THE NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS



Unit Essential Question: To what extent can poor economic conditions lead to radical politics?

Aim: How did fascists leaders maintain control over their populations?

THE NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS

As soon as he became Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler began a series of legal actions against

Germany’s Jews. In 1933, he proclaimed a one-day boycott of Jewish shops. Jews were dismissed from government service and universities and were forbidden to enter the professions. The Nuremburg Laws of 1935 forbade marriages between Jews and “pure” Germans and deprived Jews of their civil rights. In 1936, Jews were barred from voting in parliamentary elections. Signs stating “Jews Not Welcome” appeared in many German cities.

In July 1938, all Jews were required to carry identification cards. On October 28, 1938, 17,000 Jews who were Polish citizens living in Germany were arrested. Although many had been living in Germany for decades, they were forcibly deported to Poland. When the Polish government refused to admit them, the Jews were held in “relocation camps” on the Polish frontier.

Among the deportees was Zindel Grynszpan, who had been born in western Poland and had moved to Germany in 1911. He owned a small store in the city of Hanover. He and his family were forced out of their home by German police, and they were made to move over the Polish border.

Grynszpan’s 17-year-old son, Herschel, was living with an uncle in Paris. When he learned of his family’s deportation, Herschel went to the Germany Embassy in Paris armed with a pistol. It was November 7th, 1938. The young man shot and critically wounded Third Secretary Ernst von Rath. Rath died of his wounds on November 9th.

The assassination gave Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels an excuse to launch a nationwide attack on German Jews. Goebbels considered the shooting in Paris to be part of a global conspiracy by “International Jewry” against the German nation and Hitler. The anti-Jewish brutality organized by Goebbels in response came to be called Kristallnacht - the Night of Broken Glass.

On the nights of November 9th and 10th, 1938, gangs of Nazis all over Germany roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of Jewish homes and businesses, burning synagogues, and looting. Physical assaults on Jews caused 91 deaths. Some 26,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. More than 100 synagogues and several thousand businesses were destroyed.

Shortly after Kristallnacht, Nazi leaders decided to place the blame for Kristallnacht on the Jews themselves. New laws aimed to remove Jews from participation in German economic life. Germany’s Jews were fined for the death of the German Embassy official in Paris. Money paid by insurance companies to Jews for damages to their homes and businesses was confiscated by the German government.

Life became even more difficult for German Jews, especially young people. Already barred from entering museums, playgrounds, and swimming pools, Jewish youngsters were expelled from the public schools after Kristallnacht. The Holocaust had begun.

1. Respond to Joseph Goebbels’s argument that Kristallnacht was a necessary and justified action.

2. To what extent did Nazi laws constitute a policy of segregation of German Jews? Could such laws exist in the United States today? Why or why not?

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