The "Hitler" Quote That Wouldn't Die: "1935 Will Go Down In History!"
--
"This year* will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized
nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our
police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the
future!"
--falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler, "Abschied vom Hessenland!"
["Farewell to Hessia!"], ['Berlin Daily' (Loose English Translation)],
April 15th, 1935, Page 3 Article 2, Einleitung Von Eberhard Beckmann
[Introduction by Eberhard Beckmann]
This quotation, often seen without any date or citation at all,
suffers from several credibility problems, the most significant
of which is that the date given (*in alternate versions, the
words "This year..." are replaced by "1935...") has no correlation
with any legislative effort by the Nazis for gun registration,
nor would there have been a need for the Nazis to pass such a
law, since gun registration laws passed by the Weimar government
were already in effect. The Nazi Weapons Law (or_Waffengesetz_)
which further restricted the possession of militarily useful
weapons and forbade trade in weapons without a government-issued
license was passed on March 18, 1938.
The citation usually given for this quote is a jumbled mess,
and has only three major clues from which to work. The first is
the date, which does not correspond (even approximately) to a date
on which Hitler made a public speech, and a check of the texts of
Hitler's speeches does not reveal a quotation resembling this
(which is easily understandable when you realize that "Hitler"
is commenting on a non-existent law). The second clue is the
newspaper reference, which if translated into German resembles the
title of a newspaper called _Berliner Tageblatt,_ and a check of
the issue for that date reveals that the page and column references
given are to the arts and culture page! No Hitler speech appears
in the pages of _Berliner Tageblatt_ on that date, or dates close
to it, because there was no such speech to report. Finally,
the citation includes a proper name "Eberhard Beckmann," which
is sometimes cited as "by Einleitung Von Eberhard Beckmann,"
which is an important clue itself, because it reveals that the
citation was fabricated by someone who had so little knowledge of
the German language that they were unaware that "Einleitung"
isn't the fellow's first name! The only "Eberhard Beckmann"
which has been uncovered thus far did indeed write introductions,
but he was a journalist for a German broadcasting company after
WWII, and he wrote several introductions to_photography books,_
one of which was photos of the German state of Hesse (or Hessia),
which may be the source of the curious phrase "Abschied vom
Hessenland!" which appears in the citation. This quotation,
however effective it may be as propaganda, is a fraud. |
