The Holocaust and the Second Amendment

Ben Carson isn't the only person claiming that individual gun ownership could have made a difference during the Holocaust.  A few days ago at the Volokh Conspiracy, David Kopel wrote that "Jewish armed resistance to the Nazis saved many lives by hastening Hitler's defeat."  His post was about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, in which a small band of Jews -- armed with nothing more than handguns and petrol bombs -- inflicted serious casualties on German soldiers.  There is no doubt about the heroism of the Ghetto fighters, including leaders such as Mordechai Anielewicz, Zivia Lubetkin, and others.  Their courageous resistance to the Nazis inspired Jews across Europe, and helped change attitudes in allied capitals.     

Nonetheless, Kopel dramatically overstates the impact of the uprising.  "By choosing to stand and fight, the Warsaw Jews diverted a significant amount of Nazis resources from battlefields elsewhere, thus hastening the Nazi defeat," he wrote.  That is a deeply moving story, but but it is not good history.

Holocaust scholars virtually all agree that the possession of personal weapons would have been little use against the Nazi war machine.  Here is what Vermont University Prof. Alan Steinweis wrote yesterday in the New York Times:

The uprising in the [Warsaw] ghetto possesses enduring symbolic significance, as an instance of Jews’ determination to resist their oppression. But the uprising saved few Jewish lives and had little to no impact on the course of either World War II or the Holocaust.

I sent Kopel's blog post to Prof. Steinweis, who had this to say:

The suppression of the uprising required a couple of Waffen-SS battalions and several further small units. When considered in the context of the Nazi campaign in the east, this was not "a significant amount of Nazi resources."

In 1943 the German army and its allies had a force of a few hundred divisions in the field, and two battalions didn't really amount to much. 

I consider the Warsaw Ghetto uprising to have been an act of incredible courage and moral power. One can believe this without arguing that it was a militarily significant event.

It is important to raise awareness of the Jewish resistance to genocide, and of course it is true that more  guns would have allowed the fighters to kill more Nazis.  That would have been a good thing, but it would not have changed the tragic outcome.  Prof. Steinweis -- the author of three books on the Nazi regime -- is right when he objects to employing the Holocaust as a meme in contemporary politics.

 

 

Comments

[Carl]

I disagree about guns. The point is if the jewish folks in germany had armed themselves BEFORE the nazi troops had come looking for them to round'em up and ship them to death camps, the jews would have shot the enemy soldiers thus killing many and at the very least slowing down the path of destruction. The nazis knew the jews had no guns and were easy hunting. It is a wonder many american jews are so in favor of gun control. Many jewish colleagues dont realize how their people are disliked in America. Dont american jews know anything could happen to them; they are fools if they do not stock up now. Fortunately, this anti-gun madness does not afflict their Isreali brothers. I greatly admire the Isrealis who are well armed and I enjoy the news coverage watching them shoot the terrorists. And I support them 100%.

[[M][a][c][K]]

I've posted this elsewhere, but still -

If anything, lack of gun control facilitated the Holocaust because it was a key factor in the Nazi’s coming to power, in ways that have some scary parallels for the US. Both Wilhemine and Weimar Germany lacked any serious gun control and indeed, the messy end of the First World War as far as Germany was concerned, the disintegration of the German army meant that many soldiers returned home with their weapons. Although the Weimar Republic enacted gun control laws, it was notoriously hapless and ineffectual and the reality was that a huge number of firearms remained in private hands (especially on the right.) To the extent that there was any emphasis by the allies on disarming Germany after WW I, it focused on heavy weapons – tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, U-Boats, aircraft and naval vessels.

This became a huge problem for the Weimar Republic – armed militias on the left and the right roamed freely fighting in the streets. The Bavarian Council Republic or Munich Soviet Republic, a short lived communist takeover of Munich was facilitated by this (and Hitler was one of its Red Guards.) Later Hitler’s Munich Hall Putsch of 1923 was also facilitated by the loose availability of firearms.

The Freicorp were active from 1919 onwards – and various armed Communist and left wing groups such as the Spartacists (there was a hiatus in the mid-20s. Political violence bedevilled Weimar, though for the most part the Right attacking the left, almost 400 politicians, mostly left of centre were murdered between 1919-22, but no right wingers put on trial until the Munich Putsch. The German establishment connived so as to make sure that the force of law fell more heavily on the left than the right (witness the lax treatment of Hitler after the Beer Hall Putsch.)

