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Night of Broken Glass
Anyone know what the "Night of Broken Glass" was? In a matter of just a few years the rights of the German Jewish population to own weapons of any kind were regulated away. The Night of Broken Glass was the start of the Holocaust. This was the night the Nazi's disarmed the Jewish people in Germany. Here is a brief description of how it came to be.
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The Night of Broken Glass: Eyewitness Accounts of Kristallnacht 1st Edition
1) In 1919, the German government passed the Regulations on Weapons Ownership, which declared that "all firearms, as well as all kinds of firearms ammunition, are to be surrendered immediately." Under the regulations, anyone found in possession of a firearm or ammunition was subject to five years' imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 marks.
2) On August 7, 1920, the government to enact a second gun-regulation law called the "Law on the Disarmament of the People". This was to comply with the conditions of the Versailles Treaty.
3) In 1928 a rapidly expanding three-way political divide between the conservatives, National Socialists, and Communists prompted the rapidly declining conservative majority to enact the Law on Firearms and Ammunition. This law relaxed gun restrictions and put into effect a strict firearm licensing scheme. The citizens of Germany could now purchase firearms but they had to be registered. However, the law restricted ownership of firearms to "...persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a (gun) permit." So they had to show a need to own a firearm.
4) In 1933 an extremist group led by Adolph Hitler seized power. That same year, firearms registrations were used to disarm anyone labeled a "enemy of the state"
5) In 1938 they instituted the German Weapons Act. Citizens were required to have a permit to carry a firearm and a separate permit to acquire a firearm. Under this law, holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP (the National Socialist German Workers' Party, aka the Nazi party) members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions. Did you get that last part? Nazi party members were no longer subject to gun ownership restrictions like the rest of the population.
6) That same year (1938) the firearms registration records were used to disarm the Jewish gun owners. Police forces used the pre-existing "trustworthiness" clause from 1933 to disarm Jews on the basis that "the Jewish population 'cannot be regarded as trustworthy'". Sound familiar?
7) November 10, 1938 Reichskristallnacht [ˌʁaɪçs.kʁɪsˈtalnaχt], also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, Reichspogromnacht or simply Pogromnacht was enacted. This was a pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and Austria, carried out by SA paramilitary forces and German civilians. German authorities looked on without intervening.
8) On November 11, 1938 (the day after Reichskristallnacht) 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.
9) Those who possessed weapons of any kind had them seized and were subject to 20 years in a concentration camp.
There is a very good article on the "Night of Broken Glass" in the January 2016 issue of American Rifleman. If you read anything in this issue, read this article.
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You can also view more information on this event on Wikipedia's website at this URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_legislation_in_Germany
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