Michael Noire
Was the Reichstag decree in effect?
The Enabling Act (which made Hitler dictator) is 19
33. (Shortly after the Reichstag fire, which it is generally agreed the Nazis set themselves to frame the Communists.) Nuremberg Laws, which placed a number of restrictions on German Jews (including, as I mentioned, revoking their citizenship), were 19
35. The Nazis made revisions to the Weimar firearms laws (including forbidding Jews from owning, buying or selling weapons) in 19
38. It is worth noting that these restrictions on gun ownership were not general, and for everyone
but the Jews, the existing restrictions were loosened. (The Weimar Republic had attempted to ban firearms entirely after WWI, and had defaulted to mandatory registration as a fallback position in 1928.) It also bears pointing out that private firearms ownership was not enormous in Germany during that period - certainly it wasn't comparable to the contemporary United States, where we have more firearms than people. (Although many people own zero firearms.) It's more like one gun for every hundred or every thousand people. Which, considering the economic climate in Germany at that time, makes sense, since firearms are a luxury product for the average city dweller.
Hitler was 'singling out' the Jews long before he actually became a dictator, of course. The "Twenty Five Points, which the Nazis proposed in 1920, already incorporated much of what made it into the Nuremberg Laws:
Quote:
4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.
5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.
6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the State shall belong only to citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen.
...
8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately. ...
23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press, we demand:
(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.
(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State. They must not be published in the German language.
(c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich.
Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand legal action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.
As far as "reacting negatively," well. I'd have a pretty negative outlook on the Nazi party if I was a Jew in the 1930s. I'd seriously consider, y'know, fleeing the country ASAP, as some did. (Sigmund Freud, for example, eventually fled Austria following the Anschluss. Einstein left in 1933 following Hitler's rise to power.)
As far as violent resistance, I think that it bears pointing out that the Shoah was not a widely known fact in the 1930s. Many of the details only became public knowledge after the Allies were victorious and began liberating the extermination camps. Up until they reached the camps, many Jews believed that they were being resettled into new communities, like the ghettos.
If it had been known, rather than rumored or suspected, maybe things would have gone differently. But it does bear pointing out that by the time the camps were open for business, the Nazi military/police/secret police apparatus was obscenely powerful, and the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and political dissidents were not. So things may have gone much the same way if armed resistance had been attempted in 1938.
Me personally, I'd favor the prevention of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor as the necessary tipping point for stopping what followed. After that, I'd get the hell out. The option proposed mainly results in being shot.