Hitler’s “Kristallnacht” pogrom, 1938

November 9 is the anniversary of the so-called “Kristallnacht” pogrom in 1938 against Jews, directed by Hitler’s government which then had been in power almost six years. That was the point where the Nazis basically outlawed Jews in Germany. It didn’t happen the day after Hitler took power.

As the editors of kurz & knapp from the Bundeszentreale für Politische Bildung (BPB) explain:

The term "Reichskristallnacht" was used by the non-Jewish majority population shortly after the event, but is said to have originated "in the Berlin vernacular". The term was widely used in Germany until the 1980s, and it still persists in other European languages today. It alludes to the broken glass panes during the pogrom. However, the term trivializes the fact that the violence was also directed against people to a large extent. Many scholars therefore refer to it as a euphemism and no longer use it. (1)

“Novemberpogrom” and “Reichspogromnacht” are also used in German now for the event.

Many German Jews assumed that the Nuremburg Race Laws of 1935, bad as they were, would mean a stabilization in their situation. Which to some it was for several years. Those notorious laws were heavily modeled on the Southern segregation laws in the US and also on the highly racially-biased US immigration laws established in the 1920s.

This 13-minute English video from Deutsche Welle explains the “Kristallnacht” event. (1)

As the video explains, November 9 was also the anniversary of German democracy in 1918, ending the Imperial government of “Kaiser Bill” /Wilhelm II), Hitler staged his failed “Beer Hall Putsch” attempt in Munich in 1923 on November 9.

What is often called “the fall of the Berlin Wall” in 1989 also occurred on November 9. The wall didn’t literally “fall” anywhere that day. The East Germans just stopped enforcing the transit restrictions to West Berlin, acting on a misunderstanding of a formal government directive. German Unification Day is a national holiday, but it falls on October 3, the date where the legal unification of the country took effect in 1991.

The stereotypically (but not really) stodgy Encyclopedia Britannica has a good brief article on the 1938 pogrom, including this summary illustration (2):

Michael Berenbaum writes in the Britannica article:

Just before midnight on November 9, Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller sent a telegram to all police units informing them that “in shortest order, actions against Jews and especially their synagogues will take place in all of Germany. These are not to be interfered with.” Rather, the police were to arrest the victims. Fire companies stood by synagogues in flames with explicit instructions to let the buildings burn. They were to intervene only if a fire threatened adjacent “Aryan” properties.

The Britannica article also includes a 3-minute video summary. Berenbaum:

The pretext for the pogroms was the fatal shooting in Paris on November 7 of the German diplomat Ernst C by a Polish-Jewish student, Herschel Grynszpan. News of Rath’s death on November 9 reached Adolf Hitler in Munich, Germany, where he was celebrating the anniversary of the abortive 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. There, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, after conferring with Hitler, harangued a gathering of old storm troopers, urging violent reprisals staged to appear as “spontaneous demonstrations.” Telephone orders from Munich triggered pogroms throughout Germany, which then included Austria.

Governments planning an action like this don’t always have to stage some kind of so-called “false flag” operation to use as justification. As in this case, they can wait until something like Vom Rath’s assassination happens and use that as an excuse.

It’s also important to keep in mind the progression of events that led from Hitler’s initial appointment as Chancellor by conservative/reactionary President Hindenburg in early 1933 to Kristallnacht and to the even greater horrors of war and Holocaust that came after it. Those include:

• The Reichstag Fire and Hitler’s Emergency Decrees (1933)
• The progressively more severe political repression against other parties and against internal Nazi dissent (e,g,, the so-called Night of the Long Knives against Ernst Röhm and his supporters)h of 1934)
• The failed coup attempt in Austria (1934)
• The Nuremburg Race Laws
• The growing dependence of Mussolini’s Italy on German aid (1935ff,)
• Germany’s remilitarization of the Rhineland (1936)
• Annexation (Anschluss) of Austria (1938), and the Münich Agreement of Sept. 30, 1938.

Notes:

(1) Redaktion (2023): Novemberpogrom 1938. kurz & knapp 31.10.2025. <https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/hintergrund-aktuell/542301/novemberpogrom-1938/> (Accessed: 2025-01-12). My translation to English.

(2) November 9: A Day of Destiny? DW History and Culture YouTube channel 11/08/2023. <https://youtu.be/ord6GwMKz2I?si=4OIhs_zb1Ul3qIKT> (Accessed: 2025-30-11).

(3) Berenbaum, Michael. Kristallnacht. Encyclopedia Britannica 11/23/2025. <https://www.britannica.com/event/Kristallnacht> Accessed: 2025-30-11). (Accessed: 2025-30-11).