Tafari Scott Kristallnacht: A Night of Terror and Destruction November 9th, 1938: The precursor to the Holocaust or the start of it itself? In either case, by November 11th––with thousands of Jewish stores looted and/ or destroyed, several hundred synagogues burned down, and houses vandalized and robbed––the appearance of war had seemingly passed through Central Germany. Kristallnacht, otherwise known as the “Night of Broken Glass”, was one the events that most likely struck fear into all the hearts and minds of the Jewish family's within Hitler's Third Reich. The atrocities committed against a whole population within a region were all caused by one young man's actions, which shows how ruthless yet organized the Nazi regime truly was. Oppressing Jews was the Nazi's way of showing Germany who was in control and those against it would be silenced in one way or another. An assassination attempt on a diplomat was the catalyst of Kristallnacht and the justification for this attempt was out of loyalty. Seventeen-year-old Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew, wanted to seek vengeance for his family and about 12,000 other Jews that had been expelled from Germany. Many tried to gain entry in Poland, but the government hesitated to give out permits. After his sister had sent him a postcard from Zbasyn, a Polish border village, requesting money, he bought a pistol. On November 7th, 1938, he gained entry into the German Embassy in Paris by telling the doorman that he had an "important document" (Gilbert, Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction) to deliver. His target: the German Ambassador to France; however the only diplomat present was Ernst von Roth, Third Secretary. After he had entered von Roth's office, he shot at him, critically wounding ... ... middle of paper ... ...gart and their two little boys… (add citation). All of these violent acts occurred because of the hatred towards one ethnicity, but the Nazis weren't finished yet. After Goebbels ended the pogrom on November 10th, the man in charge of making decisions for the Reich, Reichmarschall Herman Wilhelm Goring, enacted laws that further oppressed the Jews. These laws stated that Jew had to pay a one billion Reichsmark fine while at the same time their wealth would be exchanged for government bonds, and that their property would be confiscated. The more oppression that the Jews came face to face with in the weeks and months following Kristallnacht, the more they wanted to get away from Hitler’s regime. When Hitler realized that he wanted to eradicate all the Jews of Europe instead of getting them out of the Reich in January 1939, it became too late for any Jews to emigrate.
...upying Poland in 1939, the policy of forced emigration became untenable for the Nazi regime. It was simply unrealistic to make more than 3 million Polish Jews emigrate. This led to ambitious Nazi plans for a solution to the ’Jewish Question’.” The Nazis wanted to keep their place to themselves, and they disliked the Jews. They tried moving the Jews to another place, but the amount of time it would take was too long. Therefore, they thought of the Final Solution. They sent Jews to concentration camps, where they killed many Jews. They though that this solution would keep their place to themselves, not to share with any other race. This reminds me of the Rwandan Genocide, because both genocides wanted to remove a specific group or race. In the Holocaust, they wanted to remove all Jews, and in the Rwandan Genocide, the Hutus wanted to wipe the whole Tutsis population.
Kristallnacht was a savage night where hundreds where murdered. In addition, Kristallnacht means the night of broken glass in German, and The Night of Broken Glass occurred on the night of November 9th until November 10th. Kristallnacht took place in small parts of Austria, Sudentland, and all over Germany in addition discrimination of the Jews had dated all the way back to 1935 by Germans. Two years before Kristallnacht, Jews were treated unfairly and ignored by the society, furthermore Germans did not allow Jews attend public parks and in 1936, Jews were banned to come see the Olympic Games which were held in Germany at the time. Kristallnacht got its nickname The Night of Broken Glass due to the fact that during November 9th and 10th rioters and police, violent and extreme, sh...
