----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 8:10
PM
Subject: Re: Halbrook thesis: Armed
resistance to Hitler
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
