Kristallnacht

On the nights of November 9 and 10 in 1938, anti-Jewish riots broke out across Germany. The attack came to be callded Kristallnacht or the "night of broke glass."



Allies Side of Kristallnacht
The Kristallnacht to the Germans were the first step to Hitler's Final Solution, leading towards the Holocaust. The Allies, however, saw this as the most violent government and private anti-semitic actions in history. Nazi Germany wiped out the entire Jewish busuiness in the Reich, barred 500,00 Jews from public entertainment and fined them a total of 1 million marks. Their reason for doing such crucial act is just because of the assassination of a German diplomat by a Jewish teenager. Even though the damages were caused by the Nazis themself, the government required Jews whose shops were wrecked to compensate for themselves. Moreover German police made wholsale arrests of rich, cultured and educated Jews. There were a total of 91 Jews murdered, approximately 30,000 arrested and placed in concentration camps, 267 synagogues destroyed, and thousands of homes and businesses ransacked.

Nazi Side of Kristallnacht



 * On November 10, 1938, 1:20 A.M., SS-Grupenführer Heydrich sent a message to all State Police Main Offices and Field Offices to tell them the guidelines of the attack against the Jews that night in all parts of the reich. The Nazis claimed that they won't pay any loss because the Kristallnacht was triggered by the assassination of a German diplomat by a Jewish teenager. Inspectors and commanders of the police were required to discuss the arrangements for the discussion and to coordinate its own measures. The orders to destroy Jewish property were clear and specific; however, there were limits to their actions: no measures endangering non-Jewish German life and property, Jewish places of business and apartments may be destoryed but not looted, foreign citizens are not to be molested, and synagogue archives should be transferred to locally responsible officers of the SD or the Sicherheitsdienst. Synagogues, however, were burnt down only when neighboring buildings are free from the danger of fire. German police was also ordered to arrest as many Jews as possible.