The Road to the Holocaust - Kristallnacht | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1938 Part 3 of 4 - YouTube (2)
The propaganda machine is kicking into overdrive. On November 8, “The Eternal Jew” exhibition
is held in Munich, where visitors are confronted with anti-Semitic caricatures, slogans, and
stories.
The first months of 1938 introduce new discriminatory measures. Jews have to hand in their passports
and authorities are given the power to revoke name-changes. And then on March 12, Germany
annexes Austria. We will we have a video on how this happened, but it is a disaster for
Austrian Jews, and the persecution they face surpasses anything experienced so far. Public
humiliation at the hands of the SA takes on sadistic proportions. Jewish men and women
are pulled off the streets and forced to clean barrack latrines or pavements with their bare
hands. Homes and businesses are looted, and high-powered businessmen are hunted down.
In one instance, SA men kidnap Frank Rothenberg, board chairman of a leading Austrian bank,
and throw him out of a moving car killing him. Jewish property is Aryanized so rapidly
that in just a few months, 50% of the individual businesses and 82% of commercial services
owned by Jews in Vienna alone are taken over.
Knowing that it can affect popular opinion, the Nazi leadership try to stem the tide of
Nazi violence.
But the savagery has proved successful. Jews in Austria are virtually now eliminated from
the economy and are emigrating on mass, within the five months of the annexation, 46,000
Jews flee. No doubt seeing this unfold, a wave of legislation is pushed forward. In
April, all Jews are ordered to register their property and in July all commercial services,
such as credit information and real estate brokerage, is forbidden. In August a particularly
humiliating decree is put forward where Jews are required to add "Israel" or "Sara" to
their names if they don't already sound "Jewish” enough.
The measures are accompanied by a wave of violence and terror. There are riots in cities
across Germany, and Jews are deported to concentration camps. It is all intended to drive the process
of Jewish emigration, an ever-heightening priority for the regime as possible war looms
on the horizon.
The Nazis want to be rid of their "internal enemy", and they also need Jewish assets to
help fund a war effort. But they also know that the Polish government is planning to
block Jews with Polish nationality from being sent to Poland. To pre-empt this, on October
27 the police round up 18,000 Polish Jews from their homes with no advanced warning
and pack them into sealed train-cars. They are taken to the Polish border and simply
left there. Refused entry by the Polish border guards they camp out in no-mans-land between
the two countries.
One of the families caught up in this are the Grynszpan's. Their son, Herchel, has
been living in Paris and is distraught when he finds out what has happened to his family.
On the morning of November 7, he enters the German embassy and shoots Ernst vom Rath,
diplomat and member of the Nazi Party.
The propaganda machine has a field day.
Newspapers and the radio scream of a Jewish conspiracy and promise severe consequences
for the remaining Jews in Germany. Rioting flares up across the country, but things are
about to get much worse. Vom Rath dies of his wounds on November 9. Even before he died,
he was being venerated as a martyr. His passing only adds to the narrative, sealing the fate
of the Jews.
That same night, the Nazi Party are gathering to commemorate the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.
It is the most sacred event in the Nazi calendar. A "comradely evening" is held for the highest-ranking
Nazi officials in Munich's Old Town Hall. Now, usually Hitler would stay late into the
evening, but at around 9.30pm he gets up and leaves. Goebbels then stands and addresses
everyone assembled. He announces that the Fuhrer has approved a nationwide pogrom where
Jewish businesses and synagogues are to be destroyed and burned. The police and fire
department are not to interfere.
Once Goebbels is done talking, gauleiters and SA regional chiefs rush to wherever they
can find phones to forward the instructions. Everything is last minute and improvised,
but the violence soon begins. Up and down the country, synagogues are looted and burned,
homes are broken into, and activists lead processions through the streets roaring anti-Semitic
slogans. Sadistic abuse often leads to death. In one instance in Mannheim, a woman is seized
from her home and doused in ice-cold water, dying from exposure shortly after. Ritual
humiliation also pierces communities. Jews are forced to stand in their night-clothes
and watch as their temples burn, and Rabbis have their beards forcefully shaved.
Tens of thousands of Jews are arrested on the pretext of 'protective custody' and
deported to concentration camps. Most will be eventually re-released in the coming days,
but they face brutal treatment, and particularly cruel guards have their fun by telling them
that they will all soon die.
The following day Hitler and Goebbels meet for lunch. They are satisfied with the destruction
they have unleashed and decide that the Jewish people, not the insurance companies, will
pay for the damage. Official figures put the death count at 91, but this does not include
the hundreds or maybe thousands of suicides and later deaths in concentration camps.
The following weeks and day will see measures to remove any lingering hope for the Jewish
community. An act is passed ordering an “atonement payment” of one billion Reichmarks for the
murder of Von Rath, and all remaining Jewish businesses are Aryanised. Jews are excluded
from cultural events, driving cars, and the first measures to introduce ghettos are taken.
The rest of the population simply stood by when all this happened.
Again, reports suggest that there is a great deal of disgust at the scale of violence.
But the same reports also indicate that most Germans approve of the legal measures that
the Nazis have been implementing since 1933. And in the weeks after Kristallnacht, when
even more discriminatory laws are introduced, little protest follows. So the Nazi propaganda
has worked. Germans may not like and may fear the violent excesses of anti-Semitism, but
the Jewish community has been so successfully isolated from the rest of society, that very
few people are willing or able to help them.
This will have fateful consequences for Europe's Jews. Kristallnacht has marked a turning point.
Complete Aryanisation is now inevitable, and Jewish emigration is booming. If it wasn't
already clear, there is now no doubt that the Nazis are willing to unleash everything
they have against the Jews to achieve their goals. At the moment, this goal is removal,
but once the Nazis ignite a world conflict, the answers to the “Jewish question” will
result in human tragedy and suffering on an unfathomable scale.
If you'd like to learn about the spectacular and cynically executed Berlin Olympics, then
you can watch it right here.
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And remember: Never forget.
