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101-622: The new Reichsvereinigung assumed the staff, installations and buildings of the old Reichsvereinigung. The RSHA subjected the new Reichsvereinigung to its influence and control, and confirmed Rabbi Leo Baeck as president, who had been elected as president of the old Reichsvereinigung. By the end of 1939 the RSHA appointed Adolf Eichmann as its Special Referee for the Affairs of the Jews (German: Sonderreferent für Judenangelegenheiten ), officiating in

202-472: A "destruction by swords and flames." At a conference on the day after the pogrom, Hermann Göring said: "The Jewish problem will reach its solution if, in anytime soon, we will be drawn into war beyond our border—then it is obvious that we will have to manage a final account with the Jews." Kristallnacht was also instrumental in changing global public opinion. In the United States, for instance, it

303-527: A British woman who was sent to help those who had been expelled. Among those expelled was the family of Sendel and Riva Grynszpan, Polish Jews who had emigrated to Germany in 1911 and settled in Hanover , Germany. At the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961, Sendel Grynszpan recounted the events of their deportation from Hanover on the night of 27 October 1938: "Then they took us in police trucks, in prisoners' lorries, about 20 men in each truck, and they took us to

404-662: A burden of responsibility on the German side. The immediate reaction by the Gestapo was to push the Polish Jews—16,000 persons—over the borderline, but this measure failed due to the stubbornness of the Polish customs officers. The loss of prestige as a result of this abortive operation called for some sort of compensation. Thus, the overreaction to Herschel Grynszpan's attempt against the diplomat Ernst vom Rath came into being and led to

505-536: A bureau in Kurfürstenstraße #115–116, Berlin; his department was later known as RSHA Referat IV B4 . Eichmann had come to dubious fame for expelling 50,000 Jewish Austrians and Gentile Austrians of Jewish descent within the first three months after the Anschluß . Thus he was commissioned to expel Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent from within the old Reich borders. The local supervision of

606-486: A concentration camp upon every Jew found in possession of a weapon hereafter. Ernst vom Rath died of his wounds on 9 November 1938. Word of his death reached Hitler that evening while he was with several key members of the Nazi party at a dinner commemorating the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch . After intense discussions, Hitler left the assembly abruptly without giving his usual address. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels delivered

707-479: A different day was chosen (3 October 1990, German reunification ). The avant-garde guitarist Gary Lucas 's 1988 composition "Verklärte Kristallnacht", which juxtaposes what would become the Israeli national anthem ten years after Kristallnacht , " Hatikvah ", with phrases from the German national anthem " Deutschland Über Alles " amid wild electronic shrieks and noise, is intended to be a sonic representation of

808-740: A famous proponent for the Jewish people and their faith. During World War I , Baeck served as a chaplain in the German Imperial Army . In 1933, after the Nazis took power, Baeck worked to defend the Jewish community as president of the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden , an umbrella organization that united German Jewry from 1933 to 1938. After the Reichsvertretung was disbanded during Kristallnacht in 1938,

909-404: A group of people bound by close, so-called blood ties, forming a unit which one could neither join nor secede from. Jewish influence was declared to have had a detrimental impact on Germany. To be spared the discrimination and persecutions visited upon Jews, affiliation with the so-called Aryan race had to be proved. It was paradoxical that racial features never determined one's affiliation, although

1010-784: A heap of stone, broken glass and smashed-up woodwork. The Daily Telegraph correspondent, Hugh Greene , wrote of events in Berlin: Mob law ruled in Berlin throughout the afternoon and evening and hordes of hooligans indulged in an orgy of destruction. I have seen several anti-Jewish outbreaks in Germany during the last five years, but never anything as nauseating as this. Racial hatred and hysteria seemed to have taken complete hold of otherwise decent people. I saw fashionably dressed women clapping their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable middle-class mothers held up their babies to see

1111-788: A living, to enjoy full citizenship and to gain education, including the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of 7 April 1933, which forbade Jews to work in the civil service. The subsequent 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped German Jews of their citizenship and prohibited Jews from marrying non-Jewish Germans. These laws resulted in the exclusion and alienation of Jews from German social and political life. Many sought asylum abroad; hundreds of thousands emigrated, but as Chaim Weizmann wrote in 1936, "The world seemed to be divided into two parts—those places where

