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On the night of November 9, 1938, violence against Jews broke out across

the Reich. It appeared to be unplanned, set off by Germans' anger over

the assassination of a German official in Paris at the hands of a Jewish

teenager. In fact, German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and other

Nazis carefully organized the pogroms. In two days, over 1,000

synagogues were burned, 7,000 Jewish businesses were trashed and

looted, dozens of Jewish people were killed, and Jewish cemeteries,

hospitals, schools, and homes were looted while police and fire brigades

stood by. The pogroms became known as Kristallnacht, the "Night of

Broken Glass," for the shattered glass from the store windows that

littered the streets.

The morning after the pogroms 30,000 German Jewish men were arrested for the "crime" of being Jewish and sent to concentration camps, where

hundreds of them perished. Some Jewish women were also arrested and sent

to local jails. Businesses owned by Jews were not allowed to reopen

unless they were managed by non-Jews. Curfews were placed on Jews,

limiting the hours of the day they could leave their homes.

After the "Night of Broken Glass,", life was even more difficult for

German and Austrian Jewish children and teenagers. Already barred from

entering museums, public playgrounds, and swimming pools, now they were

expelled from the public schools. Jewish youngsters, like their parents,

were totally segregated in Germany. In despair, many Jewish adults

committed suicide. Most families tried desperately to leave.

http://www.ushmm.org/kristallnacht/issues/kristall.htm

Almost immediately upon assuming the Chancellorship of Germany, Hitler

began promulgating legal actions against Germany's Jews. In 1933, he

proclaimed a one-day boycott against Jewish shops, a law was passed

against kosher butchering and Jewish children began experiencing

restrictions in public schools. By 1935, the Nuremberg Laws deprived

Jews of German citizenship. By 1936, Jews were prohibited from

participation in parliamentary elections and signs reading "Jews Not

Welcome" appeared in many German cities. (Incidentally, these signs were

taken down in the late summer in preparation for the 1936 Olympic Games

in Berlin).In the first half of 1938, numerous laws were passed restricting Jewish economic activity and occupational opportunities. In July, 1938, a law was passed (effective January 1, 1939) requiring all Jews to carry

identification cards. On October 28, 17,000 Jews of Polish citizenship,

many of whom had been living in Germany for decades, were arrested and

relocated across the Polish border. The Polish government refused to

admit them so they were interned in "relocation camps" on the Polish

frontier.

Among the deportees was Zindel Grynszpan, who had been born in western

Poland and had moved to Hanover, where he established a small store, in

1911. On the night of October 27, Zindel Grynszpan and his family were

forced out of their home by German police. His store and the family's

possessions were confiscated and they were forced to move over the

Polish border. Zindel Grynszpan's seventeen-year-old son, Herschel, was

living with an uncle in Paris. When he received news of his family's

expulsion, he went to the German embassy in Paris on November 7,

intending to assassinate the German Ambassador to France. Upon

discovering that the Ambassador was not in the embassy, he settled for a

lesser official, Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath. Rath, was critically

wounded and died two days later, on November 9.

The assassination provided Goebbels, Hitler's Chief of Propaganda, with

the excuse he needed to launch a pogrom against German Jews. Grynszpan's

attack was interpreted by Goebbels as a conspiratorial attack by

"International Jewry" against the Reich and, symbolically, against the

Fuehrer himself. This pogrom has come to be called Kristallnacht, "the

Night of Broken Glass."

On the nights of November 9 and 10, gangs of Nazi youth roamed through

Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of Jewish businesses and homes,

burning synagogues and looting. In all 101 synagogues were destroyed and

almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed. 26,000 Jews were arrested

and sent to concentration camps, Jews were physically attacked and

beaten and 91 died (Snyder, Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich.

New York: Paragon House, 1989:201).

