He's such a putz:
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht was a nationwide, state-sponsored pogrom (a spree of violence directed against Jews) conducted throughout Germany and Austria (which had been annexed by Germany in March 1938) from the evening and night of November 9 through the following afternoon. It was presented by the Nazi regime as a spontaneous public outburst provoked by the assassination of a minor German diplomat in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, by a seventeen-year-old Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan. The pogrom's name comes from the German word for beveled plate glass (Kristallglas) and refers to the broken shop windows of the Jewish stores, hence Kristallnacht, or Night of the Broken Glass.
The pogrom took place after five years of increasing assaults on Jewish property, citizenship rights, and their physical persons by the Nazis in order to segregate German Jews from the general public and encourage their emigration.
Grynszpan shot vom Rath, who was the only person available at the time of his impromptu visit to the German embassy in Paris where he went to protest that his parents (who were Polish and had been living in Germany but who were unable to become citizens of Germany because it was not allowed) had been rounded up by the Germans, brutally deported, and cruelly stranded in a no-man's land between Poland and Germany. Neither country would take responsibility for them.
Grynszpan's timing for the shooting could hardly have been worse. November 8 and 9 were two of the holiest days in the Nazi calendar. They were the twentieth anniversary of what Hitler called the infamous "stab in the back" by the "November criminals" (i.e. Jews) who had forced the Kaiser to abdicate, declare Germany a republic, and signed the debilitating armistice that ended World War I-an event that Hitler used to great advantage in his rise to power. It was also the fifteenth anniversary of the "Beer Hall Putsch" in Munich in 1923, which-although it had failed to bring Hitler to power-had catapulted him to national prominence. Hitler created a glorious myth around the failed event (it was essentially a poorly planned and badly executed street brawl) which by 1938 had coalesced into an annual two-day event extolling the myth of fallen Nazi heroes dying for a noble cause.
On November 8 of each year Hitler gave a speech at the Bürgerbräukeller, where the putsch had begun in 1923 and then led a parade through the streets - complete with bloodstained flags and singing - to the site of the graves of the dead where he laid memorial wreaths to the heroic fallen.
It was against this background on November 8 that the news arrived in Munich about the shooting of vom Rath by a Jew. Joseph Goebbels saw it as a heaven-sent opportunity to inflame anti-Jewish feeling and ordered all German newspapers to cover it prominently on their front pages. The first promising results came that evening with reports that some synagogues had been set afire, Jewish businesses were being attacked, and Jews were being assaulted in the provinces of Magdeburg-Anhalt and Hesse.
Vom Rath did not die until November 9. News of his death was brought to Hitler and Goebbels shortly before 9:00 P.M. while they were at dinner in Munich. According to Goebbels himself in his diary, he and Hitler spoke quietly together and they agreed to do nothing to stop any future activity along the same lines. Hitler was reported to have said “The SA should be allowed to have a fling.” 1 Hitler then left the dinner without giving his usual speech to the Gauleiters (district leaders), probably so as to be unaccountable for any of what was to come. Goebbels took his place and made the most of the opportunity. He allegedly spoke inspirationally to the “old fighters” (those who had been loyal to Hitler and the NSDAP since the inception of the party) and informed them that this was the time for action against the Jews. Although there is no official record of his remarks other than the personal post-war (and self-exculpatory) recollections of those present, it is undeniable that after Goebbels’ speech initial instructions were telephoned all over the country by the Gauleiters to begin the action. The SA (Stormtroopers) was to participate and incite the outrage of the crowds and regular policemen and firemen were ordered to stand down unless German property or life was at issue.
