Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, also known as Reichskristallnacht, Reichspogromnacht, Crystal Night and the Night of the Broken Glass, was a pogrom that occurred throughout Nazi Germany on November 9–November 10, 1938.

On November 7, 1938 a young Jew, enraged by his family's expulsion from Germany, walked into the German Embassy in Paris and fired five shots at a junior diplomat. Three days later, the diplomat was dead and Germany in the grip of skilfully orchestrated anti-Jewish violence. In the early hours of 10 November, an orgy of co-ordinated destruction broke out in cities, towns and villages throughout the Third Reich. The consequences of this violence were disastrous for the Jews of the Third Reich.

Kristallnacht saw the destruction in a single night of more than a thousand Synagogues, the ransacking of tens of thousands of Jewish businesses and homes, and more than 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and taken to concentration camps. It marked the beginning of the systematic eradication of a people who could trace their ancestry in Germany to Roman times, and served as a prelude for the Holocaust that was to follow.

Context

Further information: History of the Jews in Germany and Nuremberg Laws

By the end of the 1920s, most German Jews had been assimilated and were relatively prosperous. They served in the German army and contributed to every field of German science, business and culture. The Nazis were elected to power on January 30 1933, however Hitler did not gain absolute power until the passing of the Enabling act after the Reichstag fire on March 23rd. By 1938, Jews had been almost completely excluded from German social and political life. Many sought asylum abroad, and thousands did manage to leave, but as Chaim Weizmann wrote in 1936, "The world seemed to be divided into two parts — those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter."

Historian Eric Johnson notes that in the year preceding Kristallnacht the Germans “had entered a new radical phase in anti-Semitic activity.” Although controversial, some historians believe that the Nazi government had been contemplating a planned outbreak of violence against the Jews for some time and were waiting for an appropriate provocation; there is evidence of this planning that dates to 1937. The Zionist leadership in Palestine wrote in February 1938 “a very reliable private source – one which can be traced back to the highest echelons of the SS leadership, that there is an intention to carry out a genuine and dramatic pogrom in Germany on a large scale in the near future.”

Timeline of events

Kristallnacht was the result of more than five years and nine months of discrimination and persecution. From its inception in Germany, Hitler's regime moved quickly to introduce anti-Jewish policy. The half a million Jews in Germany, who accounted for only 0.76% of the overall population, were singled out by the Nazi propaganda machine as the enemy within who were responsible for Germany's defeat in 1918 and her subsequent economic difficulties. The prominence of the Jewish people in the scientific and professional life made them the objects of jealousy which the Nazis skilfully exploited.

During 1933 the German government enacted forty-two laws restricting the rights of german Jews to earn a living, to enjoy full citizenship and to educate themselves. The most draconian of these laws, the law "for the reconstruction of the civil service", forbade Jews to work in any branch of the civil-service. The pressure against the Jews continued unabated. During 1934, a further nineteen discriminatory laws were introduced. During 1935, the government had enacted a further 29 anti-Jewish laws. The most draconian were the Nuremberg Laws 'for the protection of German blood and honour'. Signed personally by Hitler, these laws prohibited Jews from being citizens of the Reich and forbade marriage between "those of German or related blood" and Jews, Roma (Gypsies), blacks, or their offspring.

In an attempt to provide help to the Jews affected by these laws an international conference was held on 6 July, 1938 on the shores of Lake Geneva. The conference hoped to address the issue of Jewish immigration to other countries. When the conference was held, more than 250,000 Jews had fled Germany and Austria (Austria had been annexed by Germany in March 1938); however, more than 300,000 German and Austrian Jews were seeking shelter from the oppression. As the number of Jews wanting to leave grew, the restrictions against them also grew with many countries tightening their rule for admission.

Expulsion of Jews from Germany

File:1938 Jews arrested during Kristallnacht line up for roll call at Buchenwald.jpg

1938 Jews arrested during Kristallnacht line up for roll call at Buchenwald

On 18 October, 1938, on Hitler's orders, more than 12,000 Jews were expelled from Germany. They were Polish-born Jews who had been living in Germany, legally, for many years. They were ordered to leave their homes in a single night, and were only allowed one suitcase per person to store their belongings. As the Jews were taken away, all of their remaining possessions were seized as booty by both the Nazi authorities and by their neighbours.

