A ha! Finally someone posts something with some meat to it! Did you read that one? It's sheds a lot more light on what was going on than the typical stuff you see on gun forums.
It might be worth readng Halbrook's piece which is mentioned in Harcourt's introduction:
http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/article-nazilaw.pdf
My point is that Germany's history of gun control is rather complicated and the Nazi party only had a small part to do with it. The major legislation in 1919, 1920, and 1928 had very significant impact on gun ownership longer before Hitler came to power.
It would be worth people's time to understand more about what happened rather than just saying, "HILTER LOVED GUN CONTROL!" every time someone mentions Germany and/or registration.
Thanks for pointing this out, Jorg!
It is a common misconception that the Nazis outlawed civilian gun ownership in Germany, and it really bothers me that people keep bringing this up when talking about gun registration. Pro-gun activists don't do themselves and their cause a favor if they blindly repeat what they read on the internet.
To sum it up for those who don't like to delve into long articles:
It was the Entente that demanded disarmament of German citizens after WW I in the treaty of Versailles and at the Spa conference. On August 7, 1920, the Weimar government passed the "Gesetz zur Entwaffnung der Bevölkerung" (law to disarm the population), which virtually banned guns from private hands, with very few exceptions (mainly hunters).
On 1928 – still under the Weimar government – a new law was adopted which lifted this ban. However, it also instituted compulsary registration of all firearms.
This means that the registration of all firearms in civilian hands had already happened when the Nazis came to power in 1933.
The Nazis made access to firearms easier for the average citizen and instituted (for the most part) more liberal gun laws in the Reichswaffengesetz of 1938, with the explicit goal of "Wehrhaftmachung" (strengthening the ability to defend oneself) of the population. Now, adults were allowed to purchase long guns without any sort of permission, and hunters were allowed to carry their guns at any time.
However, what the Nazis did do in terms of disarming civilians, was to use the data gathered via the Weimar gun registry law to disarm members of "undesirable" ethnic and political groups (cf. the Halbrook article).
This could be brought up as an argument against the registration of firearms, but people should be careful not to repeat the widespread myth of Nazis completely banning civilian gun ownership, which is simply not true.
