Kristallnacht
The “Night of Broken Glass” November 9-10, 1938, was a massive government-sponsored series of anti-Jewish pogroms throughout Germany and Austria – Its goal was to terrorize the Jewish People by smashing the windows and burning Jewish homes and businesses, beating and murdering Jews and taking 30,000 Jewish men to concentration camps.
Kristallnacht (German pronunciation: [kʁɪsˈtalnaχt] ⓘ lit. 'crystal night') or the Night of Broken Glass, also called 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 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.
| Kristallnacht | |
|---|---|
 Partially destroyed Fasanenstrasse Synagogue in Berlin | |
| Location | Nazi Germany (then including Austria and the Sudetenland) |
| Date | 9–10 November 1938 |
| Target | Jews |
Attack type | Pogrom, purge, looting, arson, mass arrests, homicide, kidnapping |
| Deaths | 91+ |
| Perpetrators | Adolf Hitler, Sturmabteilung (SA) stormtroopers, Schutzstaffel (SS), Hitler Youth, German civilians |
| Motive | Revenge for Ernst vom Rath's assassination, antisemitism |
Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Rioters destroyed over 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms throughout Germany, Austria, and 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 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, the death toll reaches the hundreds, with Richard J. Evans estimating 638 deaths by suicide, with a total between one and two thousand. Historians view Kristallnacht as a prelude to the Final Solution and the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