The official German position on these events, which were clearly

orchestrated by Goebbels, was that they were spontaneous outbursts. The

Fuehrer, Goebbels reported to Party officials in Munich, "has decided

that such demonstrations are not to be prepared or organized by the

party, but so far as they originate spontaneously, they are not to be

discouraged either." (Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg. New York:

Harper & Row, 1983:165)

Three days later, on November 12, Goering called a meeting of the top

Nazi leadership to assess the damage done during the night and place

responsibility for it. Present at the meeting were Goering, Goebbels,

Reinhard Heydrich, Walter Funk and other ranking Nazi officials. The

intent of this meeting was two-fold: to make the Jews responsible for

Kristallnacht and to use the events of the preceding days as a rationale

for promulgating a series of antisemitic laws which would, in effect,

remove Jews from theÿ German economy. An interpretive transcript of this

meeting is provided by Robert Conot, Justice at Nuremberg, New York:

Harper and Row, 1983:164-172):

`Gentlemen! Today's meeting is of a decisive nature,' Goering announced.

`I have received a letter written on the Fuehrer's orders requesting

that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and

solved one way or another.'

It was decided at the meeting that, since Jews were to blame for these

events, they be held legally and financially responsible for the damages

incurred by the pogrom. Accordingly, a "fine of 1 billion marks was

levied for the slaying of Vom Rath, and 6 million marks paid by

insurance companies for broken windows was to be given to the state

coffers. (Snyder, Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York:

Paragon House, 1989:201).

the term Kristallnacht. The term, after all, was coined by Walter Funk

at the November 12 Nazi meeting following the pogrom of November 8-10.

http://www.mtsu.edu/~baustin/knach____t.htmlc

Kristallnacht

A massive, coordinated attack on Jews throughout the German Reich on the

night of November 9, 1938, into the next day, has come to be known as

Kristallnacht or The Night of Broken Glass.

The attack came after Herschel Grynszpan, a 17 year old Jew living in

Paris, shot and killed a member of the German Embassy staff there in

retaliation for the poor treatment his father and his family suffered at

the hands of the Nazis in Germany.

On October 27, Grynszpan's family and over 15,000 other Jews, originally

from Poland, had been expelled from Germany without any warning. They

were forcibly transported by train in boxcars then dumped at the Polish

border.

For Adolf Hitler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, the shooting

in Paris provided an opportunity to incite Germans to "rise in bloody

vengeance against the Jews."

Read orders to the Gestapo regarding Kristallnacht

On November 9, mob violence broke out as the regular German police stood

by and crowds of spectators watched. Nazi storm troopers along with

members of the SS and Hitler Youth beat and murdered Jews, broke into

and wrecked Jewish homes, and brutalized Jewish women and children.

All over Germany, Austria and other Nazi controlled areas, Jewish shops

and department stores had their windows smashed and contents destroyed.

Synagogues were especially targeted for vandalism, including desecration

of sacred Torah scrolls. Hundreds of synagogues were systematically

burned while local fire departments stood by or simply prevented the

fire from spreading to surrounding buildings.

About 25,000 Jewish men were rounded up and later sent to concentration

camps where they were often brutalized by SS guards and in some cases

randomly chosen to be beaten to death.

The reaction outside Germany to Kristallnacht was shock and outrage,

creating a storm of negative publicity in newspapers and among radio

commentators that served to isolate Hitler's Germany from the civilized

nations and weaken any pro-Nazi sentiments in those countries. Shortly

after Kristallnacht, the United States recalled its ambassador

permanently.

In Germany, on November 12, top Nazis, including Hermann Gšring and

Joseph Goebbels, held a meeting concerning the economic impact of the

damage and to discuss further measures to be taken against the Jews. SS

leader Reinhard Heydrich reported 7500 businesses destroyed, 267

synagogues burned (with 177 totally destroyed) and 91 Jews killed.

Heydrich requested new decrees barring Jews from any contact with

Germans by excluding them from public transportation, schools, even

hospitals, essentially forcing them into ghettos or out of the country.

Goebbelës said the Jews would be made to clean out the debris from burned

out synagogues which would then be turned into parking lots.

At this meeting it was decided to eliminate Jews entirely from economic

life in the Reich by transferring all Jewish property and enterprises to

'Aryans,' with minor compensation given to the Jews in the form of

bonds.

Regarding the economic impact of the damage from Kristallnacht and the

resulting massive insurance claims, Hermann Gšring stated the Jews

themselves would be billed for the damage and that any insurance money

due to them would be confiscated by the State.

"I shall close the meeting with these words," said Gšring, "German Jewry

shall, as punishment for their abominable crimes, et cetera, have to

make a contribution for one billion marks. That will work. The swine

won't commit another murder. Incidentally, I would like to say that I

would not like to be a Jew in Germany."

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