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Kristallnacht was a violent anti-Jewish riot orchestrated by the German government and carried out by Nazi organizations in November 1938. Over 1,000 synagogues were attacked and burned, 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses were looted, and 91 Jews were killed. It is considered the starting point of the Holocaust and led to the removal of Jews and their influence from Germany.
Kristallnacht, a German word meaning “night of broken glass”, is the name given to the violent anti-Jewish riots that began on the night of November 9, 1938 and continued until November 10. The Kristallnacht riots were orchestrated by the German government and carried out by members of the Assault Detachment, known as Storm Troopers; the Schutzstaffel (SS); the Hitler Youth organization; and local Nazi Party headquarters. The unrest took place throughout Germany and in Austria, which had been annexed by Germany, and in an area of German-occupied Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland.
The violence was so massive and severe that Kristallnacht is considered the first pogrom to have occurred in Germany since the Middle Ages. In fact, some scholars consider it the most brutal public display of anti-Semitism in German history up to 1938. Along with Jewish cemeteries, homes, hospitals and schools, more than 1,000 synagogues were attacked and burned, 76 were completely destroyed.
About 7,500 businesses, all Jewish-owned, were looted and their windows shattered, which gave the night its name. So much glass was broken that Germany had to import sheet glass from Belgium because it couldn’t produce enough to repair the damaged homes and businesses. The Jewish community had to remove the rubble left by the ruined synagogues. A total of 91 Jews were killed in the riots and approximately 30,000 Jewish men between the ages of 16 and 60 were arrested by Gestapo units and transported to concentration camps.
Significantly, Kristallnacht is the first time the German government has moved to imprison Jews on a massive scale simply on the basis of their ethnicity. Kristallnacht was launched by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief, under the pretext of the assassination of a German diplomat by a Polish Jewish student on November 7, 1938. On November 9, the Gestapo notified all police units that actions against Jews and synagogues would happen throughout Germany and were not to be interfered with. Instead, police were ordered to arrest victims of the attacks and fire companies were given direct orders to have all synagogues burned down after they were attacked. As a result, Jews were attacked freely wherever they worked, lived or worshipped.
Kristallnacht is considered the starting point of the Holocaust. Subsequently, measures were introduced by the government to remove both Jews and their influence from Germany. In the following months, Jews were barred from most public places, physically segregated within cities, and placed under curfews, among many other bans enacted by the German legislature.
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