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1212-469: A message to SA and SS commanders, stated the "most extreme measures" were to be taken against Jewish people. Beginning on November 9, the SA and Hitler Youth shattered the windows of about 7,500 Jewish stores and businesses, hence the name Kristallnacht (Crystal Night), and looted their goods. Jewish homes were ransacked all throughout Germany. Although violence against Jews had not been explicitly condoned by

1313-409: A one-hour long speech in front of a group of journalists where he completely ignored the recent events on everyone's mind. According to Eugene Davidson the reason for this was that Hitler wished to avoid being directly connected to an event that he was aware that many of those present condemned, regardless of Goebbels's unconvincing explanation that Kristallnacht was caused by popular wrath. Goebbels met

1414-401: A penny. Could you send us something?" He received the postcard on 3 November 1938. On the morning of Monday, 7 November 1938, he purchased a revolver and a box of bullets, then went to the German embassy and asked to see an embassy official. After he was taken to the office of Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath , Grynszpan fired five bullets at Vom Rath, two of which hit him in the abdomen. Vom Rath

1515-416: A person classified as a so-called Aryan in a so-called racially mixed marriage (the couple did not necessarily have to be an interfaith marriage, because only the grandparents' religious affiliation counted, not the possibly common faith personally confessed by both partners). Later this exception was restricted to persons living in a so-called privileged mixed couple , characterised by the fact that either

1616-463: A portrait of Paul Ehrlich that had been "slashed to ribbons" by the Sturmabteilung . "He wanted it to be known that not all Germans supported Kristallnacht." The extent of the damage done on Kristallnacht was so great that many Germans are said to have expressed their disapproval of it, and to have described it as senseless. There was however no personal comment or even acknowledgment from

1717-528: A rabbi in Oppeln (now Opole), Düsseldorf , and Berlin. He also taught at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (Higher Institute for Jewish Studies). In 1905 Baeck published The Essence of Judaism , in response to Adolf von Harnack 's What is Christianity? . This book, which interpreted and valorized Judaism through a prism of neo-Kantianism tempered with religious existentialism, made him

1818-620: A two-year program. Receiving countries valued the skills taught in the program and thus perceived the trainees as more qualified to immigrate into their country. Initially the training camp at Gross-Bressen planned to send trainees abroad in order to establish various settlements. While the Reich Association created plans for a settlement in Brazil, their only successful settlement was in Virginia, United States. The Virginia settlement

1919-532: Is evidence of this planning dating back to 1937. In a 1997 interview, the German historian Hans Mommsen claimed that a major motive for the pogrom was the desire of the Gauleiters of the NSDAP to seize Jewish property and businesses . Mommsen stated: The need for money by the party organization stemmed from the fact that Franz Xaver Schwarz , the party treasurer, kept the local and regional organizations of

2020-778: The British Mandate of Palestine wrote in February 1938 that according to "a very reliable private source—one which can be traced back to the highest echelons of the SS leadership", there was "an intention to carry out a genuine and dramatic pogrom in Germany on a large scale in the near future". In August 1938, German authorities announced that residence permits for foreigners were being canceled and would have to be renewed. This included German-born Jews of foreign citizenship. Poland stated that it would renounce citizenship rights of Polish Jews living abroad for at least five years after

2121-568: The Congress of Chile sent a telegram to Adolf Hitler denouncing the persecution of Jews. A more personal response, in 1939, was the oratorio A Child of Our Time by the English composer Michael Tippett . Once the government of Sweden was informed of Kristallnacht , it successfully demanded the Nazi authorities stamp the letter J in red ink on passports of German Jews to make it easier for Swedish border officials to turn them away. After

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2222-622: The Israelite Hospital of Hamburg  [ de ] , which mostly cared for Jews in mixed marriages. Only a small proportion of the card index of the Reichsvereinigung has survived. Between 1947 and 1950, 32,000 index cards were given to the International Tracing Service (ITS). Apart from a "Deceased card file", an "Emigration card file" and a so-called "Foreigner card file", there was also

2323-464: The Kindertransport program for refugee children. The pogrom marked a turning point in relations between Nazi Germany and the rest of the world. The brutality of Kristallnacht , 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. World opinion thus turned sharply against

2424-739: The Kristallnacht . Kristallnacht sparked international outrage. According to Volker Ullrich , "...a line had been crossed: Germany had left the community of civilised nations." It discredited pro-Nazi movements in Europe and North America , leading to a sharp decline in their support. Many newspapers condemned Kristallnacht , with some of them comparing it to the murderous pogroms incited by Imperial Russia . The United States recalled its ambassador (but it did not break off diplomatic relations) while other governments severed diplomatic relations with Germany in protest. The British government approved

