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It's certainly true that if a minority is small
enough, armed resistance might provide the excuse for
more violence. The night of broken glass was
provoked (or at least, this was the claimed provocation)
by a Jew killing a German diplomat in Paris.
Ironically, that diplomat appears to have been part of
the movement around von Stauffenberg that was
engaged in resistance to Hitler. (At least, _Target:
Hitler_ makes that claim.)
It is also true that resistance in 1933 would have
made little sense. Hitler was full of fury at the Jews,
but at least initially, there was not much reason
to assume that something like the Holocaust was
going to be implemented. It was very easy to
assume that all the sound and fury about Jews in
_Mein Kampf_ was empty words. In 1939, once
the war had started, however, it might well have made
sense for Jews who remained in Germany to fight. At least for some, it was becoming
apparent that Hitler's
anti-Semitism was
more than just a short-lived attempt to rouse the masses behind der
Fuehrer.
Why did the fighting culture of German Jews
matter? Because in some parts of Eastern Europe, a
quite strong pacifist culture had developed, and
with some good reason. When a pogrom happened,
there were two choices: put up a fight, and be
slaughtered by the majority culture, or hope that the
fury would pass quickly. Israel
Gutman's _Resistance_ and his chapter on this subject in Leni
Yahil's book about the Holocaust discuss this in
some detail. The difference this time was that
Hitler's rage at Jews wasn't a short-term burst of
anger, but a long-term plan of extermination. It was
in these populations where both gun control and a
tradition of peasants being unarmed made a big
difference. If the Jews of Poland had been as
well armed as the average American, the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising (and the dozens of smaller uprisings
across occupied Eastern Europe) would have tied up
far more German soldiers, probably shortening the
war. Of course, the number of Jews in the former
Austro-Hungarian Empire matter on this count,
because this is where a fair number of the victims of
the Holocaust were murdered.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 2:48
PM
Subject: Re: Halbrook thesis: Armed
resistance to Hitler
I
was at the German Historical Institute Conference when Stephen gave this paper
about 7 years ago; the German and the American scholars familiar with WWII
were almost unanimous in thinking it was wrong. There were far fewer
than 550,000 Jews in Germany by 1933; Germany was a considerably smaller place
after WWI; and the Austro-Hungarian numbers are rather meaninless, since the
empire no longer existed and the number of Jews in Austria were much smaller.
I don't have figures handy, but about half of all Jews left Germany
between 1933 adn 1939. The German Jewish population was really quite
small, and even if the small number of Jews had resisted, they would have been
crushed quickly; Most people who are law abiding do not immediately
reach for a gun when they do not like a government policy. The cultural
issue is not about Jews being good soldiers or not (the evidence that Halbrook
presents that they were implies that is we should not expect Jews to be
soldiers, i will decline to explore the motivations for such evidence);.
The cultural issue is that most Jews saw themselves as good German
citizens, and obeyed the law. They could not have imagined, in 1933 oe
1934 what would happen 6 or 7 years later. But, had all the ablebodied
Jewish men in 1933 started fighting the German government, does anyone really
believe they would have prevailed? Or would that have simply been an
excuse of the new regime to slaughter all Jews in Germany; indeed, in
retrospect the only survival strategy for German Jews was to leave. Many did;
more would have if the US, Canada, and Britain had offered them sanctuary.
Many of the young men who did leave, returned to Germany in 1945 in
British and American uniforms.
Paul Finkelman
--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, OK 74104-3189
918-631-3706 (office)
918-631-2194 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Richard
F. Griffiths wrote:
The possibility of armed Jewish
resistance to Adolf Hitler is often simply dismissed as a cultural
impossibility and as wishful thinking by pro-gun zealots. Yet Steve Halbrook
documents in his excellent article, Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming
of the German Jews, that the Nazis devoted considerable time and energy
to the progressive disarmament of Hitler's political opponents and of the
Jews including even their knives and old sabers.
Were all
Jewish men living in Germany so urbanized and unfamiliar with the use of
weapons that resistance was simply futile?
If the Jews did serve in
the German military during the World War I how many saw combat and what was
their record?
Bryan Mark Rigg's work Hitler's Jewish Soldiers
provides some answers to these historical questions.
On page
72 Rigg's states:
" About 10,000 volunteered for duty and over
100,000 out of a total German-Jewish population of 550,000 served during
World War I. Some 78 percent saw frontline duty, 12,000 died in battle, over
30,000 received decorations, and 19,000 were promoted. Approximately 2,000
Jews became military officers, and 1,200 became medical
officers..."
On page 73
"In the Austrian-Hungarian Empire of
the 300,000 Jews who served in World War I, 25,000 were officers; 25,000
died in battle. There were 76 Jewish chaplains, all holding the rank of
captain. During the war, 24 Jews attained the ranl of general, 76 received
the Gold Medals for bravery, and 22 the Orders of the Iron Crown Third
Class..."
On page 74
"Gert Dalberg who volunteered for the
Wermacht, mentioned in his application to the University of Berlin that his
Jewish father had been a World War I officer and had been decorated with
both Iron Crosses, the House of Hohenzollern's Knight's Cross with swords,
Turkey's Iron Half-Moon Medal, and Silver Wound Badge. Dalberg's father also
had fought against the Communists after World War I in the
Freikorps."
According to General von Deimling ...In my corps, the
Jews fought as bravely as their Christian comrades and to many of them I
presented the Iron Cross."
Rich
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