Christopher Browning believes that Hitler did not have a pre-existing plan to liquidate the Jews but rather, the Final Solution was a reaction to the cumulative radicalization amongst the German nation from 1939 to 1941. Although Hitler was notoriously one of the most anti-Semitic people to walk the Earth, he had not intended to mass slaughter the Jews, but rather attempted to find another solution to the Jewish problem. Hitler had such an obsession on finding this solution, that he promised one way or another he would reach his goal in perfecting a Judenfrei Germany (Browning 424). The first solution to the Jewish problem in Germany was through emigration. Once Hitler seized power he imposed the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped the Jews of all of their rights, expecting the Jewish people to comprehend the message and leave the country. The German officials even supported emigration and Zionistic movements. By 1939 only half of the Jews had left so the Jewish problem still rested unfinished. In September of 1939, the German declared war on Poland in an attempt to conquer Lebensraum. [Living space] After starting the war, they decided they could no longer let the Jews emigrate (Browning 12). By capturing Poland they inherited three million Jews. Hitler summoned all of the Jews in the German empire into ghettos in Poland until he could find another plan. Himmler, Hitler’s right hand man, proposed two plans to expel the Jews to either Lublin or to Madagascar. Hitler approved both but neither was put into affect. The Nazis’ inability to solve the Jewish question once again disappoints them. The obligation to solve the problem still weighed heavily upon them, which lead to frustration, which lead to the radical decisions to liquidate th...
From 1933 onwards, Adolf Hitler and his Nazis began implementing simple discrimination laws against the Jews and others who they did not see part of their master race. Hitler and the Nazis believed that German power was being taken by the Jews. Hitler was able to convince his followers of this issue with the Jewish question as it was known, and get away with murdering millions of people in an attempt to cleanse society of anyone inferior to the master race. The Holocaust lasted for 12 years, until 1945. Starting as early as 1944, the Allies were finally advancing on the Germans and began taking over their camps. These liberations and takeovers by the Soviets, American’s and other allies slowly began to remove Hitler from power. In my essay I will go into detail on the final years of the holocaust and how it ended.(1)
Many religious conflicts are built from bigotry; however, only few will forever have an imprint on the world’s history. While some may leave a smear on the world’s past, some – like the homicide of Semitic people – may leave a scar. The Holocaust, closely tied to World War II, was a devastating and systematic persecution of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime and allies. Hitler, an anti-Semitic leader of the Nazis, believed that the Jewish race made the Aryan race impure. The Nazis did all in their power to annihilate the followers of Judaism, while the Jews attempted to rebel, rioted against the government, and united as one. Furthermore, the genocide had many social science factors that caused the opposition between the Jews and Nazis. Both the German economy and the Nuremberg Laws stimulated the Holocaust; nevertheless, a majority of the Nazis’ and Hitler’s actions towards Jews were because of the victims’ ethnicity.
The Holocaust began in 1933 when the Nazis instigated their first action against the Jews by announcing a boycott of all Jewish-run businesses. The Nuremberg Laws went into place on September 15, 1935 which began to exclude the Jews from public life. These laws went to the extent of stripping German Jews of the citizenship and then implemented a prohibition of marriage between the Jewish and the Germans. These laws set the legal precedent for further anti-Jewish legislation. Over the next several years, even more laws would be introduced. Jews would be excluded from parks, fired from civil service jobs, required to register all property and restricted Jewish doctors from practicing medicine on any person other than Jewish patients.
The Jewish people were targeted, hunted, tortured, and killed, just for being Jewish, Hitler came to office on January 20, 1933; he believed that the German race had superiority over the Jews in Germany. The Jewish peoples’ lives were destroyed; they were treated inhumanly for the next 12 years, “Between 1933 and 1945, more than 11 million men, women, and children were murdered in the Holocaust. Approximately six million of these were Jews” (Levy). Hitler blamed a lot of the problems on the Jewish people, being a great orator Hitler got the support from Germany, killing off millions of Jews and other people, the German people thought it was the right thing to do. “To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community” (History.com Staff).
The Nazi Party, controlled by Adolf Hitler, ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. In 1933, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany and the Nazi government began to take over. Hitler became a very influential speaker and attracted new members to his party by blaming Jews for Germany’s problems and developed a concept of a “master race.” The Nazis believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jewish people were a threat to the German racial community and also targeted other groups because of their “perceived racial inferiority” such as Gypsies, disabled persons, Polish people and Russians as well as many others. In 1938, Jewish people were banned from public places in Germany and many were sent to concentration camps where they were either murdered or forced to work.