2525-634: The Leo Baeck Institute for the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry was established, and Baeck was the first international president of this institute. The Institute now includes branches around the world including the Leo Baeck Institute New York , and the Leo Baeck Institute London . There are institutions named after Leo Baeck, on every inhabited continent, including

2626-712: The Nazi era . After the Second World War , he settled in London, in the United Kingdom, where he served as the chairman of the World Union for Progressive Judaism . In 1955, the Leo Baeck Institute for the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry was established, and Baeck was its first international president. The Leo Baeck Medal has been awarded since 1978 to those who have helped preserve

2727-521: The New Synagogue on fire, earning his superior officer a verbal reprimand from the commissioner. The British historian 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". Rolf Dessauer recalls how a neighbor came forward and restored

2828-588: The November Pogroms in 1938. The government agencies occupied with the discrimination and persecution of German Jews (and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent), learnt their lesson from the public unease following the open terror during the November Pogroms. In order not to evoke unease among the general German population, the Reich government preferred to hide its activities. The Reichsvereinigung

2929-659: The November pogrom(s) ( German : Novemberpogrome , pronounced [noˈvɛm.bɐ.poˌɡʁoːmə] ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party 's Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening. The euphemistic name Kristallnacht comes from

3030-513: The Star of David , mezuzot , painted window sills, and the armrests of chairs found in synagogues, in addition to an ornamental swastika. The reaction of non-Jewish Germans to Kristallnacht was varied. Many spectators gathered on the scenes, most of them in silence. The local fire departments confined themselves to preventing the flames from spreading to neighboring buildings. In Berlin, police Lieutenant Otto Bellgardt barred SA troopers from setting

3131-572: The Sudetenland . Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps . British historian Martin Gilbert wrote that no event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening, and the accounts from foreign journalists working in Germany drew worldwide attention. The Times of London observed on 11 November 1938: "No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before

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3232-455: The World Union for Progressive Judaism . It was during this time he published his second major work, This People Israel , which he partially penned during his imprisonment by the Nazis. His increased interfaith work also meant that he revised and, to an extent, reclaimed for Judaism, the founding figures of Christianity, Jesus and Paul. He died on 2 November 1956, in London, England. In 1955,

3333-585: The "Berlin pupil card file" with more than 10,000 cards that testify to the life of the Jewish children during the period of Nazi persecution. In 2017, the ITS has published the card index in its online archive . Leo Baeck Leo Baeck ( German pronunciation: [ˌleːo ˈbɛk] ; 23 May 1873 – 2 November 1956) was a 20th-century German rabbi, scholar, and theologian. He served as leader of Reform Judaism in his native country and internationally, and later represented all German Jews during

3434-479: The 'fun'. Many Berliners were, however, deeply ashamed of the pogrom, and some took great personal risks to offer help to their beleaguered Jewish neighbors. The son of a US consular official heard the janitor of his block cry: "They must have emptied the insane asylums and penitentiaries to find people who'd do things like that!" KOLD briefly reported on a 2008 remembrance meeting at a local Jewish congregation. According to eyewitness Esther Harris: "They ripped up

3535-485: The 500,000 Jews living in Germany, who accounted for only 0.86% of the overall population, and framed them as an enemy responsible for Germany's defeat in the First World War and for its subsequent economic disasters, such as the 1920s hyperinflation and the subsequent Great Depression . Beginning in 1933, the German government enacted a series of anti-Jewish laws restricting the rights of German Jews to earn

3636-700: The Düsseldorf branch of the Gestapo reported a sharp decline in anti-Semitic attitudes among the population. There are many indications of Protestant and Catholic disapproval of racial persecution; for example, anti-Nazi Protestants adopted the Barmen Declaration in 1934, and the Catholic church had already distributed pastoral letters critical of Nazi racial ideology, and the Nazi regime expected to encounter organised resistance from it following Kristallnacht. The Catholic leadership however, just as

3737-497: The Gentile partner was the husband, having no children, or children who were brought up as Gentiles, or that in a couple, where the Gentile was the wife, they had children, who were brought up as Gentiles. A male spouse, classified as a Jew, in a childless couple, suffered all discriminations. All persons included as compulsory members had to pay contributions for the maintenance of the bureaucracy and its tasks. They also all underlay

3838-465: The German leader Adolf Hitler himself about Kristallnacht . In an article released for publication on the evening of 11 November, Goebbels ascribed the events of Kristallnacht to the "healthy instincts" of the German people. He went on to explain: "The German people are anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race." Less than 24 hours after Kristallnacht, Adolf Hitler made

