Historian Questions Kristallnacht Catalyst

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Historian Questions Kristallnacht Catalyst

HAVE GERMAN WILL TRAVEL This Week in FAMOUS EVENTS: What happened on ... ? Was ist am 9. November 1938 geschehen? Reichskristallnacht I Night of Broken Glass Historian questions Kristallnacht catalyst As Germany prepares to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht this weekend, a new book bas called into question the event long cited as triggering the Nazi pogrom. - - --- - - The attacks ofNovember 9 and lO, 1938, saw Nazi thugs plunder Jewish businesses throughout Germany, torch synagogues and round up about 30,000 Jewish men for deportation to concentration camps. Some 90 Jews were killed in the orgy of violence also known as 'The Night of Broken Glass'- a reference to the Jewish shops, buildings and synagogues that had their windows smashed. Now a new account is shedding light on the murder of diplomat Ernst vom Rath, whose November 7, 193 8 death Nazi leaders seized upon as pretext for the pogrom. Fuming over Germany's treatment of Jews, Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-oldJewish youth, shot vom Rath in the German Embassy in Paris. History has long regarded Grynszpan as a murderer, but a new book suggests the shots he fu·ed may not have been fatal. "I'm 90 percent certain that Herschel Grynszpan didn't murder Ernst vom Rath. Hitler let him die," Berlin investigative journalist Armin Fuhrer told AFP. In his book, Herschel- Das Attentat des Herschel Grynszpan am 7. November1938 und der Beginn des Holocaust (Herschel - The Assassination by Herschel Grynszpao on the 7th ofNovember 1938 and the Beginning of the Holocaust), Fuhrer argues the envoy could have survived gunshot wounds to his shoulder and stomach ifNazi leaders bad not decided to make a martyr of him. "Hitler sent his personal doctor, Karl Brandt, to Paris ... so he would consciously let Ernst vom Rath die, and not give him the medical help he needed," Fuhrer said. Fuhrer's book also reveals vom Rath had acute gastrointestinal tuberculosis at the time ofhis death, a detail Nazi officials didn't make public so as not to weaken the "causal connection" between Grynszpan's shooting and the official's death, Fuhrer wrote. Grynszpao's parents had sneaked him out of Germany to France when he was 15. .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Jews, Masculinity, and Political Violence in Interwar France
Jews, Masculinity, and Political Violence in Interwar France Richard Sonn University of Arkansas On a clear, beautiful day in the center of the city of Paris I performed the first act in front of the entire world. 1 Scholom Schwartzbard, letter from La Santé Prison In this letter to a left-wing Yiddish-language newspaper, Schwartzbard explained why, on 25 May 1926, he killed the former Hetman of the Ukraine, Simon Vasilievich Petliura. From 1919 to 1921, Petliura had led the Ukrainian National Republic, which had briefly been allied with the anti-communist Polish forces until the victorious Red Army pushed both out. Schwartzbard was a Jewish anarchist who blamed Petliura for causing, or at least not hindering, attacks on Ukrainian Jews in 1919 and 1920 that resulted in the deaths of between 50,000 and 150,000 people, including fifteen members of Schwartzbard's own family. He was tried in October 1927, in a highly publicized court case that earned the sobriquet "the trial of the pogroms" (le procès des pogroms). The Petliura assassination and Schwartzbard's trial highlight the massive immigration into France of central and eastern European Jews, the majority of working-class 1 Henry Torrès, Le Procès des pogromes (Paris: Editions de France, 1928), 255-7, trans. and quoted in Felix and Miyoko Imonti, Violent Justice: How Three Assassins Fought to Free Europe's Jews (Amherst, MA: Prometheus, 1994), 87. 392 Jews, Masculinity, and Political Violence 393 background, between 1919 and 1939. The "trial of the pogroms" focused attention on violence against Jews and, in Schwartzbard's case, recourse to violence as resistance.
