Crystal Night

Crystal Night

Source Based

Source C is important because it is written by Joseph Goebbels. It was

produced on the 12th November 1938, it is an extract from a Nazi

newspaper, which means it is biased. The Nazis would want to portray

that they had nothing to do with organising Crystal Night.

Furthermore, Goebbels is the head of propaganda. Goebbels was a

notorious liar and it was his policy that, “the bigger the lie, the

more people will believe it”.

Source D, is written by Goebbels but this time it paints a very

different picture of what went on. He writes how big anti-Semitic

demonstrations are taking place, it would have been impossible for

Goebbels to know this in advance unless he had a hand in the

organisation. His entry on Nov 9th, Crystal Night, tells how the

police were ordered to let the Jews feel the anger of the people.

Goebbels must have realised that his diary would be read so diary

entries like this should be treated with caution. In source D there is

never any mention of a direct order for the violence to take place,

just a suggestion that the leaders would not object, this is because

they do not want to get the blame later on. This source contradicts

the previous source, which is written by the same person, this

completely discredits both sources as the first clearly states the

Nazis had nothing to do with the violence, the second says quite the

opposite.

Source A is from the leader of the SS General Heydrich with

instructions to the Nazi police on how to treat the events.

They blamed the events of Crystal Night on the assassination of a Nazi

by a Jew on 7th November 1938, the Nazi actually died on the 10th, the

source was produced in the early hours of the morning of the 10th

before his death, and so must have been written and planned

beforehand. There are also details in the document that suggest that

the Nazis knew what was going to happen.