3939-565: The Jewish Hospital. The organization maintained contact with "full Jews" in protected "mixed marriages," "legal Jews" ( Geltungsjuden ), and those who were protected by or claimed to be necessary by government organizations and high-ranking individuals. Other than the Rest-Reichsvereinigung, the only Jewish organisations still in existence after June 1943 were the few hospitals such as the Jewish Hospital of Berlin and

4040-399: The Jewish populace from their leaders, as "intended to disrupt the Jewish community and rob it of the last frail ties which hold it together." Their rights as citizens had been stripped. One of the first legal measures issued was an order by Heinrich Himmler, commander of all German police, forbidding Jews to possess any weapons whatsoever and imposing a penalty of twenty years' confinement in

4141-484: The Jews could not live and those where they could not enter." The international Évian Conference on 6 July 1938 addressed the issue of Jewish and Romani immigration to other countries. By the time the conference took place, more than 250,000 Jews had fled Germany and Austria, which had been annexed by Germany in March 1938; more than 300,000 German and Austrian Jews continued to seek refuge and asylum from oppression. As

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4242-429: The Jews rather than destroying it as had happened in the pogrom, directly complained to Sicherheitspolizei Chief Heydrich immediately after the events: "I'd rather you had beaten to death two-hundred Jews than destroy so many valuable assets!" ( "Mir wäre lieber gewesen, ihr hättet 200 Juden erschlagen und hättet nicht solche Werte vernichtet!" ). Göring met with other members of the Nazi leadership on 12 November to plan

4343-456: The Jews were taken away, their remaining possessions were seized as loot both by Nazi authorities and by neighbors. The deportees were taken from their homes to railway stations and were put on trains to the Polish border, where Polish border guards sent them back into Germany. This stalemate continued for days in the pouring rain, with the Jews marching without food or shelter between the borders. Four thousand were granted entry into Poland, but

4444-517: The Jews, the Nazis' primary objective was to eject them from Germany, leaving their wealth behind. In the words of historian Max Rein in 1988, "Kristallnacht came...and everything was changed." While November 1938 predated the overt articulation of "the Final Solution ", it foreshadowed the genocide to come. Around the time of Kristallnacht , the SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps called for

4545-531: The Kristallnacht, and many leaders of the SA and of the Hitler Youth also openly refused party orders, while expressing disgust. Some Nazis helped Jews during the Kristallnacht. As it was aware that the German public did not support the Kristallnacht, the propaganda ministry directed the German press to portray opponents of racial persecution as disloyal. The press was also under orders to downplay

4646-417: The Kristallnacht, describing general events at the local level only, with prohibition against depictions of individual events. In 1939 this was extended to a prohibition on reporting any anti-Jewish measures. The U.S. ambassador to Germany reported: In view of this being a totalitarian state a surprising characteristic of the situation here is the intensity and scope among German citizens of condemnation of

4747-653: The Leo Baeck Centre for Progressive Judaism in Melbourne , Australia . The asteroid 100047 Leobaeck is named in his honour , as is Leo Baeck College , the Reform/Progressive rabbinical college in London. Kristallnacht Kristallnacht ( German pronunciation: [kʁɪsˈtalnaχt] lit.   ' crystal night ' ) or the Night of Broken Glass , also called

4848-476: The Nazi Party for pragmatic reasons rather than ideology thus diluting the percentage of rabid antisemites; second, the Kristallnacht could have caused party members to reject antisemitism that had been acceptable to them in abstract terms but which they could not support when they saw it concretely enacted. During the events of Kristallnacht, several Gauleiter and deputy Gauleiters had refused orders to enact

4949-592: The Nazi authorities during the Holocaust, and names Baeck as one of those functionaries who withheld the truth from their communities of the end awaiting them, believing it more "humane" to bear the secret since "living in the expectation of death by gassing would only be the harder". Baeck, according to Arendt, also thought the existence of a Jewish police force within the camps would render the "ordeal easier" whereas in her view they turned out to be more brutal. Auschwitz escapee Siegfried Lederer testified to Baeck about

5050-685: The Nazi regime, with some politicians calling for war. On 6 December 1938, William Cooper , an Aboriginal Australian, led a delegation of the Australian Aboriginal League on a march through Melbourne to the German Consulate to deliver a petition which condemned the "cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany". German officials refused to accept the tendered document. After Kristallnacht , Salvador Allende , Gabriel González Videla , Marmaduke Grove , Florencio Durán and other members of

