Kristallnacht Kristallnacht ( ; ) , also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass , or Reichskristallnacht [ ] , Pogromnacht , and Novemberpogrome , was a pogrom ( a series of coordinated attacks ) against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9 – 10 November 1938 , carried out by SA paramilitary forces and non - Jewish civilians . German authorities looked on without intervening . The name " Kristallnacht " comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after Jewish - owned stores , buildings , and synagogues had their windows smashed . At least 91 Jews were killed in the attacks , and 30 , 000 were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps . Jewish homes , hospitals , and schools were ransacked , as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers . Over 1 , 000 synagogues were burned ( 95 in Vienna alone ) and over 7 , 000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged . Martin Gilbert writes that no event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening , and the accounts from the foreign journalists working in Germany sent shock waves around the world . " The Times " wrote at the time : " No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings , of blackguardly assaults on defenseless and innocent people , which disgraced that country yesterday . " The pretext for the attacks was the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan , a German - born Polish Jew resident in Paris . " Kristallnacht " was followed by additional economic and political persecution of Jews , and is viewed by historians as part of Nazi Germany ' s broader racial policy , and the beginning of the Final Solution and The Holocaust . Etymology . The incident was originally referred to as " die Kristallnacht " ( literally " crystal night " ) , alluding to the enormous number of glass windows broken throughout the night , mostly in synagogues and Jewish - owned shops . The prefix Reichs - ( imperial ) was later added " ( Reichskristallnacht ) " as a sardonic comment on the Nazis ' propensity to add this prefix to various terms and titles like " Reichsführer - SS " or " Reichsmarschall " . Background . Early Nazi persecutions . In the 1920s , most German Jews were fully integrated into German society as German citizens . They served in the German army and navy and contributed to every field of German science , business and culture . Conditions for the Jews began to change after the appointment of Adolf Hitler ( the leader of the Nazi group ) as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933 , and the assumption of power by Hitler after the Reichstag fire . From its inception , Hitler ' s regime moved quickly to introduce anti - Jewish policies . The 500 , 000 Jews in Germany , who accounted for only 0 . 76 % of the overall population , were singled out by the Nazi propaganda machine as an enemy within who were responsible for Germany ' s defeat in the First World War and for its subsequent economic difficulties , such as the 1920s hyperinflation and Great Depression . Beginning in 1933 , the German government enacted a series of anti - Jewish laws restricting the rights of German Jews to earn a living , to enjoy full citizenship and to gain education , including the " Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service " , which forbade Jews to work in the civil service . The subsequent 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped German Jews of their citizenship and forbade Jews to marry non - Jewish Germans . The result of these laws was the exclusion of Jews from German social and political life . Many sought asylum abroad ; hundreds of thousands emigrated , but as Chaim Weizmann wrote in 1936 , " The world seemed to be divided into two parts — those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter . " The international Évian Conference , on 6 July 1938 , addressed the issue of Jewish and Gypsy immigration to other countries . By the time the conference was held , more than 250 , 000 Jews had fled Germany and Austria , which had been annexed by Germany in March 1938 ; more than 300 , 000 German and Austrian Jews were still seeking refuge and asylum from oppression . As the number of Jews and Gypsies wanting to leave increased , the restrictions against them grew , with many countries tightening their rules for admission . By 1938 , Germany " had entered a new radical phase in anti - Semitic activity . " Some historians believe that the Nazi government had been contemplating a planned outbreak of violence against the Jews and were waiting for an appropriate provocation ; there is evidence of this planning dating to 1937 . In a 1997 interview , the German historian Hans Mommsen claimed that a major motive for the pogrom was the desire of the " Gauleiters " of the NSDAP to seize Jewish property and businesses . Mommsen was quoted as saying : The need for money by the party organization stemmed from the fact that Franz Xaver Schwarz , the party treasurer , kept the local and regional organizations of the party short of money . In the fall of 1938 , the increased pressure on Jewish property nourished the party ' s ambition , especially since