Mr. Justice burton and decisionmaking in the Supreme Court 1945 to 1958. And long memory, the black experience in america when it came out in 1982. Why era failed peer should mention that was her favorite. Child care, womens rights in the myth of a good mother. Other tales of american justice, episodes of racism and sexism in the courts came out in 1999. The other when she mentioned is a favorite of hers that shes written, my face is black is true. Callie house and the struggle for x slave reparations. Her most recent, power in words, the story behind Barack Obamas speeches, mary frances berry, thanks for spending three hours with a son in depth. Thank you for spending the time with me. I enjoyed it. Cspan created by americas Cable Companies 35 years ago and brought as a Public Service by your local cable and satellite provider. This is booktv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Here is our prime time lineup, tonight at 7 00 p. M. Eastern, stoically a life, he sits down with representative James Cliburn to discuss civil rights. At 8 fortyfive retired general tony zinny talks about isis in the use of american force. And corruption in the International Oil industry. Our prime time programming continues at 11 00 p. M. With new york senator kissinger brand who talks about her life in politics and encourages women to make a difference in the world. That all happens tonight on cspan2s booktv. Attorney Stephen Halbrook argues the nazi germany in government used guncontrol to disarm and repress its amenities and consolidate power. He spoke at the independent institute in oakland, calif. Is about 90 minutes. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is David Theroux and im a founder and president of Independence Institute. I am delighted to welcome you this evening. This is another meeting of the independent policy forum and in addition to our audience here and a Conference Center in oakland, california, i welcome our viewers on cspan and also those joining us worldwide to our Live Streaming on line. Independent policy forum is a series of lectures, seminars, and debates at the independent institute. We are delighted to have Stephen Halbrook with us who will be speaking on lessons for us for nazi guncontrol. And guncontrol in the third reich, gun control in the third reich disarming the jews and enemies of the state. For those new to the independent institute you confined information in registration packets, online in our program. We sponsor in depth studies in economic issues, purpose is peaceful, prosperous and free society grounded in a commitment to human words. They are published as books such as Stephen Halbrooks and numerous conference and media project one of our other publications is the independent review. And he will not be sorry. And the seminole classic rags called crisis in leviathan. We neither seek nor accept government funding, but support for private contributions, memberships and the sale of books and events such as tonight. With tragic shootings in the u. S. We have seen a triggering of a new debate over gun control. Are there lessons from history we should be mindful of. Based on recently discovered secret documents from german archives, diaries and newspapers, Stephen Halbrook has written an unprecedented new history of how violence in the liberal Democratic Society or system,dented new history of how violence in the liberal Democratic Society or system, free 1930 germany, free nazi germany led to guncontrol measures that were utilized by the National Socialists to disarm and repressed opponents and consolidate power. Ironically enough, books on the third reich and holocaust failed even to mention the laws restricting firearms ownership with very few exceptions. These policies rendered political opponents including jews who were viewed as political opponents powerless. Skeptics surmise a better armed populist would make no difference but the nazi regime certainly did not think so. A ruthless piece of trust literally crushed by an ownership by disfavored groups. Guncontrol in the third reich stands two decades from the wine mary republic in 1913, through crystal knock or, quote, night of broken glass in 1 hi8 and the pertinent events during world war ii involving disarming policies. Research fellow at the Independence Institute dr. Stephen halbrook is renowned constitutional legal scholar, attorney and author who won three cases before the Supreme Court. Interviewed on cnn, fox, court tv and elsewhere and published in the wall street journal, usa today and other publications. His many books in addition to the guncontrol gun control in the third reich included founders Second Amendment, securing civil rights, let every man be armed and target switzerland. Swiss armed neutrality in world 1 thank you, a pleasure to be here. Getting rather gauge of do. Cant remember how many times we have done this. Thank you all for coming out tonight. Special thanks and recognition to my wife brenda and my daughter melissa who graduated from high school and theyre in the audience, in the back if you will waive or something. I got interested in this subject in new sounds like ntteri germany and e proponents of this legislation said there was no evidence they were using registration records and they didnt do Much Research to come to this conclusion. I got interested way back when and what was incredible to me is no historian deals with this subject, virtually unmentioned whatsoever, and a few books that a footnote or something. And i want to say at the beginning of the title of this presentation has to do with art there lessons to be learned . The lessons speak for themselves. I will not engage in the kind of discourse in which i would say that some proponent of some legislation that is nazi like or that these are gestapo tactics or anything like that. I dont think we need to engage in that kind of rhetoric. There is too much of that the goes on but one thing is clear, there has been