Finally in the late 1920s and early 30s armed militias, gangs of thugs, left and right, were also prominent in destabilising the democratic state, most notably the Nazi Brownshirts – again facilitated by the easy availability of firearms. Hitler came to power, by the way in 1932 – it took six years before the the Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons were promulgated by Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, effectively depriving all Jews living under the Third Reich of the right to possess any form of weapons including truncheons, knives, or firearms and ammunition – and that was enacted on November 11, 1938, the day after Kristallnacht. So Jews were, ostensibly armed right up until then.

Indeed the first Nazi law restricting ownership of firearms was not enacted until late 1938, six years after Hitler gained power. The law was not particularly strict by most standards:

1. It restricted (lowering previous barely enforced restrictions) only ownership of handguns (i.e., pistols) and did not apply to long arms (rifles, shotguns);

2. It in fact lowered the age at which someone could get a pistol license from 21 to 18;

3. It exempted a wide range of people from the need to obtain a license (pistol) at all – all holders of hunting licenses for example, all civil servants and so on could buy guns with no restrictions.

Another myth the NRA peddles is that there was effective gun control in communist Eastern Europe – something that would come to a shock to Western European police forces, who, since the fall of communism have been coping with a huge wave of firearms coming out of the former Warsaw Pact members where gun ownership was in fact widespread and guns easy to obtain – and as military and militia service was mandatory, the vast majority of adults were trained in firearms usage (inter alia, in 1917 Russia, the Bolsheviks were also able to easily arm themselves to overturn Kerensky.) Broad public ownership of heavy weapons – that’s a different issue, but then people tend not to want an antitank gun or heavy machine gun around the apartment – it gets in the way.

Pretty well every country which has become a failed state, or succumbed to an authoritarian or totalitarian takeover that I can think of was in fact a country with high levels of gun ownership – and the ownership persisted after the takeover. In some respects this echoes the NRA’s line, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” was true with respect to the Nazis and Bolsheviks – those who would establish a dictatorship are simply much less inhibited about using lethal force – and the easy availability of firearms facilitates their application of violence, it does not hinder it.

[[M][a][c][K]]

Carl:

Your argument "[t]he point is if the jewish folks in germany had armed themselves BEFORE the nazi troops had come looking for them to round'em up and ship them to death camp" is both horsesh¡t and has some pretty strange misconceptions about German Jews. Many of the German jews were members of social classes where gun ownership, either because of being military veterans, or for hunting, would not have been unusual.

[JRW]

The blog PQED.org has a nice short piece on this (from July 2014) that I send to people when this subject comes up: http://www.pqed.org/2014/07/psa-hitler-did-not-take-away-peoples_6.html

[[M][a][c][K]]

i regret posting a response to "Carl" - I mean wow - what a pile of anti-semitic drivel pretending to be friendly advice. Feel free to delete this post and my 8:40am post.

[anon]

I tend to agree that the Warsaw uprising did not defeat Nazi regime.

And so ...?

As usual, Steve's point boils down to the claim that some Republican is full of it. His political campaign in this space is as bad as any other in this era.

Can isolated cases of excessive force used by police (in which the victims "lose") hasten the end of such abuses?

Of course the Warsaw uprising didn't bring down the Nazis. I don't read or understand anyone to have said that.

But, Ben Carson has said a lot of things that don't actually pan out perfectly. (Of course, no Democrat has said anything that hasn't been perfectly true and well-reasoned, because Democrats literally can do no wrong.)

If Carson is claiming that the Jews might have averted the rise of the Nazis, or that they could have brought them down with handguns, of course, he is not correct.

No more correct than all the founders were when they wrote about the purpose of the Second Amendment. They too said such things. Of course, they didn't make the dreaded Nazi reference (which, as we all know, is a verboten subject, because understanding the Nazis and their programs would NEVER EVER do anyone any good), thus precluding the easy take down on political correctness.

How about taking on the founders, Steve? Let's hear your analysis of Carson's referents? Oh wait, I forgot.

They weren't Republicans.

[DrGrishka]

It's hard to imagine a counterfactual, but I think that if more Jews were armed, and could constitute another partisan group, it would indeed be much more difficult for the Nazis to fight.