5151-460: The Nazis often discussed physiognomy: the only decisive factor was the religious affiliation of one's grandparents. While grandparents at an earlier date were able to choose their religion, their grandchildren in the Nazi era were compulsorily categorised as Jews, if three or four grandparents were registered as members of a Jewish congregation, regardless of the Halachah . According to Halachah, one

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5252-970: The Nazis reassembled the council's members under the government controlled Reichsvereinigung . Baeck headed this organization as its president until his deportation. On 27 January 1943, he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp . Baeck became the "honorary head" of the Council of Elders ( Judenrat ) in Theresienstadt. As such, he was protected from transports and with his protection list, could also save his relatives from transports, among others his grand-niece Ruth (b. 1925). Moreover, Baeck became "prominent", which meant that he had better accommodation, better food and could receive mail more often. Hannah Arendt in her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem examined Jewish cooperation with

5353-662: The November pogrom. The background of the pogrom was signified by a sharp cleavage of interests between the different agencies of party and state. While the Nazi party was interested in improving its financial strength on the regional and local level by taking over Jewish property, Hermann Göring , in charge of the Four-Year Plan, hoped to acquire access to foreign currency in order to pay for the import of urgently-needed raw material. Heydrich and Himmler were interested in fostering Jewish emigration. The Zionist leadership in

5454-641: The Reichsvereinigung was commissioned to the local Gestapo branches. While its corporate members, such as Jewish congregations and Jewish associations, were gradually dissolved, and their tasks partially incorporated into the new Reichsvereinigung, it also included natural persons. All persons identified as Jews according to the arbitrary Nazi practice (cf. the Nuremberg Laws and the Racial policy of Nazi Germany ) were compulsorily enlisted as members. Mainstream Nazi anti-Semitism considered that Jewry formed

5555-688: The appointment of Adolf Hitler (the Austrian-born leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party ) as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, and the Enabling Act (implemented 23 March 1933) which enabled the assumption of power by Hitler after the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933. From its inception, Hitler's regime moved quickly to introduce anti-Jewish policies . Nazi propaganda alienated

5656-718: The authorities, there were cases of Jews being beaten or assaulted. Following the violence, police departments recorded a large number of suicides and rapes. The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Over 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms, many Jewish cemeteries, more than 7,000 Jewish shops, and 29 department stores were damaged, and in many cases destroyed. More than 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps; primarily Dachau , Buchenwald , and Sachsenhausen . The synagogues, some centuries old, were also victims of considerable violence and vandalism, with

5757-406: The belongings, the books, knocked over furniture, shouted obscenities". Historian Gerhard Weinberg is quoted as saying: Houses of worship burned down, vandalized, in every community in the country where people either participate or watch. The former German Kaiser Wilhelm II commented "For the first time, I am ashamed to be German." Göring, who was in favor of expropriating the property of

5858-502: The country. In the ten months following Kristallnacht , more than 115,000 Jews emigrated from the Reich. The majority went to other European countries, the United States or Mandatory Palestine , though at least 14,000 made it to Shanghai , China . As part of government policy, the Nazis seized houses, shops, and other property the émigrés left behind. Many of the destroyed remains of Jewish property plundered during Kristallnacht were dumped near Brandenburg . In October 2008, this dumpsite

5959-411: The death camp, but Baeck believed that revealing the truth to the Theresienstadt prisoners could cause "catastrophe". He gave lectures, was active in the interfaith dialogue between traditional Jews and Christians of Jewish origin, worked in the youth care sector, which he directed from November 1944 on, and was friendly with many of the functionaries . After liberation, he headed the Council of Elders;

6060-483: The death toll reaches the hundreds, with Richard J. Evans estimating 638 deaths by suicide. Historians view Kristallnacht as a prelude to the Final Solution and the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust . In the 1920s, most German Jews were fully integrated into the country's society as citizens. They served in the army and navy and contributed to every field of German business, science and culture. Conditions for German Jews began to worsen after

6161-555: The deportees from one of its premises, before loading them onto a train for transport. This could take up to a week of waiting. It is claimed by some Germans today that the Holocaust was carried out far away from the eyes and ears of the general German population and that therefore they had no idea of what was going on. After most of its members had been deported, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt forcibly dissolved