[Show full text]
Holocaust Education Standards Grade 4 Standard 1: SS.4.HE.1
1 Proposed Holocaust Education Standards Grade 4 Standard 1: SS.4.HE.1. Foundations of Holocaust Education SS.4.HE.1.1 Compare and contrast Judaism to other major religions observed around the world, and in the United States and Florida. Grade 5 Standard 1: SS.5.HE.1. Foundations of Holocaust Education SS.5.HE.1.1 Define antisemitism as prejudice against or hatred of the Jewish people. Students will recognize the Holocaust as history’s most extreme example of antisemitism. Teachers will provide students with an age-appropriate definition of with the Holocaust. Grades 6-8 Standard 1: SS.68.HE.1. Foundations of Holocaust Education SS.68.HE.1.1 Define the Holocaust as the planned and systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Students will recognize the Holocaust as history’s most extreme example of antisemitism. Students will define antisemitism as prejudice against or hatred of Jewish people. Grades 9-12 Standard 1: SS.HE.912.1. Analyze the origins of antisemitism and its use by the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi) regime. SS.912.HE.1.1 Define the terms Shoah and Holocaust. Students will distinguish how the terms are appropriately applied in different contexts. SS.912.HE.1.2 Explain the origins of antisemitism. Students will recognize that the political, social and economic applications of antisemitism led to the organized pogroms against Jewish people. Students will recognize that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a hoax and utilized as propaganda against Jewish people both in Europe and internationally.
[Show full text]
Simon Wiesenthal Center-Museum of Tolerance Library & Archives for More Information Contact Us at (310) 772-7605 Or [email protected]
The Holocaust, 1933 – 1945 Educational Resources Kit Glossary of Terms, Places, and Personalities AKTION (Action) A German military or police operation involving mass assembly, deportation and killing; directed by the Nazis against Jews during the Holocaust. ALLIES The twenty-six nations led by the United States, Britain, and the former Soviet Union who joined in fighting Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan during World War II. ANIELEWICZ, MORDECAI Leader of the Jewish underground movement and of the uprising of (1919-1943) the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943; killed on May 8, 1943. ANSCHLUSS (Annexation) The incorporation of Austria into Germany on March 13, 1938. ANTISEMITISM Prejudice and/or discrimination towards Jews, based on negative perceptions of their beliefs. ARYAN RACE "Aryan" was originally applied to people who spoke any Indo- European language. The Nazis, however, primarily applied the term to people with a Northern European racial background. Their aim was to avoid what they considered the "bastardization of the German race" and to preserve the purity of European blood. (See NUREMBERG LAWS.) AUSCHWITZ Auschwitz was the site of one of the largest extermination camps. In August 1942 the camp was expanded and eventually consisted of three sections: Auschwitz I - the main camp; Auschwitz II (Birkenau) - the extermination camp; Auschwitz III (Monowitz) - the I.G. Farben labor camp, also known as Buna. In addition, Auschwitz had 48 sub camps. It bacame the largest center for Jewish extermination. AXIS The Axis powers originally included Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan who signed a pact in Berlin on September 27, 1940, to divide the world into their spheres of respective political interest.
