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Home > History > Articles > What was Kristallnacht

What was Kristallnacht

00:00 Mon 19th Nov 2001 | History

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A.� Beautiful name, terrible deed. Kristallnacht means The Night of the Broken Glass - the start of all-out Nazi attacks on Jews - on 9 November, 1938.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� How did it start

A.� The attack came after Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Jew living in Paris, shot dead a member of the German Embassy staff there in retaliation for the poor treatment his family suffered at the hands of the Nazis in Germany.

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Q.� What had happened

A.� On 27 October, more than 15,000 other Jews had been expelled from Germany without warning. They were forcibly transported by train in boxcars, then dumped at the Polish border. Among the deportees was Zindel Grynszpan, who had been born in western Poland and moved to Hanover, where he established a small store, in 1911. When Herschel, living with an uncle in Paris, received news of his family's expulsion, he went to the German embassy, intending to assassinate the German ambassador to France. The ambassador was not there, so he settled for a lesser official, Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath.

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Q.� What was the Nazis' reaction

A.� Adolf Hitler and propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels pronounced that the Paris shooting was the opportunity for Germans to 'rise in bloody vengeance' against the Jews. Mob violence broke out on 9 November ... and the police just stood and watched as Nazi storm troopers, members of the SS and Hitler Youth beat and murdered Jews, wrecked Jewish homes, and brutalised Jewish women and children.

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Q.� And the broken glass

A.� All over Germany and Austria, they smashed the windows of Jewish shops and destroyed the stock. Synagogues were vandalised and sacred scrolls desecrated. Hundreds of synagogues were systematically burned while fire departments stood by or just prevented the fire from spreading to non-Jewish properties. About 25,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. SS leader Reinhard Heydrich reported that 7,500 businesses were destroyed, 267 synagogues burned (177 destroyed) and 91 Jews killed. This was also the start of anti-Semitic laws.

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Q.� Such as

A.� Jews were to be banned from public transport, schools and hospitals - forcing them into ghettos or out of the country. All Jewish property and enterprises would be transferred to 'Aryans' with only minor compensation. The Jews would also be billed for the damage caused on Kristallnacht. Any insurance money paid out would be confiscated by the state. Hitler's deputy, Hermann Goering said: 'German Jewry shall, as punishment for their abominable crimes, have to make a contribution of one billion marks. That will work. The swine won't commit another murder ... I would like to say that I would not like to be a Jew in Germany.'

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Q.� What was other countries' reaction to the terror

A.� Shock and outrage - a storm of negative publicity that served to isolate Hitler's Germany from the civilised nations and weaken any pro-Nazi sympathy in those countries. Shortly after Kristallnacht, the United States recalled its ambassador permanently. War was not far away.

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Steve Cunningham

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