The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: places/germany/kristallnacht/kristallnacht.01

Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Krystallnacht - The Terror Begins
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Keywords: Goebbels,Goering,Grynszpan,Kristallnacht,vom Rath

Archive/File: places/germany/kristallnacht/kristallnacht.01
Last-modified: 1993/04/21

"KRISTALLNACHT (Crystal Night; also called the Night of the Broken Glass).
The night of November 9, 1938, when terror attacks were made on Jewish
synagogues and stores. Two days earlier, Ernst vom Rath, Third Secretary
of the German Embassy in Paris*, had been assassinated by Herschel
Grynszpan, a Polish Jew. In retaliation, Richard Heydrich, chief of the SD,
ordered the destruction of all Jewish places of worship in Germany and
Austria.  The assault had been long prepared; the murder of Vom Rath
provided an opportunity to begin the attack. In fifteen hours, 101
synagogues were destroyed by fire, and 76 were demolished. Bands of Nazis
systematically destroyed 7,500 Jewish stores. The pillage and looting wnet
on through the night. Streets were covered with broken glass, hence the
name 'Kristallnacht'.

THREE DAYS LATER Hermann Goering called a meeting of the top Nazi hierarchy
at the Air Ministry to assess the damage done during the night and place
responsibility for it. Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels proposed that Jews no
longer be allowed to use the public parks: "We will give the Jews a part of
the forest, where animals, which are damnably like Jews -- the elk, too,
has a hooked nose -- can mix with them." It was decided that the Jews would
have to pay for the damage they had provoked. 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. The
incident of the Kristallnacht and its aftermath generated unfavorable
worldwide publicity for the Nazi regime." (Snyder, 201)

* Note that Grynzpan's target, the German Ambassador, was not at the
embassy at the time - 

                            Work Cited:

	Snyder, Dr. Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: 
	Paragon House, 1989. ISBN 1-55778-144-3

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