[Show full text]
Timeline-Of-The-Holocaust.Pdf
The Holocaust, 1933 – 1945 Educational Resources Kit Timeline of the Holocaust: 1933 – 1945 1933 January 30 Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany March 22 Dachau concentration camp opens April 1 Boycott of Jewish shops and businesses April 7 Laws for Reestablishment of the Civil Service barred Jews from holding civil service, university, and state positions April 26 Gestapo established May 10 Public burnings of books written by Jews, political dissidents, and others not approved by the state July 14 Law stripping East European Jewish immigrants of German citizenship 1934 August 2 Hitler proclaims himself Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Reich Chancellor). Armed forces must now swear allegiance to him 1935 May 31 Jews barred from serving in the German armed forces September 15 "Nuremberg Laws": anti-Jewish racial laws enacted; Jews no longer considered German citizens; Jews could not marry Aryans; nor could they fly the German flag November 15 Germany defines a "Jew": anyone with three Jewish grandparents; someone with two Jewish grandparents who identifies as a Jew 1936 March 3 Jewish doctors barred from practicing medicine in German institutions March 7 Germans march into the Rhineland, previously demilitarized by the Versailles Treaty June 17 Himmler appointed the Chief of German Police July Sachsenhausen concentration camp opens October 25 Hitler and Mussolini form Rome-Berlin Axis 1937 July 15 Buchenwald concentration camp opens Simon Wiesenthal Center-Museum of Tolerance Library & Archives For more information contact
[Show full text]
Finding Aid (English)
https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection GERALD SCHWAB PAPERS, 1885-2012 2002.327.25 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW Washington, DC 20024-2126 Tel. (202) 479-9717 e-mail: [email protected] Descriptive summary Title: Gerald Schwab papers Dates: 1885-2012 Accession number: 2002.327.25 Creator: Schwab, Gerald, 1925-2014 Extent: 7.0 linear feet [10 boxes, 1 oversize box, 2 book enclosures, 21 oversize folders, 2 sound cassettes, 2 sound discs (CD), 2 videodisks (DVD), 4 disks (3 ½ inch)] Repository: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW, Washington, DC 20024-2126 Abstract: The Gerald Schwab papers document Schwab’s work for the International Military Tribunal following World War II; research for his books The Day the Holocaust Began: The Odyssey of Herschel Grynszpan and OSS Agents in Hitler's Heartland: Destination Innsbruck; his efforts to receive restitutions for Holocaust-era losses; biographical, genealogical, and photographic materials documenting Schwab and his family; and audiovisual and electronic records documenting Schwab’s interests in Holocaust-era topics. Languages: English, German, French Administrative Information Access: Collection is open for use, but is stored offsite. Please contact the Reference Desk more than seven days prior to visit in order to request access. Physical access: Negatives in the collection are kept in cold storage for preservation reasons and would require additional time for acclimatization before they can be served to researchers. Technical access: Electronic and audiovisual materials stored on optical and magnetic media that is not digitally available might not be accessible physically due to physical deterioration or lack of required software or hardware.
[Show full text]
World War Two and the Holocaust
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 388 556 SO 025 375 AUTHOR Boas, Jacob TITLE World War 'Iwo and the Holocaust. INSTITUTION Holocaust Center of Northern California, San Francisco. PUB DATE 89 NOTE 11(4.; Photographs may not reproduce clearly. AVAILABLE FROMThe Holocaust Center of Northern California, 639 14th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94118. PUB TYPE Guides Classroom Use Teaching Guides (For Teacher) (052) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC05 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Anti Semitism; Conflict Resolution; Ethnic Bias; *Ethnic Discrimination; *Jews; Justice; Modern History; *Nazism; Peace; *Religious Discrimination; Secondary Education; Social Studies; Western Civilizatiol; *World War II IDENTIFIERS *Holocaust ABSTRACT This resource book presents readings that could be used to teach about the Holocaust. The readings are brief and could be appropriate for middle school and high school students. Several photographs accompany the text. The volume has the following chapters:(1) "From War to War" (history of Germany from late 19th Century through the end of World War II with an emphasis on the rise of Hitler and his campaign against Jews);(2) "The Holocaust" (the victims, the ghetto life, death camps, the consequences, etc.); (3) "Chronology 1918-1945" (chart showing by year and month the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, Persecution and Holocaust, and Jewish Response);(4) "Glossary";(5) "100 Holocaust Discussion Questions (Weimar, Hitler, WWII; Nazism and Jewry; Perpetrators, Bystanders, Rescuers; and General)";(6) "Selected Bibliography"; and (7) "Illustration Credits." Contains
[Show full text]
Handout 4.5.1 November 9 in German History
FOCUS 4 – Civics and Government HANDOUT 4.5.1 – November 9 in German History HANDOUT HANDOUT 4.5.1 NOVEMBER 9 IN GERMAN HISTORY NOVEMBER 9, 1918 NOVEMBER 9, 1938 On November 9, 1918, the German monarchy of Kaiser Wilhelm II, The chain of events leading up to an organized destruction of Jew- often referred to as the Second Reich, ended with the abdication (or ish homes and businesses on this day was unknowingly set oﬀ by resignation) of the Kaiser and his ﬂight to the Netherlands. This shift the 17-year-old Jew Herschel Grynszpan. After learning that the Na- was triggered by a mutiny staged a few days earlier by sailors of the zis had deported his family to Poland, Grynszpan, who had been German Imperial Navy who were weary of battle. By this time, the living in France, went to the German embassy in Paris and fatally shot German army had all but lost World War I. Within hours of the Kaiser’s the civil servant Ernst vom Rath. Nazi leaders exploited this act of per- abdication, the SPD (or Social Democrat) politician Philipp Scheide- sonal revenge to launch a nationwide attack against Jews and their mann stepped out onto a balcony of the Reichstag building in Berlin property. By the time the violence ended, 7,500 Jewish businesses and proclaimed a republic. Scheidemann, however, wasn’t the only had been vandalized and almost all Jewish houses of worship had one to proclaim a republic that day; later in the afternoon, the com- been burned down or otherwise demolished.
