Prof. Steinweis on the Holocaust and Guns

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, David Kopel has put up a post -- called Alan Steinweis's Bad History --  responding to Steinweis's oped in the New York Times.  Steinweis sent a reply to Kopel, which was added as an update to Kopel's original post, with Kopel's comments interspersed. Does all that back and forth sound confusing?

For the sake of clarity, therefore, here is Steinweis's uninterrupted reply:

As I sort through the hate mail received in response to my op-ed in yesterday’s New York Times, let me take just a brief moment to respond to Mr. Kopel’s assertions. 

To refute my point that Nazi gun control measures have not been seen as important by experts in the field, Mr. Kopel cites a number of well-known works about Jewish resistance in eastern Europe. By doing so, he conflates two separate issues. Does Mr. Kopel believe that the Nazi regime’s implementation of handgun registration inside Germany in 1938 prevented Jewish partisans fighting in the forests of White Russia in 1943 from acquiring more weapons? 

Obviously there were instances of resistance that saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust. Kopel notes, for example, the group led by the Bielski brothers, which saved about 1,200. But these were exceptional instances, and must be considered in the larger context of a genocidal campaign that took millions of lives. (I will remind Mr. Kopel that a million is a thousand times a thousand.) Even more Jews, including the Bielski partisans who managed to survive, would have died had the western Allies and the Red Army not defeated Nazi Germany. 

A word about Mr. Kopel’s argument that the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto was a militarily significant event that affected the outcome of the war. The uprising was put down by two Waffen-SS battalions supported by Order Police and other small units. At the time of the uprising, Germany and its allies had about 300 divisions engaged in military operations around Europe. The German forces that were mobilized against the ghetto fighters  -- for a few weeks in April and May 1943, and not, as Mr. Kopel writes, for four months -- were a drop in the bucket. I will refer Mr. Kopel to the table “Comparative Strengths of Opposing Forces in the Warsaw Ghetto: Germans,” on page 537 of volume 2 of Raul Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews (2003 Yale Univ. Press edition). According to the German records cited by Hilberg, the average daily deployment of German and allied forces in the ghetto and at the perimeter during the operation was 2,090 persons. Mr. Kopel is free to assert that this amounted to a significant diversion of German forces, but I do not share this opinion.

Finally, I want to be clear that I do not discount the historical significance of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the Bielski partisans, and similar acts of Jewish resistance. As I wrote in my op-ed, “The uprising in the ghetto possesses enduring symbolic significance, as an instance of Jews’ determination to resist their oppression.”  Had the NYT granted me more than 900 words, I would have developed this point more fully, especially with regard to the uprising’s legacy as an inspiration for Jewish self-defense in the form of the State of Israel.

The Jews were a tiny minority who were overwhelmed by the Nazis and their collaborators. Mr. Kopel suggests that had more Jews been armed, instances like the Warsaw ghetto uprising would have been more common, and therefore more Jews would have been saved. But I would ask Mr. Kopel the following question: Had individual gun ownership been more widespread among the general population of Europe than it in fact was, then what does he think the anti-Semites would have done with THEIR guns?

 I find Kopel's responses mostly unpersuasive, especially this paragraph (italics original):

By 1943, the German army was understrength by 470,000 men, due to combat losses. In March, the German Commander of Army Group Center refused to initiate an offensive in support of the Army Group South offensive because Center’s forces were too weak. Did keeping 2,000 Nazi soldiers busy in Warsaw spell the difference between victory and defeat on the Eastern Front? No. Did it aggravate the German manpower shortage, thus reducing German chances of success, and contributing to German combat losses? Yes, to the same extent as any other Allied maneuver which prevented German soldiers from being able to participate in the decisive 1943 campaigns on the Eastern Front.  

But recall Kopel's original claim that "By choosing to stand and fight, the Warsaw Jews diverted a significant amount of Nazis resources from battlefields elsewhere, thus hastening the Nazi defeat."  I suppose it depends on your definition of "significant," but Steinweis establishes pretty conclusively that the Warsaw Ghetto uprising -- as morally important and heroic as it was -- did not have a significant impact on the German war machine.  Kopel is left to argue that all Allied maneuvers had significant impacts on the Nazis, which is accurate only as a tautology.

The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was one of the most inspiring events of WWII.  The fighters should always be remembered and revered.  But history must also be accurate.

Comments

[Carl]

I hope this post will not be censored like my last one below in response to "mack" which of course he claimed I was a bigot and therefore worthy of exclusion.
My point is Jews should arm themselves and they need to understand that many people in America do not like them and one day those arms might save them. I think mack's equating Isrealis with terrorists is wrong. I support the Isrealis 100%. I think American Jews who want to "sit this one out" and criticize their Israeli brothers is arrogant and disgraceful. Sorry if this labels me an anti smite again I hope you don't delete this because mack says I am an illiterate anti smite as he called me before.

[Eli]

According to Hillary there are 90 gun deaths a day in the US. By law the NIH is prevented from studying or keeping detailed stats on gun incidents. Congress has spent over $4M investigating the death of four diplomat/security in Lybia. The NRA bull manure tossed at this issue is disgusting. This issue about guns in the hands of Jews in Europe during the Shoah is just more of the same bull crap. Why bother arguing the issue. The real problem is the dumb electorate who put folks the likes of Darrell Issa in office.