"Arms in The Hands Of Jews Are a Danger to Public Safety":

Nazism, Firearm Registration, and the

Night of The Broken Glass

In 1938, just weeks before Reichskristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass), in Nazi Germany, Berlin police arrested Alfred Flatow. His crime: being a Jew in lawful possession of firearms. The police knew he possessed firearms because he dutifully registered them in 1932 under a decree by the liberal Weimar Republic. In anticipation of the pogrom, the Nazi leadership launched a campaign to disarm Jews. Flatow was one of many who were arrested and turned over to the Gestapo. He would eventually be deported and die in a concentration camp.

The police may not have realized that they had arrested a world-class gymnast who won the gold for Germany at the 1896 Olympics. ........