Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Krystallnacht - The Terror Begins Followup-To: alt.revisionism Keywords: Goebbels,Goering,Grynszpan,Kristallnacht,vom Rath Archive/File: places/germany/kristallnacht/kristallnacht.01 Last-modified: 1993/04/21 "KRISTALLNACHT (Crystal Night; also called the Night of the Broken Glass). The night of November 9, 1938, when terror attacks were made on Jewish synagogues and stores. Two days earlier, Ernst vom Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris*, had been assassinated by Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew. In retaliation, Richard Heydrich, chief of the SD, ordered the destruction of all Jewish places of worship in Germany and Austria. The assault had been long prepared; the murder of Vom Rath provided an opportunity to begin the attack. In fifteen hours, 101 synagogues were destroyed by fire, and 76 were demolished. Bands of Nazis systematically destroyed 7,500 Jewish stores. The pillage and looting wnet on through the night. Streets were covered with broken glass, hence the name 'Kristallnacht'. THREE DAYS LATER Hermann Goering called a meeting of the top Nazi hierarchy at the Air Ministry to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it. Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels proposed that Jews no longer be allowed to use the public parks: "We will give the Jews a part of the forest, where animals, which are damnably like Jews -- the elk, too, has a hooked nose -- can mix with them." It was decided that the Jews would have to pay for the damage they had provoked. A fine of 1 billion marks was levied for the slaying of Vom Rath, and 6 million marks paid by insurance companies for broken windows was to be given to the state coffers. The incident of the Kristallnacht and its aftermath generated unfavorable worldwide publicity for the Nazi regime." (Snyder, 201) * Note that Grynzpan's target, the German Ambassador, was not at the embassy at the time - Work Cited: Snyder, Dr. Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: Paragon House, 1989. ISBN 1-55778-144-3
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