[Show full text]
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht ("Crystal Night" or "Night of the Broken Glass"). Pogrom (massacre or riot against Jews) carried out by the Nazis throughout Germany and Austria on November 9-10, 1938. The name Kristallnacht refers to the glass of the shop windows smashed by the rioters. Officially, Kristallnacht was launched in retaliation for the assassination on November 7 of a German embassy official in Paris - named Ernst vom Rath - by a young Jewish refugee named Herschel Grynszpan. On November 9 vom Rath died of his injuries. That same night, a group of Nazi leaders gathered in Munich to commemorate the anniversary of Hitler’s (failed) attempt to take over the Bavarian Government in 1923. The Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, told the other participants that the time had come to strike at the Jews. The Nazi leaders then sent instructions to their men all over the country - they were not supposed to act as if they had launched the pogrom, but were to participate all the same. Within hours, crazed rioting erupted. The shop windows of Jewish businesses were smashed, the stores looted, hundreds of synagogues and Jewish homes were burnt down and many Jews were physically assaulted. Some 30,000 Jews, many of them wealthy and prominent members of their communities, were arrested and deported to the concentration camps at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald, where they were subjected to inhumane and brutal treatment and many died. During the pogrom itself, some 90 Jews were murdered. After the pogrom was over, the Nazis continued with severe anti-Jewish measures. The aryanization process of seizing Jewish property was intensified; the Jewish community was forced to pay a fine of one billion reichsmarks, ostensibly as a payback for the death of vom Rath; and the Germans set up a Central Office for Jewish Emigration (Zenstralstelle fuer Juedische Auswanderung) to "encourage" the Jews to leave the country.
[Show full text]
Antisemitism in France in the 1930S
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES The Path to Vichy: Antisemitism in France in the 1930s Vicki Caron W A S H I N G T O N , D. C. The Path to Vichy: Antisemitism in France in the 1930s Vicki Caron J.B. AND MAURICE C. SHAPIRO ANNUAL LECTURE 20 APRIL 2005 The assertions, opinions, and conclusions in this occasional paper are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council or of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. First printing, July 2005 Copyright © 2005 by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies annually appoints a scholar to pursue independent research and writing, to present lectures at universities throughout the United States, and to serve as a resource for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Center, government personnel, educators, students, and the public. Funding for the program is made possible by a generous endowment established by from the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Charitable Trust. Vichy’s two Jewish statutes of October 3, 1940, and June 2, 1941, defined Jews in racial terms as anyone having three or more grandparents “of the Jewish race” (irrespective of whether that person had converted) or two Jewish grandparents if married to a Jew. They barred Jews from all civil and military service posts, as well as all professions linked to the media or banking. The statutes furthermore authorized the Council of State to impose strict quotas of 2 and 3 percent respectively on Jewish participation in the liberal professions and in institutions of higher learning.