a lot of denial about what took place in nazi germany and it is time the historical record be made clear and that is what i set out to do in the book many years ago. I wrote the book and did research for 15 years. The sources either in english or german, published sources dont deal with this topic. It was necessary to do a lot of Archival Research in germany. I did some myself and reporter one of the best Archival Researchers in germany who does this topic, who knows these records very well. And there are interesting conclusions presented in the book. Historically, the way it all started was at the end of the great war. There were communist uprisings, the mark fell, the republic was established. There was a virtual civil war. I did a little show and tell. The street seems to show you from that period. If you have seen any documentarys, people running every which way and machine guns in the street and steel helmets and a voluntary groups that sided with the government to repress the communist uprisings, they wanted an uprising that would have taken place in russia, a bolshevik tight to. There was quite a lot of chaos and the the verisign treaty there was the idea in germany that all arms or military arms had to be surrendered including by civilians. There were legal interpretations in germany that no civilian could own any gun and they could all be turned in and there were court cases in the early 1920s but things calmed down somewhat but then we head to 1923 and you had the great inflation and a communist uprising in hamburg which was ruthlessly put down. And in munich they seized a beer hall, they didnt succeed in seizing the state. Interesting phenomenon and easy to see the beer hall in this company. Then go and write mine comes in prison, and things calm down a lot after that. 1928, there was a gun control law that was the first of its kind in germany and it required a lot of record keeping, there was no Registration System but there were records that could be subject to police inspection. A curious thing about it. There was no debate in the legislature, it passed without any debate whatsoever which would be a phenomenon in itself. But things started getting rare enough again as we approach the 30s and in 1931 for the first time, germany adopted a legislation or a decree, their religious leader decrease the executive branch could make and called for registration of the german states that adopted it. You had berlin and most of the large jurisdictions adopting firearm registration and some areas did not do so but by and large most places did. In 1931 before this took place, the nazi party had declared itself in favor of legal elections by that point but there was an incident, a hotel, an individual named verner best who was a nazi theoretician and he was heavily involved in the storm troopers. The document purported to deal with if there was a communist revolt and the nazi needed to seize power which many people interpret to mean this was the plan for nazi sees power, they had things like rationing of food, jews would not get any food supplies, and it had a provision where anyone would be ordered to turn in their firearms within 24 hours or be executed. This individual, verner best, would go on to become an official in the gestapo and we will hear from him later this evening. These documents were discovered, they were not taken too seriously. Nonetheless, there was still a lot of street fighting between the communists and the nazis. They were armed thugs in the streets and so it was decided in december of 1931 the executive branch would decree firearm registration legislation. At that time, the republic, the executive branch could rule by decree. You read a lot about executive decree today. This allowed the executive branch basically to not bother consulting the legislative branch but simply make the crease and this was one of them. This decree covers a lot of subjects and the brice counselors at that time, will assess my electronic abilities, heinrich bring, the head of the german government, and there was something called the enabling act which allowed the executive branch to issue these decrees and that is what he did and that was one thing they adopted, a horrible precedent because when the nazi scheme to power they could rule by decree just as well. One particular decree, this is the decree about internal security. About misuse of weapons. When you look at the first provision, section i provided for registration of all firearms by all people. Then it had a provision which stated that any time the officials, the authorities decided, it was needed for public security. That is an interesting thing to put in firearm registration law, quite honest that they would admit because when you have firearm basically registration debated and proposed, never confiscated them. They had it right in the law they can decree is the public emergency and there is a duty to turn them in. That came down right before christmas of 31 and the equivalent to the attorney general, the directives saying you have to be careful with these registration records. This went to the officials that are keeping them. We dont want them to fall in the hands of extremist groups or radical elements. He said dont keep him as a local Police Department, put him in more centralized facilities for safekeeping. That was a directive, i assume that is what they did. They didnt have computers at that time but they did get the ibm Punch Card Technology by the time the nazi scheme into power. There was a lot in his own lifetime. They could pull away registration records for gun owners or jews or protestant or catholic, the whole works, the record done everything. 