The deportees were taken from their homes to the nearest railway stations, where they were put on trains to the Polish border. Four thousand were granted entry into Poland; however, the remaining 8,000 were forced to stay at the border. There, in harsh conditions, they waited for the Polish government to allow them into the country. Hundreds more, one British newspaper told its readers, 'are reported to be lying about, penniless and deserted, in little villages along the frontier near where they had been driven out by the Gestapo and left'.

Killing of Vom Rath

One expelled couple, who had been living in Hanover for more than 27 years, had a seventeen-year-old son, Herschel Grynszpan, living in Paris. From the border his sister Berta sent him a postcard describing their expulsion: "No one told us what was up, but we realised this was going to be the end." Her final appeal: "We haven't a penny. Could you send us something…?"

Grynszpan received his sisters short message on November 3. The next day he read a graphic account of the deportations in a Paris Yiddish newspaper, which reported a number of instances of insanity and suicide among the expellees. Grynszpan was outraged. On the morning on Sunday, November 6 he bought a pistol, loaded it with 5 bullets, and on the following day went to the German embassy where, "in the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews," he shot Ernst vom Rath, fatally wounding him.

Initial response

During November 8, the first collective punitive measures were announced. All Jewish newspapers and magazines were to cease publication immediately. This ban cut off Jews from their leadership, whose task was to advise and guide them, particularly about emigration. It was a measure, one British newspaper explained, "intended to disrupt the Jewish community and rob it of the last frail ties which hold it together". There were at the time three German Jewish newspapers with a national circulation, four cultural papers, several sports papers, and several dozen community bulletins, of which the one in Berlin had a circulation of 40,000. Also on November 8 it was announced that Jewish children could no longer attend 'Aryan' state elementary schools. At the same time all Jewish cultural activities were suspended "indefinitely".

Contemporaneous German response

The reaction of non-Jewish Germans to Kristallnacht was varied. Martin Gilbert believes that “many non-Jews resented the round up”, his opinion being supported by German witness Dr Arthur Flehinger who recalls seeing “people crying while watching from behind their curtains”. Some even went as far as to help Jews, but the majority merely sat inside watching in horror, feeling helpless to do anything. Other non-Jewish Germans took part in the violence, as it was not just Stormtroopers rioting. Evidence of this can be established in that riots broke out on the night of November 7 and continued in some places after the pogrom was called to a halt; thus it may be surmised that these successive actions were not those of the Nazis. Also, several sources mention women and children as participating in the riots, and these were clearly not Stormtroopers but ordinary citizens. The number of German citizens involved in the riots is impossible to know, as many Stormtroopers were wearing civilian clothes and were thus indistinguishable.

According to Daniel Goldhagen, Bishop Martin Sasse, a leading Protestant churchman, published a compendium of Martin Luther's writings shortly after the Kristallnacht; Sasse "applauded the burning of the synagogues and the coincidence of the day, writing in the introduction, "On November 10, 1938, on Luther's birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany." The German people, he urged, ought to heed these words "of the greatest antisemite of his time, the warner of his people against the Jews." Diarmaid MacCulloch argued that Luther's 1543 pamphlet On the Jews and Their Lies was a "blueprint" for the Kristallnacht.

In an article released for publication on the evening of November 11, Goebbels ascribed the events of Kristallnacht to the "healthy instincts" of the German people. He went on to explain: "The German people is anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race."

Contemporaneous foreign response

File:19381011 NYT frontpage Kristallnacht.png

The frontpage of The New York Times of November 11, 1938 did not mention that the German Nazi government initiated the attacks, but said that Goebbels called to stop it.

The Kristallnacht pogrom sparked international outrage. It discredited pro-Nazi movements in Europe and North America, leading to eventual decline of their support. Many newspapers condemned Kristallnacht, with some comparing it to the murderous pogroms incited by Imperial Russia in the 1880s. The U.S. recalled its ambassador (but did not break off diplomatic relations) while other governments severed diplomatic relations with Germany in protest.

As such, Kristallnacht also marked a turning point in relations between Nazi Germany and the rest of the world. The brutality of the pogrom and the Nazi government's deliberate policy of encouraging the violence once it had begun, laid bare the repressive nature and widespread anti-Semitism entrenched in Germany, and turned world opinion sharply against the Nazi regime, with some politicians even calling for war.