Mass destruction broke out across Germany: synagogues were destroyed and burned, shop windows were broken and stores looted, Jewish homes were invaded and household furnishing stolen or destroyed, and Jewish people were physically assaulted, sometimes even raped and murdered, and arrested en masse. Testifying against the “spontaneous” nature of the action, the concentration camps of Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen had already been prepared weeks before for the influx of thousands of German Jews, especially those were influential or wealthy, who were to be arrested from previously prepared lists. 2
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht was a nationwide, state-sponsored pogrom (a spree of violence directed against Jews) conducted throughout Germany and Austria (which had been annexed by Germany in March 1938) from the evening and night of November 9 through the following afternoon. It was presented by the Nazi regime as a spontaneous public outburst provoked by the assassination of a minor German diplomat in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, by a seventeen-year-old Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan. The pogrom's name comes from the German word for beveled plate glass (Kristallglas) and refers to the broken shop windows of the Jewish stores, hence Kristallnacht, or Night of the Broken Glass.
The pogrom took place after five years of increasing assaults on Jewish property, citizenship rights, and their physical persons by the Nazis in order to segregate German Jews from the general public and encourage their emigration.
Grynszpan shot vom Rath, who was the only person available at the time of his impromptu visit to the German embassy in Paris where he went to protest that his parents (who were Polish and had been living in Germany but who were unable to become citizens of Germany because it was not allowed) had been rounded up by the Germans, brutally deported, and cruelly stranded in a no-man's land between Poland and Germany. Neither country would take responsibility for them.
Grynszpan's timing for the shooting could hardly have been worse. November 8 and 9 were two of the holiest days in the Nazi calendar. They were the twentieth anniversary of what Hitler called the infamous "stab in the back" by the "November criminals" (i.e. Jews) who had forced the Kaiser to abdicate, declare Germany a republic, and signed the debilitating armistice that ended World War I-an event that Hitler used to great advantage in his rise to power. It was also the fifteenth anniversary of the "Beer Hall Putsch" in Munich in 1923, which-although it had failed to bring Hitler to power-had catapulted him to national prominence. Hitler created a glorious myth around the failed event (it was essentially a poorly planned and badly executed street brawl) which by 1938 had coalesced into an annual two-day event extolling the myth of fallen Nazi heroes dying for a noble cause.
On November 8 of each year Hitler gave a speech at the Bürgerbräukeller, where the putsch had begun in 1923 and then led a parade through the streets - complete with bloodstained flags and singing - to the site of the graves of the dead where he laid memorial wreaths to the heroic fallen.
It was against this background on November 8 that the news arrived in Munich about the shooting of vom Rath by a Jew. Joseph Goebbels saw it as a heaven-sent opportunity to inflame anti-Jewish feeling and ordered all German newspapers to cover it prominently on their front pages. The first promising results came that evening with reports that some synagogues had been set afire, Jewish businesses were being attacked, and Jews were being assaulted in the provinces of Magdeburg-Anhalt and Hesse.
Vom Rath did not die until November 9. News of his death was brought to Hitler and Goebbels shortly before 9:00 P.M. while they were at dinner in Munich. According to Goebbels himself in his diary, he and Hitler spoke quietly together and they agreed to do nothing to stop any future activity along the same lines. Hitler was reported to have said “The SA should be allowed to have a fling.” 1 Hitler then left the dinner without giving his usual speech to the Gauleiters (district leaders), probably so as to be unaccountable for any of what was to come. Goebbels took his place and made the most of the opportunity. He allegedly spoke inspirationally to the “old fighters” (those who had been loyal to Hitler and the NSDAP since the inception of the party) and informed them that this was the time for action against the Jews. Although there is no official record of his remarks other than the personal post-war (and self-exculpatory) recollections of those present, it is undeniable that after Goebbels’ speech initial instructions were telephoned all over the country by the Gauleiters to begin the action. The SA (Stormtroopers) was to participate and incite the outrage of the crowds and regular policemen and firemen were ordered to stand down unless German property or life was at issue.
Mass destruction broke out across Germany: synagogues were destroyed and burned, shop windows were broken and stores looted, Jewish homes were invaded and household furnishing stolen or destroyed, and Jewish people were physically assaulted, sometimes even raped and murdered, and arrested en masse. Testifying against the “spontaneous” nature of the action, the concentration camps of Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen had already been prepared weeks before for the influx of thousands of German Jews, especially those were influential or wealthy, who were to be arrested from previously prepared lists. 2
