Kristallnacht: The Night of Broken Glass and How It began In an Anti-Semitic Germany Emma Clausen

Kristallnacht, also commonly referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, is what many historians consider to be the beginning of what would later be known as the Holocaust. Throughout the night of November 9, 1938 and continuing through the early morning hours of November 10, 1938, brutal non-Jewish civilians and SA members, the “brownshirts” of the Nazi Party, pillaged Jewish homes, hospitals and schools. The broken glass from windows lying on the ground inspired the name Kristallnacht. But what spurred the tragic events? Many historians believe it was the assassination of Ernst Von Rath on November 7, 1938 that caused the tension to begin. Von Rath, a German Diplomat, was murdered by Herschel Grynspan. Grynspan was a Polish Jew, born in Germany but living in Paris, France. As a motive for shooting Von Rath, Grynspan stated that he was avenging the deaths of 12,000 Jews.

But the real beginning of Kristallnacht itself was when Joseph Goebbles made a provocative speech after Von Rath’s funeral saying that he would not be astonished if the German people took the law into their own hands to avenge Von Rath’s death by destroying all things Jewish, namely synagogues, businesses and community centers. Almost instantaneously,

Clausen 2 the German people and especially Nazi Party members sprang into action by preforming terrible acts of racial discrimination.

According to Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom (ushmm.org) a total of 267 synagogues were decimated throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland and over 7,500 Jewish establishments had their windows shattered by the SA and Hitler Youth members. Even though mass murder was not the objective, at the time of events 91 Jews died and an estimated 30,000 Jewish males were arre...

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...wish Germany. Due to the idea of “Social Darwinism” and the increased interest in genetics, the anti-Semitic campaign took a more racial turn. Suddenly people were infatuated with the idea of “racial purity.” The Germans considered the most pure of these races to be the Aryans. After the crushing defeat of Germany in World War I, a young Adolf Hitler wrote the ultimate anti-Semitic book Mein Kampf. Later on as the Chancellor of Germany, Hitler employed racial theorists to justify his persecution of Jews and other races (Anti-Semitism in Germany: Historical Backgroung; web.mnstate.edu). In conclusion, the assassination of Von Rath may have sparked the beginning of Kristallnacht on the outside and used as an excuse to persecute the Jews but in reality the already present anti-Semitic views of Germany was the real reason behind the beginning of the “Final Solution.”