Hjalmar Schacht had been ousted as " Reich " minister for economics . This , however , was only one aspect of the origin of the November 1938 pogrom . The Polish government threatened to extradite all Jews who were Polish citizens , but would stay in Germany , thus creating a burden of responsibility on the German side . The immediate reaction by the Gestapo was to push the Polish Jews — 16 , 000 persons — over the borderline , but this measure failed due to the stubbornness of the Polish customs officers . The loss of prestige as a result of this abortive operation called for some sort of compensation . Thus , the overreaction to Herschel Grynszpan ' s attempt against the diplomat Ernst vom Rath came into being and led to the November pogrom . The background of the pogrom was signified by a sharp cleavage of interests between the different agencies of party and state . While the Nazi party was interested in improving its financial strength on the regional and local level by taking over Jewish property , Hermann Goering , in charge of the Four - Year Plan , hoped to acquire access to foreign currency in order to pay for the import of needed raw material . Heydrich and Himmler were interested in fostering Jewish emigration " . The Zionist leadership in the British Mandate of Palestine wrote in February 1938 that according to " a very reliable private source — one which can be traced back to the highest echelons of the SS leadership , " there was " an intention to carry out a genuine and dramatic pogrom in Germany on a large scale in the near future . " The report of the Woodhead Commission on the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab State was presented to the British parliament and published on November 9 , the day of the " Kristallnacht " . Expulsion of Polish Jews in Germany . In August 1938 the German authorities announced that residence permits for foreigners were being cancelled and would have to be renewed . This included German - born Jews of foreign origin . Poland stated that it would not accept Jews of Polish origin after the end of October . In the so - called “ Polenaktion ” , more than 12 , 000 Polish - born Jews , among them the philosopher and theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel , and future literary critic Marcel Reich - Ranicki , were expelled from Germany on 28 October 1938 , on Hitler ' s orders . They were ordered to leave their homes in a single night , and were allowed only one suitcase per person to carry their belongings . As the Jews were taken away , their remaining possessions were seized as booty by both the Nazi authorities and by their neighbors . The deportees were taken from their homes to railway stations and were put on trains to the Polish border , where Polish border guards sent them back over the river into Germany . This stalemate continued for days in the pouring rain , with the Jews marching without food or shelter between the borders . Four thousand were granted entry into Poland , but the remaining 8 , 000 were forced to stay at the border . They waited there in harsh conditions to be allowed to enter Poland . A British newspaper told its readers that hundreds " are reported to be lying about , penniless and deserted , in little villages along the frontier near where they had been driven out by the Gestapo and left . " Conditions in the refugee camps " were so bad that some actually tried to escape back into Germany and were shot " , recalled a British woman who was sent to help those who had been expelled . Shooting of vom Rath . Among those expelled was the family of Sendel and Riva Grynszpan , Polish Jews who had emigrated to Germany in 1911 and settled in Hanover , Germany . At the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 , Sendel Grynszpan recounted the events of their deportation from Hanover on the night of 27 October 1938 : " Then they took us in police trucks , in prisoners ' lorries , about 20 men in each truck , and they took us to the railway station . The streets were full of people shouting : " Juden raus ! Auf nach Palästina ! " " ( " Jews out , out to Palestine ! " ) . Their seventeen - year - old son Herschel was living in Paris with an uncle . Herschel received a postcard from his family from the Polish border , describing the family ' s expulsion : " No one told us what was up , but we realised this was going to be the end . . . We haven ' t a penny . Could you send us something ? " He received the postcard on 3 November 1938 . On the morning of Monday , 7 November 1938 , he purchased a revolver and a box of bullets , then went to the German embassy and asked to see an embassy official . After he was taken to the office of Ernst vom Rath , Grynszpan fired five bullets at Vom Rath , two of which hit him in the abdomen . Vom Rath was a professional diplomat with the Foreign Office who expressed anti - Nazi sympathies , largely based on the Nazis ' treatment of the Jews , and was under Gestapo investigation for being politically unreliable . Grynszpan made no attempt to escape the French police and freely confessed to the shooting . In his pocket , he carried a postcard to his parents with the message , " May God forgive