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6262-408: The deportees over long distances to the East, instead of killing them by mobile squads – as practised in the occupied East – wherever they would find them. Repeated deportations of German Jews to the East started on 18 October 1941. After the Gestapo announced the date and the number of deportees, the Reichsvereinigung sometimes had to choose who was to be deported. Gestapo officials then collected

6363-408: The diplomatic crisis it would provoke. Heinrich Himmler wrote, "I suppose that it is Goebbels's megalomania...and stupidity which is responsible for starting this operation now, in a particularly difficult diplomatic situation." The Israeli historian Saul Friedländer believes that Goebbels had personal reasons for wanting to bring about Kristallnacht . Goebbels had recently suffered humiliation for

6464-443: The elimination of the Jew from the German economy, and to submit them to me. The persecution and economic damage inflicted upon German Jews continued after the pogrom, even as their places of business were ransacked. They were forced to pay Judenvermögensabgabe , a collective fine or "atonement contribution" of one billion Reichsmarks for the murder of vom Rath (equivalent to €4 billion 2021 or 7 billion in 2020 USD), which

6565-563: The emigration training farm in 1936 in order to teach German Jewish youth the necessary skills for emigration. This training farm was necessary because the Jewish youth often lacked the education and experience required to emigrate as a result of limited educational opportunities and a scarcity of German businesses willing to take on Jewish apprentices. When the camp was initially created, there were 125 trainees aged from fifteen to seventeen. These trainees learned basic housekeeping, artisan, farming, animal husbandry, and foreign language skills during

6666-450: The end of World War II , there were hundreds of trials over Kristallnacht. The trials were conducted exclusively by German and Austrian courts; the Allied occupation authorities did not have jurisdiction since none of the victims were Allied nationals. Kristallnacht changed the nature of Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews from economic, political, and social exclusion to physical violence, including beatings, incarceration, and murder;

6767-445: The end of October, effectively making them stateless. In the so-called " Polenaktion ", more than 12,000 Polish Jews, among them the philosopher and theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel , and future literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki were expelled from Germany on 28 October 1938, on Hitler's orders. They were ordered to leave their homes in a single night and were allowed only one suitcase per person to carry their belongings. As

6868-461: The event is often referred to as the beginning of the Holocaust . In this view, it is not only described as a pogrom, it is also described as a critical stage within a process in which each step becomes the seed of the next step. An account cited that Hitler's green light for Kristallnacht was made with the belief that it would help him realize his ambition of getting rid of the Jews in Germany. Prior to this large-scale and organized violence against

6969-430: The foreign press in the afternoon of 11 November and said that the burning of synagogues and damage to Jewish owned property had been "spontaneous manifestations of indignation against the murder of Herr Vom Rath by the young Jew Grynsban [sic]". In 1938, just after Kristallnacht, the psychologist Michael Müller-Claudius interviewed 41 randomly selected Nazi Party members on their attitudes towards racial persecution. Of

7070-403: The full discriminations and persecutions imposed by the Nazis and were publicly labelled by the Yellow badge from 1 September 1941. The Reich Association of Jews in Germany was responsible for supporting the emigration of German Jews; one of the main ways the association fulfilled this duty was through an emigration training farm in Gross-Bressen. The Reich Association of Jews in Germany created

7171-438: The ineffectiveness of his propaganda campaign during the Sudeten crisis , and was in some disgrace over an affair with a Czech actress, Lída Baarová . Goebbels needed a chance to improve his standing in the eyes of Hitler. At 1:20 a.m. on 10 November 1938, Reinhard Heydrich sent an urgent secret telegram to the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police; SiPo) and the Sturmabteilung (SA), containing instructions regarding

7272-406: The interviewed party-members 63% expressed extreme indignation against it, while only 5% expressed approval of racial persecution, the rest being noncommittal. A study conducted in 1933 had then shown that 33% of Nazi Party members held no racial prejudice while 13% supported persecution. Sarah Ann Gordon sees two possible reasons for this difference. First, by 1938 large numbers of Germans had joined

7373-514: The last Elder of the Jews was the Czech communist Jiří Vogel. Baeck's lectures were credited with helping prisoners survive their confinement. Heinrich F. Liebrecht said Baeck's lectures helped him to discover wellsprings of strength and the conviction that his life had a purpose. "From here came the impulse to really endure, and the belief that we were able to do so." Up until his deportation, numerous American institutions offered to help him escape

