Kristallnacht

For the John Zorn album, see Kristallnacht (album).
"Crystal Night" redirects here. For the albums, see Attacco Decente and Carlos Toshiki & Omega Tribe.

Kristallnacht
Partially destroyed building
Partially destroyed Fasanenstrasse Synagogue in Berlin
LocationNazi Germany
(then including Austria and the Sudetenland)
Date9–10 November 1938 (1938-11-09 – 1938-11-10)
TargetJews
Attack type
Pogrom, purge, looting, arson, mass arrests, homicide, kidnapping
Deaths91+
PerpetratorsAdolf Hitler, Sturmabteilung (SA) stormtroopers, Schutzstaffel (SS), Hitler Youth, German civilians
MotiveVengeance for the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, antisemitism

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] ⓘ),[1][2][3] 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.[4] 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[5] by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris.

Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers.[6] Rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland.[7] Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed,[8][9] and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps.[10] 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.[6] 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."[11]

Estimates of fatalities caused by the attacks have varied. Early reports estimated that 91 Jews had been murdered.[a] 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.[12][13] Historians view Kristallnacht as a prelude to the Final Solution and the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.[14]

  1. ^ Berenbaum, Michael (20 December 2018). "Kristallnacht". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 22 July 2019. Retrieved 1 July 2019. Kristallnacht, (German: "Crystal Night"), also called Night of Broken Glass or November Pogroms
  2. ^ "The November Pogrom (Kristallnacht)". Beth Shalom National Holocaust Centre and Museum. 14 December 2016. Archived from the original on 1 July 2019. Retrieved 1 July 2019. The November Pogrom also has another name, Kristallnacht, which means "Crystal Night". This Night of Crystal refers to the Night of Broken Glass...
  3. ^ Axelrod, Toby (9 November 2022). "In Germany, Kristallnacht goes by a different name. Here's why". Times of Israel. Retrieved 13 November 2023.
  4. ^ "'German Mobs' Vengeance on Jews", The Daily Telegraph, 11 November 1938, cited in Gilbert 2006, p. 42
  5. ^ Schwab, Gerald (1990). The Day the Holocaust Began: The Odyssey of Herschel Grynszpan. Praeger. p. 14. ISBN 9780275935764. Archived from the original on 6 June 2021. Retrieved 22 December 2016. ...vom Rath joined the NSDAP (Nazi party) on July 14, 1932, well before Hitler's ascent to power
  6. ^ a b Gilbert 2006, pp. 13–14
  7. ^ "Kristallnacht". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 18 May 2018. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  8. ^ Berenbaum, Michael; Kramer; Arnold (2005). The World Must Know. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. p. 49.
  9. ^ Gilbert 2006, pp. 30–33
  10. ^ a b Taylor, Alan (19 June 2011). "World War II: Before the War". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 7 January 2015.
  11. ^ "A Black Day for Germany", The Times, 11 November 1938, cited in Gilbert 2006, p. 41.
  12. ^ "Kristallnacht: Damages and Death". Holocaust Denial On Trial. Emory University. 2018. Archived from the original on 22 January 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2019.
  13. ^ Sonneck, Gernot; Hirnsperger, Hans; Mundschütz, Reinhard (2012). "Suizid und Suizidprävention 1938-1945 in Wien [Suicide and suicide prevention in Vienna from 1938 to 1945]". Neuropsychiatrie (in German). 26 (3): 111–20. doi:10.1007/s40211-012-0032-8. PMID 23055305. In Vienna, the number of suicides also increased significantly until 1939: 1,358 suicides in 1938 (more than half of them by Jews); in 1939, there were significantly fewer with 1,045 suicides. These were suicide rates (number of suicides per 100,000) of 73 and 56 respectively - in comparison, in 2008 there were 189 suicides in Vienna, thus a suicide rate of 11.2 (Fig. 1). The suicide problem was very prevalent - alone on the "Reichskristallnacht" - 9/10. November 1938 - 680 Jews in Austria died by suicide.
  14. ^ Multiple (1998). "Kristallnacht". The Hutchinson Encyclopedia. Hutchinson Encyclopedias (18th ed.). London: Helicon. p. 1,199. ISBN 1-85833-951-0.


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).