1933, hitler and his party come to power and immediately start attacking physically their political enemies. That would be social democrats, the party that probably had more power than any other in that period as a single party but also liberal parties, conservative partys, they multiplied day by day. The more opposition that a rose, the more this repression would happen and all opposition was invariably called communist. If you oppose what the nazis were doing you were called communists and you read the newspapers at that time you will find on a daily basis accounts of searches and seizures of firearms and the rest of socalled communists so that goes on 1933, and you had the use of the firearm records, i have all whole chapter on this, and i got the records direct from herman gehring, the high official in the nazi regime and he basically said you need to check the political reliability of all persons with firearms permits and found records where local authorities went and gave a name and said what that persons profession was and whether he was politically reliable, he is a social democrat and his weapon permit is going to be confiscated as well as his gun and you go down the list and i found there was one jew where they wanted to take his weapon permit but another one, they let him keep it at least for that point. Political reliability meant you supported nazism or National Socialism and that you were not reliable if you did not and so fees were records not from the registration of guns but from the licensing, people who have licensed permits to possess guns, to carry guns, to purchase guns, things like that. Or ammunition. There was some repression against jews in 1933, not as harsh against the political opponents because the dictatorship wanted to consolidate its power. It was use of the law and physical force and any means necessary to make sure the nazi party became supreme. For all anybody noon in those days it would be just another temporary government. The government would rise and fall quickly, sometimes maybe they were in power a couple years and sometimes a few weeks. Adolf hitler wanted to make sure his power was consolidated and more emergency decrees to justify the communist insurrection that is going on and so we have to ban free speech, assembly, things like that and they did a lot of the same things. The registration law if you go to provisions after gun registration, no public assemblies and no free speech. You could not make politically subversive speeches so these things seemed to go together. There was one case, more than one case or one famous case of a search and seizure operation against jews in germany. This was in april of 1933. There were raid that took place in the jewish quarter in berlin and here are some illustrations, this picture and the next one, and illustrations of that raid. This is from the nazi paper that says raid in the jewish quarter. If you read the article follows, it talks about the subversive literature that was seized and the guns that were seized in search and seizure operations. Here you see a number of Uniformed Police in the jewish quarter in berlin in that quarter and basically it was kind of more of a side show, the repression of jews at that time but the biggest factions are against the communists or political opponents. The second illustration from the same article that is an elderly jewish man and that is to the left, a criminal Police Inspector interrogating him and you see the little square, that is a radio. They are broadcasting this interview and the nazis were masters of propaganda so they are putting this raid on the radio and depicting it as these jews, they should be in the country and here is this old man pretending he doesnt know why he is being arrested and interrogated. You are supposed to get it, that he is a jew, and shouldnt have a gun, shouldnt have subversive literature and all that. That is an example of some of the repression going on. As time goes on the coming months it gets more internal because the nazi party was like a criminal gained. You had hitler wanting absolute power. 1934 you have been basically wiping out in the night of the long night the as a leadership, ernest rome and others. It becomes like a fight within the mafia its self or who is going to be the cop and at the same time everything was coming under nazi control. Political parties were abolished, labor unions were abolished. Sports had to come under the control of the reich and that included gun clubs and there were a lot of independent gun clubs, some of them had been in existence for hundreds of years in germany and if they refused to make their leaders of the club nazi members then the Club President and Vice President and all that, these people would be arrested and taken into gestapo custody. This is in the period of forcing into the line where all elements of society were being taken within the Nazi National socialist agenda. We go through that period. At the same time you start having a lot more focus on getting at the jews and how horrible they are and here is our friend bernard best and he is the one who offered the 1931 document which talked about the execution of persons who were gun owners who didnt turn the man within 24 hours, if there was a nazi takeover. He was actually, he had a law degree, some sort of Judicial Office and when the nazis came to power he became chief Legal Adviser of the gestapo, the secret state police. In that role he had quite a policymaking role. One of his documents about gun ownership for jews, look at it closer in a minute. But he was involved in getting the jay stamp put on jewish identities and passports and he was involved after the war began sent first to france and then denmark after 1931 when the war began every country not occupied by the nazis they had a policy of putting up posters and saying turn in your files within 24 hours or you will be executed. That is exactly the same document from 1931 that he had personally authored and he was in charge of those policies and the others in occupied countries. If you ever go to the museum in france where napoleons body is. They have got one of those original posters there, you turn in your guns within 24 hours and they didnt put a date or time when the cloc