From - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/09/10/780010/-Let-s-settle-the-facts-about-Nazi-gun-control
In 1928, before Hitler came to power, a Reich Law was enacted to regulate guns. Dealers needed a license. And in order to buy ammunition and own and register a gun, one needed a certificate.
Then, as soon as Hitler became chancellor on January 30, 1933, Nazi party police did indeed start seizing guns from all those deemed enemies of the state. That included communists, socialists and Jews; and five years later, Jewish citizenship was revoked altogether. More, on June 12, 1933, an executive order banned the importation of guns. It eased other pre-Nazi era gun restrictions, however. German Aryans no longer needed a license to own a rifle. They could buy ammunition without a permit. And if you were a state employee, a Nazi Party member or part of a civil defense team, you did not need a license to buy and carry a handgun.
Another gun control law went into effect on April 1, 1938. At that point, it became possible for German citizens (but not Jews or enemies of the state) to buy a handgun with a simple hunter's permit. All limits on buying ammunition were lifted. Carrying a gun in public required a license.
Thus, the Nazi regime's restrictions were on citizenship and political reliability, not on guns per se. Hitler did not seize all the guns in 1934 or any other year...
Thanks to M. Hahn in Tubingen, FRG, for research assistance.
***
So basically, the level of gun control was comparable to that of the modern USA, but less than modern Britain or Canada - if you were a citizen.
However, I know that in later years the armed forces required all soldiers in conquered countries to carry handguns. Since there weren't enough guns for everybody, pistols were obtained from every possible source - seizing the guns of the conquered armies, buying guns from Spain, etc. Presumably at some point Germans were asked to give up pistols they owned to equip the troops. Near the end of the war it also became necessary to round up rifles to equip the last-ditch units being formed to stop the Allied advance.
This may have contributed to later confusion about the sequence of events in Germany.
We must also recall the early days when the Brownshirts were a private militia comprising 4 million men, practically all the men in the party. Today's right-wing militiamen should consider what their leaders will do to them if they ever gain control of the government and military.
But I have believed for a very long time that if the right-wingers got into power here, they would find a way to take weapons only from those they hate. The "evolution" of the concept of the enemy combatant under bastards like John Yoo was tending towards the isolation and demonization of enemies of the GOP, such that the main body of American gun-owners would feel no sympathy or personal threat from their disarming if it should occur.
ORIGINALLY POSTED TO SUPER390 ON THU SEP 10, 2009 AT 12:25 PM PDT.
= new reply since forum marked as read