The holocaust was a catastrophic event that killed millions of innocent people and showed the world how inhuman mankind can be. This dark period in world history demonstrated unmatched violence and cruelty towards the Jewish race that led toward genocide. Genocide did not begin with the Holocaust; nor was it a spontaneous event. Many warning signs within world events helped provide Germany and Adolf Hitler the foundation to carry out increasing levels of human depravity (Mission Statement). These warning signs during the Holocaust include; Anti-Semitism, Hitler Youth, Racial profiling, the Ghettos, Lodz, Crystal Night, Pogroms, and Deportation. However, their exposure comes too late for the world to help prevent the horrors of the Holocaust. For example, Anti-Semitism was never put into reality until the holocaust overcame the attitudes of its’ German Citizens. It also provided the driving force behind the education of the Hitler youth. Hitler’s persuasive characteristics consumed the people into believing all of his beliefs. This is how racial profiling came about; Hitler made it so that the Germans had the mindset that Jews were horrible, filthy, people that did not deserve to live like the Germans or have the same luxuries. As a result, they moved all the Jews into one secluded area away from the German citizens; an area called the Ghettos. One of these Ghettos was the town of Lodz, who kept meticulous historical records of everything that went on in the city. However, it was not a safe for Jews; never feeling at ease not knowing the uncertainties or dangers lying ahead. For instance, in Crystal Night, they did not know that it would be the last night for some of them to be with their families. In general, Jews were just living...
Approximately six million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. When Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30th, 1933 there were 566,000 Jewish people living in Germany. The first concentration camp, Dachau, was created on March 22, 1933. Other concentration camps to be created during this time include Buchenwald and Ravensbruck. The first people to be arrested were Communists, labor leaders, and Communists. From 1933-1938 Jews gradually have their rights stripped away beginning with not being able to own land to not being considered citizens according to the Nuremberg Race Laws. Attacks on Jewish businesses and synagogues began on November 9th, 1938 when over the course of two days over 7,000 Jewish businesses and 250 synagogues were destroyed by Germans. Also, Jews were arrested and killed while these tragedies occurred. This series of events is known as Kristallnacht. It marks the beginning of the extreme discrimination and eventually genocide of the Jewish population.
Hitler’s anti-Semitism grew out of anger because the germans lost the war. He blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat in the war. Hitler also used the Jews as an excuse for all the problems that Germany was facing. To get the jews to get deported, Hitler and his nazis made the jews think that they were moving to a better, happier place, when in reality, they were moving to concentration camps, or death camps. They were deported on packed trains. Many people died on the trains from hunger, disease, thirst, and suffocation. The jews could be on the trains for months at a time.
German Jews responded to the Nazi attacks in many ways. Departing was not a simple task, especially for those with families and deep roots in Germany, but nevertheless some still left the country. There was no place for Jews to go because of immigration policies. Economic problems caused by the Great Depression made governments hostile to immigrants. Thirty-seven thousand Jews fled Germany during Hitler’s first year of rule despite the restricted immigration policies. German Jews tried to come together within Germany by self-help efforts. They tried to reduce social isolation by providing social and educational opportunities for themselves. A group of Jewish leaders created the Reich Representation of the German Jews in September 1933, to preserve
The Night of Broken Glass, or the Krystal Naught, is a prime example of how dire the situation grew for Jews as their homes, businesses, and churches were destroyed. The true genocide, or race killing, began when Jews were collected up and sent to concentration or work camps. It was in these camps that they would be tortured, murdered, or worked like slaves. As World War 2 neared its end, Hitler put into act what he called the Final Solution, a last ditch effort to eliminate Judism in Europe, in which he killed over six million of them.
Jews were constantly persecuted before the Holocaust because they were deemed racially inferior. During the 1930’s, the Nazis sent thousands of Jews to concentration camps. Hitler wanted to
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Germany was experiencing great economic and social hardship. Germany was defeated in World War I and the Treaty of Versailles forced giant reparations upon the country. As a result of these reparations, Germany suffered terrible inflation and mass unemployment. Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party who blamed Jews for Germany’s problems. His incredible public speaking skills, widespread propaganda, and the need to blame someone for Germany’s loss led to Hitler’s great popularity among the German people and the spread of anti-Semitism like wildfire. Hitler initially had a plan to force the Jews out of Germany, but this attempt quickly turned into the biggest genocide in history. The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933.“...the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.” –Adolf Hitler