Herschel Grynszpan

Herschel Grynszpan
Grynszpan after his arrest, 1938
Born
Herschel Feibel Grynszpan

(1921-03-28)28 March 1921
Hanover, Weimar Republic
Disappeared18 August 1944 (aged 23)
Magdeburg, Nazi Germany
StatusDeclared dead in absentia
on 8 May 1945(1945-05-08) (aged 24)[1] on
  • 1 June 1960 (aged 39)[1]
NationalityPolish (1921–1938)
Stateless (since 1938)

Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (Yiddish: הערשל פײַבל גרינשפּאן; German: Hermann Grünspan; 28 March 1921 – last rumoured to be alive in 1945, declared dead in 1960) was a Polish-Jewish expatriate born and raised in Weimar Germany who shot and killed the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath on 7 November 1938 in Paris. The Nazis used this assassination as a pretext to launch Kristallnacht, "The Night of Broken Glass", the pogrom of 9–10 November 1938. Grynszpan was seized by the Gestapo after the Fall of France and brought to Germany; his further fate remains unknown.

It is generally assumed that Grynszpan did not survive World War II, and he was declared dead in absentia by the West German government in 1960. This was done at the request of his parents,[a] who said they had not heard anything from him in over 15 years, which was out of character for him.[2] However, this remains a matter of dispute: Kurt Grossman claimed in 1957 that Grynszpan lived in Paris under another identity.[3] A photograph of a man resembling Grynszpan was cited in 2016 as evidence to support the claim that he was still alive in Bamberg, Germany, on 3 July 1946.[4]

  1. ^ a b Ardolin & Webb 2008.
  2. ^ "Grynszpan, Herschel" (PDF). Yad Vashem. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  3. ^ Martelle, S. (9 August 2013). ""The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi Diplomat, and a Murder in Paris" by Jonathan Kirsch". Washington Post. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  4. ^ Connolly, Kate (18 December 2016). "Photo mystery of Jewish assassin used by Nazis to justify Kristallnacht". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 December 2016.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).