[Show full text]
A Nazi German Cartoon Circa 1938 Depicts the Jews As an Octopus Encircling the Globe.1
A Nazi German cartoon circa 1938 depicts the Jews as an octopus encircling the globe.1 1 Plank, Josef. “Churchill and the Great Republic: Seppla, Jews as an Octopus Encircling the Globe.” Library of Congress. 1935-1943. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/churchill/interactive/_html/wc0213.html ANTI-SEMITISM IN NAZI GERMANY Isaac Farhadian From the first century of the Christian Era, economic powerhouses, media owners, for a period reflecting two thousand years of Marxists, World War I backstabbers, and anti-Semitism, there have been three singular World War II instigators.4 The third and final anti-Judaic measures implemented against stage of Hilberg’s cyclical triad was fully European populations of Jewish people: executed under the Nazis’ fanatical belief conversion, expulsion, and complete that Jews initiated the Second World War. annihilation.2 Raul Hilberg argues that anti- The National Socialists did not ―discard the Semitism has had three successive goals past; they built upon it; they did not begin a during its post-Roman era. Hilberg proclaims development; they completed it.‖ 5 that the ―missionaries of Christianity had said The earliest accounts of National Socialist in effect: You have no right to live among us anti-Semitic policies towards Jews originated as Jews. The secular rulers who followed during the infant stages of the socialist proclaimed: You have no right to live among movement which gained ground under the us. The German Nazis decreed: You have no 6 3 highly unpopular Weimar Republic. The right to live.‖ Why was anti-Semitism so lack of stability of the Weimar regime was widespread in Germany, both in the political largely attributed to the humiliating defeat of sphere and in the cultural sphere, and what the Great War, the subjugation of foreign were the contributing factors that led to the oppression, and the economic depression that near-annihilation of European Jewry? 7 followed soon afterwards.
[Show full text]
Early Warning Signs
National Days of Remembrance EARLY WARNING SIGNS Austria, ca. 1938: A woman sits on a park bench marked “For Jews Only,” after German authorities implemented anti-Jewish laws. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of The Wiener Library In the pivotal year before Nazi Germany invaded Poland and launched World War II, intervention could have saved many lives. Why did so many fail to respond to the warning signs and what lessons do their actions hold for us today? 1 National Days of Remembrance earlyWARNIN warningG SIGN: T SIGNSerritorial: TERRIT EXOpanRIALS IONEXP ANSI ON Anschluss March 11 – 13 German troops enter Austria, which is incorporated into the German Reich. This is known as the Anschluss. German authorities quickly implement anti-Jewish legislation that encourages an atmosphere of hostility toward the Jewish population. The Anschluss accelerated persecution and violence against Jews in the Reich. As a result, Hilde Kraemer’s parents, living in Germany, encouraged her to emigrate from France, where she was in boarding school. With relatives in New York as sponsors, Hilde immigrated to the United States in the summer of 1938. In 1942, her mother and stepfather were deported to Auschwitz, where they perished. Hilde’s half-brother Alfred obtained passage to the United States in 1941 with the aid of a Swedish nurse and Jewish and Quaker aid organizations. Hilde and Alfred reunited in the United States. German troops cross the border from Germany into Austria at the Kiefersfelden crossing. Dokumentationsarchiv des Hilde Kraemer (far left) and her friends, Österreichischen Widerstandes Germaine and Dee Dee, at school in France, ca.
[Show full text]
Kristallnacht: a Nationwide Pogrom, November 9–10, 1938
Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9–10, 1938 Kristallnacht, literally, "Night of Crystal," is often referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass." The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938, throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops. Instigated primarily by Nazi Party officials and members of the SA (Sturmabteilungen: literally Assault Detachments, but commonly known as Storm Troopers) and Hitler Youth, Kristallnacht owes its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets in the wake of the pogrom—broken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish- owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence. In its aftermath, German officials announced that Kristallnacht had erupted as a spontaneous outburst of public sentiment in response to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, a German embassy official stationed in Paris. Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew, had shot the diplomat on November 7, 1938. A few days earlier, German authorities had expelled thousands of Jews of Polish citizenship living in Germany from the Reich; Grynszpan had received news that his parents, residents in Germany since 1911, were among them. Initially denied entry into their native Poland, Grynszpan's parents and the other expelled Polish Jews found themselves stranded in a refugee camp near the town of Zbaszyn in the border region between Poland and Germany. Already living illegally in Paris himself, a desperate Grynszpan apparently sought revenge for his family's precarious circumstances by appearing at the German embassy and shooting the diplomatic official assigned to assist him.
[Show full text]