anwi wrote:Sorry, this relation isn't relevant to the events. The 1923 coup failed because it was a preposterous plan from the start and then Bavarian police did their job; the coup collapsed after they had been marching some ten minutes.
It is relevant because do you think the police would have acted as easily if they had all been carrying rifles,
legally, as happened later?
At that point the police couldn´t know whether it was a setup for a massacre or not.
Hard to act the same then.
anwi wrote:When the Nazis actually achieved 30+% in national elections, they indeed had SA men on the streets. But the German communist party did have the "red front" (if I don't confuse that) and there were several other, smaller organizations involved in the streetfighting around political demonstrations and elections.
Yes, but historical records have clearly shown that it was the nazis that went around starting fights intentionally most of the time, they were also the ones heavily armed, or armed at all(anarchist groups for example were nearly always completely devoid of anything more advanced or dangerous than the equivalent of a baseball bat), but really...
The "Red front" didn´t exist in 1933!!! Not that it stopped the nazis from throwing former members into concentration camps ASAP when they could, but it was banned and dissolved in 1929 after the riots in Berlin where police shot and killed 30+.
And the normal "weapon" of the Red Front was fists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roter_Fro ... 4mpferbundThey were outspokenly ANTI-militaristic, weapons were specifically against their ideals, and as such was a rather rare thing to see. They relied on numbers and what can either be called courage, recklesness or stupidity depending on situation.
And it was the dissolution of the Red Front that gave the nazis and their supporters far too much freedom of action, removing a big chunk of protection for people that might otherwise have opposed the nazis.
anwi wrote:And that, again, had nothing to do with the level of privately owned guns.
By then, they didn´t NEED it. They had the power of the state already.
anwi wrote:Coincidence should not be confused with a causal relation.
Obviously.
anwi wrote:What facilitated and actually enabled the subsequent events was the simple fact that the German republic was unstable in the early 1930ies and that the majority of Germans were quite content with an authoritarian regime which ended the infighting. They got that...
And here you instead ignore WHY the German state was unstable. Arming the nazis thugs was a major contributor to this.
Before the changed arms laws in 1928, the nazis were a big problem, but once they started carrying firearms, they shifted from problem to calamity.
anwi wrote:There is some truth to the first statement.
Considering how it is a basic fact, i certainly would hope so!
anwi wrote:Regarding the second, I doubt that. As far as I remember, gun violence wasn't the issue in these fights. They were just like todays hooligan brawls in a lot of cases, so guns and their availability played a minor role. Actually, if SA troops had openly waged warfare (with guns), then Hindenburg would probably have stopped them cold. The strategy by Hitler was based staying "legal".
There is a huge difference between guns PRESENT but rarely used, and guns NOT PRESENT.
They created chaos through provocation, and minimised the risk for themselves by having people with guns nearby, creating no-win situations for those opposing them.
Again, had the nazis not had guns available, the probability of the nazis getting the votes they did would definitely be reduced, probably to a point where it could not be warranted to give any real power to Hitler.
anwi wrote:And of course, the instability created by the streetfighting between left and right mobs destabilized Germany.
From the above wikilink:
During the years of its existence the rivalry between the warring organizations such as the Sturmabteilung, the Stahlhelm and the Reichsbanner grew constantly and violence intensified. Since the strategy of the Sturmabteilung (SA) was especially designed to take the political fight to the streets and provoke rivals wherever they could, violent encounters between members of these two organizations soon became a part of everyday life. The SA purposely opened new haunts in working-class districts in which a large part of the population were ‘‘red’’, meaning they supported either the Social Democratic Party of Germany ‘‘SPD’’ or the Communist Party of Germany ‘‘KPD’’ but not the ‘‘brown’’ Nazi Party the Sturmabteilung (SA) stood for. For their rallies the Sturmabteilung almost exclusively chose locations within these districts, knowing that especially the RFB men were not willing to let these provocations go by quietly and many events from either side resulted in violent mass brawls.anwi wrote:Theoretically possible, but as I stated before, authoritarian regimes don't start that way. Typically, they grab for the power via the police or the military and thus already have access to all the weapons they need.
That ignores how the "grabbing" happens.
Easy access to large amounts of weapons makes THAT easier, end of story.
Of course, it´s the THREAT of weapons rather than weapons USED that is the best way to take power. Weapons used will just cause police or military to shoot back, and they´re nearly always one helluva lot better at it.
But used as a threat against their masters to take over, much easier than without.