7474-540: The new Reichsvereinigung was meant to be a device to better control and discriminate against German and Austrian Jews and Gentiles of Jewish descent. The new Reichsvereinigung had no internal autonomy. Members of its executive board were not elected, but appointed according to the wishes of the Gestapo. The Reichsvereinigung made the Jüdisches Nachrichtenblatt its press organ, since all the other 64 papers of Jewish alignment had been forbidden after

7575-527: The new Reichsvereinigung in June 1943 and its remaining employees—with the exception of Walter Lustig  [ de ] , the medical director of the Jewish Hospital of Berlin  [ de ] —were deported to Theresienstadt . Following the dissolution, a new organization called the Rest-Reichsvereinigung was created, which was headed by Lustig and was located in the administration building of

7676-556: The next steps after the riot, setting the stage for formal government action. In the transcript of the meeting, Göring said, I have received a letter written on the Führer 's orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another... I should not want to leave any doubt, gentlemen, as to the aim of today's meeting. We have not come together merely to talk again, but to make decisions, and I implore competent agencies to take all measures for

7777-406: The number of Jews and Romani wanting to leave increased, the restrictions against them grew, with many countries tightening their rules for admission. By 1938, Germany "had entered a new radical phase in anti-Semitic activity". Some historians believe that the Nazi government had been contemplating a planned outbreak of violence against the Jews and were waiting for an appropriate provocation; there

7878-403: The party short of money. In the fall of 1938, the increased pressure on Jewish property nourished the party's ambition, especially since Hjalmar Schacht had been ousted as Reich minister for economics. This, however, was only one aspect of the origin of the November 1938 pogrom. The Polish government threatened to extradite all Jews who were Polish citizens but would stay in Germany, thus creating

7979-472: The railway station. The streets were full of people shouting: ' Juden Raus! Auf Nach Palästina! ' " ("Jews get out! Go to Palestine!"). Their seventeen-year-old son Herschel was living in Paris with an uncle. Herschel received a postcard from his family from the Polish border, describing the family's expulsion: "No one told us what was up, but we realized this was going to be the end ... We don't have

8080-399: The recent happenings against Jews. To the consternation of the Nazis, the Kristallnacht affected public opinion counter to their desires, the peak of opposition against the Nazi racial policies was reached just then, when according to almost all accounts the vast majority of Germans rejected the violence perpetrated against the Jews. Verbal complaints grew rapidly in numbers, and for example,

8181-457: The remaining 8,000 were forced to stay at the border. They waited there in harsh conditions to be allowed to enter Poland. A British newspaper told its readers that hundreds "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." Conditions in the refugee camps "were so bad that some actually tried to escape back into Germany and were shot", recalled

8282-436: The riots. This included guidelines for the protection of foreigners and non-Jewish businesses and property. Police were instructed not to interfere with the riots unless the guidelines were violated. Police were also instructed to seize Jewish archives from synagogues and community offices, and to arrest and detain "healthy male Jews, who are not too old", for eventual transfer to (labor) concentration camps. Heinrich Müller , in

8383-503: The shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues were smashed. The pretext for the attacks was the assassination, on 9 November 1938, of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan , a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris. Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and

8484-519: The shooting. In his pocket, he carried a postcard to his parents with the message, "May God forgive me ... I must protest so that the whole world hears my protest, and that I will do." It is widely assumed that the assassination was politically motivated, but historian Hans-Jürgen Döscher says the shooting may have been the result of a love affair gone wrong, and that Grynszpan and vom Rath had become intimate after they met in Le Boeuf sur le Toit , which

8585-493: The speech, in his place, and said that "the Führer has decided that... demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered." The chief party judge Walter Buch later stated that the message was clear; with these words, Goebbels had commanded the party leaders to organize a pogrom. Some leading party officials disagreed with Goebbels' actions, fearing

8686-649: The spirit of German-speaking Jewry in culture, academia, politics, and philanthropy. Baeck was born in Lissa (Leszno) (then in the German Province of Posen , now in Poland), the son of Rabbi Samuel Baeck and his wife Eva (née Placzek). He began his education at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau in 1894. He also studied philosophy in Berlin with Wilhelm Dilthey . He served as

8787-399: The synagogue that a tiny Jewish community had constructed in a small village only twelve years earlier: It did not take long before the first heavy grey stones came tumbling down, and the children of the village amused themselves as they flung stones into the many colored windows. When the first rays of a cold and pale November sun penetrated the heavy dark clouds, the little synagogue was but

8888-413: The synagogues" and the coincidence of the day, writing in the introduction, "On 10 November 1938, on Luther's birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany." The German people, he urged, ought to heed these words "of the greatest anti-Semite 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