[Carl]

Carl you accuse me of antisemitic drivel but you are clueless. What did I say that is anti-semitic? Why I have respect for Isreali jews yes I confess I think they are doing the right thing defending a Homeland. Any jew who stays in america because they want to "sit this one out" loses my and many others; respect.
And as to your remark "Many of the German jews were members of social classes where gun ownership, either because of being military veterans, or for hunting, would not have been unusual" - you cite no evidence to support it.
My point stands - if the jews were armed it would have stopped or slowed down their round-up.

[Carl]

I meant mack

[[M][@][c][K]]

At the risk of engaging (and Steve Lubet, feel free to delete) - and I'm not you "Carl"

- You clearly don't respect Jews, since your e-mail managed to accuse them, threaten them and patronise them

So let's see:

"jewish colleagues dont realize how their people are disliked in America" By who? I have never had a Jewish colleague who was disliked for being Jewish (and the traits that led the odd one to be disliked were if one is to indulge in stereotypes, were rather WASP) - so what is this, antisemitism?

"The nazis knew the jews had no guns and were easy hunting" Your dubious analysis misses a few details (but then you do not seem wholly literate.) As I pointed out the German ban on German Jews owning weapons was enacted the day after Kristalnacht - so they were as armed as other German citizens, and other European jews were no less armed than was the norm in those countries where hunting was a commonplace activity and many had brought guns home from World War I (of course it might elude you that Jews fought bravely for their countries in equal or greater numbers than the average Frenchman, German, Austrian, Pole, Hungarian, Czech or Englishman, or for that matter that Hitler was commanded by two Jewish officers (who treated him well, promoted him and put him up for his Iron Cross.) That would mean being well informed and not a bigot.

"I greatly admire the Isrealis who are well armed and I enjoy the news coverage watching them shoot the terrorists." It seems to me that a lot of American Jews are in fact very worried about well armed extremist settlers shooting people - come to think of it, even Netanyahu has been forced to express some concern (would be nice if someone was arrested but still)

"Dont american jews know anything could happen to them" that sounds like a threat - get guns or else.

Moreover, you lack the dexterity to click on JRW's link to discover what happened when people armed with small arms tried to resist the German military. You are in short full of it.

Frankly, you are a nasty piece of work.

[[M][@][c][K]]

Dr Grishka:

Many of the partisans were Jewish, at least in Eastern Europe (and even in France) and fight they did. The effectiveness of partisans against regular troops, especially troops as uninhibited about civilian casualties as the Wehrmacht and SS has been exaggerated for numerous reasons, including a desire to foster self-liberation myths and legends which were important to reconstituting countries after Nazi occupation. Lidice and Oradour stand testimony to what did happen in many instances.

[Adam]

The fact is that counter-factuals are theories and so we actually can never know whether Jews with guns would have stopped the Nazis. In all likelihood it would not have by itself stopped the killing machine.

However, the violence that would have erupted and the effort that the Germans would likely have needed to exert is likely to have drawn the world's attention, especially in those countries and among those people who denied the anti-semitism and viciousness of the Nazi regime.

[Carl]

Mack this will be my last response so my failure to respond should not be construed as anything.
One you ate arrogant and insult me I'm typing on a device I'm not illiterate and my publication record is darn good.
Two you do not know a thang about how to win friends even thosr of us wh have no hostility to your kind
Three while you continue to make baseless claims citing no proof you belittle my argument which is based on logic and observation
Fourth if you think the fact that many people dont like jews you are cluless and delusional even Ann Coulter was surprised at the overwhelming support she recd
Fifth your frivolous remark concerning "settlers" is remarkable if faced with attack the person has every right to eliminate the threat. But you buy into the leftist storyline that when confronted with an enemy trying to kill one should "make nice" maybe call a social worker so they can be "treated". And you refer to them as settler in other words they are worthy of attack. You are pathetic as those people have every right to live where they do or are rights conferred only on certain groups?

[[M][a][c][K]]

Adam,

I knew people who were foreign diplomats in Berlin during the war - they had a fair idea of what was happening, and not all Jews were rounded up without resistance (by the way, many of the diplomats who helped were from neutral countries the Germans regarded as more pro-German, Spain, Turkey, Persia, Portugal - the others were far too closely watched.) But the reality is that people armed with small arms cannot do much when faced with and army or police force, especially when they have children, elderly etc.

The contra factual is based on watching too many movies.

[Carl]

Why was my last post deleted? Censorship? I never believed the control media folks but maybe I was naive.

[[M][a][c][K]]

I lay'd down, I've got[en] fleas....damnabit