Importance

Kristallnacht changed the nature of persecution from economic, political, and social to the physical with beatings, incarceration, and murder; the event is often referred to as the beginning of the Holocaust. In the words of historian Max Rein in 1988, "Kristallnacht came…and everything was changed."

While November 1938 predated overt articulation of "the Final Solution," it nonetheless foreshadowed the genocide to come. Around the time of Kristallnacht, the SS newspaper "Das Schwarze Korps" called for a "destruction by swords and flames." At a conference on the day after the pogrom, Herman Goerring said: "The Jewish problem will reach its solution if, in any time soon, we will be drawn into war beyond our border—than it is obvious that we will have to manage a final account with the Jews."

Specifically, the Nazis managed to achieve in Kristallnacht all the theoretical targets they set for themselves: confiscation of Jewish belongings to provide finances for the military buildup to war, separation and isolation of the Jews, and most importantly, the move from the antisemitic policy of discrimination to one of physical damage, which began that night and continued until the end of World War II.

The event nonetheless showed the public attitude was not solidly behind the perpetrators. Many Germans at the time found the pogroms troubling, as they equated them with the days of the SA street rule and lawlessness. The widespread cooperation of ordinary people and the desired severity of atrocities occurred primarily in Vienna and less so in Germany.

Modern response

Many decades later, association with the Kristallnacht anniversary was cited as the main reason against choosing November 9 ("Schicksalstag"), the day the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, as the new German national holiday; a different day was chosen (October 3, 1990, German reunification).

Avantgarde guitarist Gary Lucas's 1988 composition "Verklärte Kristallnacht", which juxtaposes the Israeli national anthem, "Hatikvah," with phrases from "Deutschland Über Alles" amid wild electronic shrieks and noise, is intended to be a sonic representation of the horrors of Kristallnacht. It was premiered at the 1988 Berlin Jazz Festival and received rave reviews. (The title is a reference to Arnold Schoenberg's 1899 work "Verklärte Nacht" that presaged his pioneering work on atonal music; Schoenberg was an Austrian Jew exiled by the Nazis).

The German Power Metal band Masterplan's debut album (also titled "Masterplan" and released in 2003) features an anti-Nazism song entitled "Crystal Night" as the fourth track.

See also

• Evian Conference
• History of the Jews in Germany
• History of the Jews in Austria
• The Holocaust
• Israel's Department Store
• Racial policy of Nazi Germany

Further reading

• Friedländer, Saul. Nazi Germany and The Jews – Volume 1 – The Years of Persecution 1933-1939. London: Phoenix, 1997.
• Schultheis Herbert (Ed.): Die Reichskristallnacht in Deutschland nach Augenzeugenberichten. Bad Neustadt a. d. Saale 1986. ISBN 978-3-9800482-3-1
• Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust – The Jewish Tragedy. London: William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd, 1986.
• Johnson, Eric. The Nazi Terror – Gestapo, Jews and Ordinary Germans. United States: Basic Books, 1999.
• November 9/10 1938 – Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass, The History Place, 1996
• Kristalnacht
• Kristallnacht by Frieda Miller, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre
• What Was Kristallnacht? The Holocaust History Project, 2003
• How Much Is That? by Samuel H Williamson, Miami University, 2005
• Kristallnacht by Rabbi Eliahu Ellis & Rabbi Shmuel Silinsky, Aish.com, 2006
• The Trial of Major German War Criminals Volume 20, Nizkor.org, 2006
• George L. Mosse, Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism
• ---- Confronting History: A Memoir
• ---- Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural, and Social Life in the Third Reich (George L. Mosse Series in Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History)
• ---- The Crisis of German Ideology : Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich
• Christopher R. Browning, Collected Memories: Holocaust History and Post-War Testimony (George L. Mosse Series in Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History)
• William L. Shirer The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 1960.
• Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: the Fate of the European Jewry
• US Holocaust Memorial Museum Enycylopedia on Kristallnacht
• USHMM Special Topics - Kristallnacht
• Kristallnacht by Rabbi Eliahu Ellis & Rabbi Shmuel Silinsky (Aish.com)
• Kristallnacht from Yad Vashem’s Photo Archives
• Kristallnacht at Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site
• CNN: German people are naked Nazis era Kristallnacht (November 8, 1998)