8989-595: The tactics the Stormtroopers practiced on these and other sacred sites described as "approaching the ghoulish" by the United States Consul in Leipzig. Tombstones were uprooted and graves violated. Fires were lit, and prayer books, scrolls, artwork and philosophy texts were thrown upon them, and precious buildings were either burned or smashed until unrecognizable. Eric Lucas recalls the destruction of

9090-570: The trainees and staff at the German farm and sent them to the Buchenwald concentration camp. The remaining trainees and staff continued operations at Gross-Bressen until August 31, 1941, when Gestapo officials dissolved the training farm and compelled the personnel into forced labor. Different from the old Reichsvereinigung, which had been an umbrella of all different kinds of Jewish associations and congregations, representing their interests and organising self-help for Jews and Jewish organisations,

9191-719: The various Protestant churches, refrained from responding with organised action. Martin Sasse, Nazi Party member and bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia , leading member of the Nazi German Christians , one of the schismatic factions of German Protestantism, published a compendium of Martin Luther 's writings shortly after the Kristallnacht ; Sasse "applauded the burning of

9292-653: The war and immigrate to the United States. Baeck refused to abandon his community and declined the offers. Nevertheless, he managed to survive the Holocaust , though three of his sisters perished in the ghetto. After the war, Baeck relocated to London, where he accepted the Presidency of the North Western Reform Synagogue in Temple Fortune . He taught at Hebrew Union College in the United States, and eventually became Chairman of

9393-430: The world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday." Estimates of fatalities caused by the attacks have varied. Early reports estimated that 91 Jews had been murdered. Modern analysis of German scholarly sources puts the figure much higher; when deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included,

9494-431: Was Jewish by being born of a Jewish mother, or by conversion. The Nazi categorisation of Jews, and thus compulsory membership, comprised Not included were persons, who observed no or other than the Jewish religion, who had only up to maximally two grandparents who were enlisted in a Jewish congregation (so-called Mischlinge ). Also those persons, with three or four Jewish grandparents were excluded, who were married with

9595-476: Was a popular meeting place for gay and bisexual men at the time. The next day, the German government retaliated, barring Jewish children from German state elementary schools, indefinitely suspending Jewish cultural activities, and putting a halt to the publication of Jewish newspapers and magazines, including the three national German Jewish newspapers. A newspaper in Britain described the last move, which cut off

9696-588: Was a professional diplomat with the Foreign Office who expressed anti-Nazi sympathies, largely based on the Nazis' treatment of the Jews and was under Gestapo investigation for being politically unreliable. However, he also argued that the anti-Semitic laws were "necessary" to allow the Volksgemeinschaft to flourish. Grynszpan made no attempt to escape the French police and freely confessed to

9797-463: Was charged with announcing the ever-growing number of anti-Semitic ordinances to its persecuted members, and supervising their obedience. The decision to murder the Jews was made official policy at the Wannsee conference (January 1942) which discussed its implementation. Government agencies involved were concerned about the acceptability of their actions. A huge logistical effort was made to transport

9898-435: Was discovered by Yaron Svoray , an investigative journalist. The site, the size of four football fields, contained an extensive array of personal and ceremonial items looted during the riots against Jewish property and places of worship on the night of 9 November 1938. It is believed the goods were brought by rail to the outskirts of the village and dumped on designated land. Among the items found were glass bottles engraved with

9999-508: Was levied by the compulsory acquisition of 20% of all Jewish property by the state. Six million Reichsmarks of insurance payments for property damage due to the Jewish community were instead paid to the Reich government as "damages to the German Nation". Jews were required to pay for the cost of all damages caused by the pogrom to their residences and businesses. The number of emigrating Jews surged, as those who were able to left

10100-473: Was made possible by William Thalhimer Sr., a business owner from Richmond, VA, who donated land for the trainees to settle on upon emigration to the U.S. This farm became known as Thalhimer's Hyde Farm and served as a communal farm where 37 trainees from the Gross-Bressen training farm successfully emigrated to. Despite the success at the U.S. farm, after Kristallnacht , Nazi authorities arrested many of

10201-469: Was this specific incident that came to symbolize Nazism , forging the association between National Socialism and evil . Five decades later, 9 November 's association with the anniversary of Kristallnacht , as well as the earlier Beer Hall Putsch , was cited as the main reason as to why Schicksalstag , the day the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, was not turned into a new German national holiday ;

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