KRISTALLNACHT

Kristallnacht was the first massive, governmentendorsed, violent action against Jews in Nazi Germany's Third Reich. It occurred on the night of November 9/10, 1938, and its name, German for "crystal night," stems from the enormous amount of broken glass that covered the streets the following morning.

The violence was precipitated by the government's decision to round up fifteen thousand Polish Jews in Germany late in October 1938, even though it knew that the Polish government was not willing to grant them entrance visas. The family of Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish youth living in Paris, was among those left in a precarious situation on the border between Germany and Poland. In retaliation, Grynszpan assassinated Ernst vom Rath, the Third Secretary at Germany's embassy in Paris. Vom Rath died in the afternoon of November 9, and the news reached Adolf Hitler that evening, which was the anniversary of his attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic in 1923. Hitler met with his propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, and soon thereafter orders to wreak havoc on Jews were given to the Nazi paramilitary force, the Sturmabteilung, or SA.

This night resulted in widespread destruction of Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues. The SA also took action against spiritual objects as they forced rabbis and other Jews to desecrate the Torah and to stand inside of synagogues and read from Mein Kampf. The SA smashed windows and set buildings ablaze. Over one hundred Jews were killed in this night of violence. The SA, assisted by Schutzstaffel (SS) troops, also engaged in the first major round-up of German Jews. They seized approximately 25,000 Jewish men and placed them in the concentration camps of Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. The attacks on the Jewish communities of Germany resulted in the destruction of over two hundred synagogues and more than seven thousand Jewish-owned businesses. The Third Reich declared that the Jewish communities had to pay a fine in the amount of one billion reichsmarks as punishment.

While many Jews had earlier believed that Hitler would eventually be taken out of power, Kristallnacht signaled a different kind of Germany, one that threatened their lives directly. The push to emigrate intensified, but would-be emigrants faced many barriers. The Third Reich blocked their bank accounts, and countries would not accept immigrants who could not provide for themselves. In 1939, 185,000 Jews emigrated, but often they could only obtain entrance visas for another European country. Once the German occupation of Western Europe began in 1940, they were back under the control of the Third Reich, and many of these refugees were shipped to killing centers in the east during the Holocaust.

In response to the pogrom, on November 15 President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that he had taken the unusual step of recalling the American ambassador to Germany for consultation. Roosevelt stated that the recent events in Germany had shocked him, but reiterated that additional visas would not be made available for Jewish refugees. Within the week, however, Roosevelt did agree to extend the visas of approximately 14,000 Jews who had entered on tourist visas until they had fulfilled citizenship requirements. One of the Jews who benefited from this decision was Albert Einstein.

See Also: ANTI-SEMITISM; EUROPE, GREAT DEPRESSION IN; HITLER, ADOLF.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abzug, Robert H. America Views the Holocaust, 1933-1945: A Brief Documentary Reader. 1999.

Kaplan, Marion. Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany. 1996.

Pehle, Walter, ed. November 1938: From "Reichskristallnacht" to Genocide, translated by William Templer. 1991.

Thalmann, Rita, and Emmanuel Feinermann. Crystal Night: 9-10 November 1938, translated by Gilles Cremonesi. 1974.

Yahil, Leni. The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945, translated by Ina Friedman and Haya Galai. 1991.

LAURA J. HILTON