It was 75 years ago that Germany's Nazi Party stepped up its campaign of persecution against Jews over two days of terror known as Kristallnacht, or 'The Night of Broken Glass'. It was a program (a series of coordinated attacks) against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9--10 Nov 1938, carried out by SA paramilitary forces and non-Jewish civilians. German authorities looked on without intervening. The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues had their windows smashed. At least 91 Jews were killed in the attacks, and 30,000 were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned (95 in Vienna alone) and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged. Martin Gilbert writes 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 the foreign journalists working in Germany sent shock waves around the world. The Times wrote at the time: "No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenseless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday." The pretext for the attacks was the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew resident in Paris. Kristallnacht was followed by additional economic and political persecution of Jews, and is viewed by historians as part of Nazi Germany's broader racial policy, and the beginning of the Final Solution and The Holocaust. The violence was officially called to a stop by Goebbels on Nov 11, but violence continued against the Jews in the concentration camps despite orders requesting "special treatment" to ensure that this did not happen. On Nov 23, the News Chronicle of London published an article on an incident which took place at the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen. Sixty-two Jews suffered punishment so severe that the police, "unable to bear their cries, turned their backs". They were beaten until they fell and, when they fell, they were further beaten. At the end of it, "twelve of the sixty-two were dead, their skulls smashed. The others were all unconscious. The eyes of some had been knocked out, their faces flattened and shapeless" The 30,000 Jewish men who had been imprisoned during Kristallnacht were released over the next three months but, by then, more than 2,000 had died. Hermann Göring met with other members of the Nazi leadership on 12 November to plan 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 the elimination of the Jew from the German economy, and to submit them to me.' In an article released for publication on the evening of Nov 11, 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." While Nov 1938 predated 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 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 any time 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." Read More http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/knacht.htm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JZKlQD61i0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U2piWONlRY FAIR USE NOTICE: This Video may contain copyrighted (© ) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes.

• published: 09 Nov 2013
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