupation governments to rule over the conquered Germans that German citizens were finally and completely denied the right to armed self-defense.
For the record, Mr. Pierce’s pamphlet also includes the full text of the 1938 legislation in German with an English translation.
When one looks at how many gun bans have been passed recently, or are being debated by the Supreme Court currently, one can see Mr. Pierce is right in every respect, (the ridiculous gun legislation signed by Jewish Governor J.B. Pritzker in Illinois comes to mind.) But the point here is not to argue for or against gun-control. That, perhaps, is a topic for another time.
The point is to call-out the misrepresentation of National Socialist policies, and the knee-jerk “Nazi bad” comparative argument, used every time someone does not like what someone else is proposing. It’s long past time people start to understand who National Socialists really are and what we stand for.
Lastly, it would be less-than-truthful if we did not acknowledge that there was one form of draconian weapons laws enacted by Nazi Germany: they actively sought to curtail Jewish ownership of weapons starting in 1933, culminating in a complete ban on Jewish weapon ownership in 1938. However, if one thinks about it, that only makes sense: Jews were seen as the enemy. Why would you arm your enemy, or grant them the right to carry weapons around in public? After all, only law-abiding citizens in good standing were allowed to own weapons, and after the Nürnberg laws, Jews were not citizens of Germany. Ipso facto.
I apologize for the unusual number of quotes used in this post, but I saw little reason to rewrite what has already been said so well and which speaks to the heart of the matter so succinctly. I hope you will forgive me. More to the point, I hope it will help you when you are having a conversation with someone and they use the Reductio ad Hitlerum technique to bash gun-control by defaming National Socialism. Let’s stop the convenient lies and insist Nazi Germany be represented truthfully. National Socialists are pro-gun ownership too, and an honest look at history proves it.
Amerika Erwache!
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