By 1938, Adolf Hitler had been in power for five years. He had imposed his Third Reich, a police... euronews, the most watched news channel in Europe Subscribe for your daily dose of international news, curated and explained:http://eurone.ws/10ZCK4a Euronews is available in 13 other languages: http://eurone.ws/17moBCU http://www.euronews.com/2013/11/09/germany-marks-75-years-since-beginning-of-holocaust-at-kristallnacht By 1938, Adolf Hitler had been in power for five years. He had imposed his Third Reich, a police state and his own personality cult. He was called "Führer" meaning leader or guide. Nazi fascist doctrine was racist and anti-Semitic. On 7 November, German diplomat Ernst vom Rath was assassinated by 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew resident in Paris - whose family was forced out of Hitler's Germany. The assassination was seized as a pretext during the night from 9-10 November for coordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany. They lost any rights. The attackers were paramilitary forces and non-Jewish civilians. The police stood by. This was called Kristallnacht - Night of Broken Glass. Jews were murdered in the rioting; tens of thousand would be transported to concentration camps. Thousands of Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and hundreds of synagogues were destroyed, cemeteries were profaned. The worst was in Berlin and the Austrian capital Vienna. Racial persecution grew. Commemorating that 1938 beginning of the Holocaust Chancellor Angela Merkel would stress that many people's failure to speak out had contributed to the "breakdown of civilisation". She said: "Racism and anti-Semitism must never be given another chance in Germany, in Europe." Now, on Kristallnacht's 75th anniversary, Merkel called today's continuing need for police protection for Jewish institutions a sobering reality. Find us on: Youtube http://bit.ly/zr3upY Facebook http://www.facebook.com/euronews.fans Twitter http://twitter.com/euronews

• published: 09 Nov 2013
• views: 38