me . . . I must protest so that the whole world hears my protest , and that I will do . " The next day , the German government retaliated , barring Jewish children from German state elementary schools , indefinitely suspending Jewish cultural activities , and putting a halt to the publication of Jewish newspapers and magazines , including the three national German Jewish newspapers . A newspaper in Britain described the latter move , which cut off the Jewish populace from their leaders , as " intended to disrupt the Jewish community and rob it of the last frail ties which hold it together . " Their rights as citizens had been stripped . Death of vom Rath . Ernst vom Rath died of his wounds on November 9 . Word of his death reached Hitler that evening while he was with several key members of the Nazi party at a dinner commemorating the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch . After intense discussions , Hitler left the assembly abruptly without giving his usual address . Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels delivered the speech , in his place , and said that " the Führer has decided that . . . demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the party , but insofar as they erupt spontaneously , they are not to be hampered . " The chief party judge Walter Buch later stated that the message was clear ; with these words Goebbels had commanded the party leaders to organize a pogrom . Some leading party officials disagreed with Goebbels ' actions , fearing the diplomatic crisis it would provoke . Heinrich Himmler wrote , " I suppose that it is Goebbels ' s megalomania . . . and stupidity which are responsible for starting this operation now , in a particularly difficult diplomatic situation . " The Israeli historian Saul Friedländer believes that Goebbels had personal reasons for wanting to bring about " Kristallnacht " . Goebbels had recently suffered humiliation for the ineffectiveness of his propaganda campaign during the Sudeten crisis , and was in some disgrace over an affair with a Czech actress , Lída Baarová . Goebbels needed a chance to improve his standing in the eyes of Hitler . At 01 : 20 am on 10 November 1938 , Reinhard Heydrich sent an urgent secret telegram to the Sicherheitspolizei ( Security Police ) and the Sturmabteilung ( SA ) , containing instructions regarding the riots . This included guidelines for the protection of foreigners and non - Jewish businesses and property . Police were instructed not to interfere with the riots unless the guidelines were violated . Police were also instructed to seize Jewish archives from synagogues and community offices , and to arrest and detain " healthy male Jews , who are not too old " , for eventual transfer to concentration camp s . Riots . The timing of the riots varied from unit to unit . The Gauleiter s started at about 10 : 30pm , only two hours after news of vom Rath ' s death reached Germany . They were followed by the SA at 11pm , and the SS at around 1 : 20am . Most were wearing civilian clothes and were armed with sledgehammers and axes , and soon went to work on the destruction of Jewish property . The orders given to these men were very specific , however : no measures endangering non - Jewish German life or property were to be taken ( synagogues too close to non - Jewish property were smashed rather than burned ) ; Jewish businesses or dwellings could be destroyed but not looted ; foreigners ( even Jewish foreigners ) were not to be the subjects of violence ; and synagogue archives were to be transferred to the Sicherheitsdienst ( SD ) . The men were also ordered to arrest as many Jews as the local jails would hold , the preferred targets being healthy young men . The SA shattered the storefronts of about 7500 Jewish stores and businesses , hence the appellation " Kristallnacht " ( Crystal Night ) . Jewish homes were ransacked all throughout Germany . Although violence against Jews had not been explicitly condoned by the authorities , there were cases of Jews being beaten or assaulted . This pogrom damaged , and in many cases destroyed , about 200 synagogues ( constituting nearly all Germany had ) , many Jewish cemeteries , more than 7 , 000 Jewish shops , and 29 department stores . Some Jews were beaten to death while others were forced to watch . More than 30 , 000 Jewish men were arrested and taken to concentration camp s ; primarily Dachau , Buchenwald , and Sachsenhausen . The treatment of prisoners in the camps was brutal , but most were released during the following three months on condition that they leave Germany . The number of German Jews killed is uncertain . The number killed in the two - day riot is most often cited as 91 . In addition , it is thought that there were hundreds of suicides . Counting deaths in the concentration camps , around 2 , 000 - 2 , 500 deaths were directly or indirectly attributable to the " Kristallnacht " pogrom . A few non - Jewish Germans , mistaken for Jews , were also killed . . The synagogues , some centuries old , were also victims of considerable violence and vandalism , with the tactics the Stormtroops practised on these and other sacred sites described as " approaching the ghoulish " by the United States Consul in Leipzig . Tombstones were uprooted and graves violated . Fires were lit , and prayer books , scrolls , artwork and philosophy texts were thrown upon them , and precious buildings were either burned or smashed until unrecognisable . Eric Lucas recalls the destruction of the synagogue that a tiny Jewish community had constructed in a small village only twelve years earlier : After this , the Jewish community was fined 1 billion reichsmarks . In addition , it cost 4 million marks to repair the windows . Events in recently annexed Austria were no less horrendous . Of the entire " Kristallnacht , " only the pogrom in Vienna was completed . Most of Vienna ' s 94 synagogues and prayer - houses were partially or totally destroyed . People were subjected to all manner of humiliations , including being forced to scrub the pavements whilst being tormented by their fellow Austrians , some of whom had been their friends and neighbours . Official figures released after the event by Reinhard Heydrich stated that 191 synagogues were destroyed , with 76 completely demolished ; 100 , 000 Jews were arrested ; three foreigners were arrested ; 174 people were arrested for looting Jewish shops ; and 815 Jewish businesses were destroyed . The " Daily Telegraph " correspondent , Hugh Greene , wrote of events in Berlin : Concentration camps . The violence was officially called to a stop by Goebbels on 11 November , but violence continued against the Jews in the concentration camps despite orders requesting " special treatment " to ensure that this did not happen . On 23 November , the " News Chronicle " of London published an article on an incident which took place at the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen . Sixty - two Jews suffered punishment so severe that the police , " unable to bear their cries , turned their backs " . They were beaten until they fell and , when they fell , they were further beaten . At the end of it , " twelve of the sixty - two were dead , their skulls smashed . The others were all unconscious . The eyes of some had been knocked out , their faces flattened and shapeless " . The 30 , 000 Jewish men who had been imprisoned during " Kristallnacht " were released over the next three months but , by then , more than 2 , 000 had died . Aftermath . Hermann Göring met with other members of the Nazi leadership on 12 November to plan the next steps after the riot , setting the stage for formal government action . In the transcript of the meeting , Göring said , ' I have received a letter written on the Führer ' s orders requesting that the Jewish question be now , once and for all , coordinated and solved one way or another . . . I should not want to leave any doubt , gentlemen , as to the aim of today ' s meeting . We have not come together merely to talk again , but to make decisions , and I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of the Jew from the German economy , and to submit them to me . ' The persecution and economic damage done to German Jews continued after the pogrom , even as their places of business were ransacked . They were forced to pay " Judenvermögensabgabe " , a collective fine of one billion marks for the murder of vom Rath ( equal to roughly $ US 5 . 5 billion in today ’ s currency ) , which was levied by the compulsory acquisition of 20 % of all Jewish property by the state . Six million Reichsmarks of insurance payments for property damage due to the Jewish community were to be paid to the government instead as " damages to the German Nation " . The number of emigrating Jews surged , as those who were able left the country . In the ten months following " Kristallnacht " , more than 115 , 000 Jews emigrated from the Reich . The majority went to other European countries , the US and Palestine , and at least 14 , 000 made it to Shanghai , China . As part of government policy , the Nazis seized houses , shops , and other property the émigrés left behind . Many of the destroyed remains of Jewish property plundered during Kristallnacht were dumped near Brandenburg . In October 2008 , this dumpsite was discovered by Yaron Svoray , an investigative journalist . The site , the size of four American football fields , contained an extensive array of personal and ceremonial items looted during the riots against Jewish property and places of worship on the night of 9 November 1938 . It is believed the goods were brought by rail to the outskirts of the village and dumped on designated land . Among the items found were glass bottles engraved with the Star of David , mezuzot , painted window sills , and the armrests of chairs found in synagogues , in addition to an ornamental swastika . Responses to " Kristallnacht " . From the Germans . The reaction of non - Jewish Germans to " Kristallnacht " was varied . Many spectators gathered on the scenes , most of them in silence . The local fire departments confined themselves to prevent the flames spreading to neighbouring buildings . In Berlin , the police officer Wilhelm Krützfeld barred SA troopers from setting the New Synagogue on fire and received only a rebuke . The British historian Martin Gilbert believes that " many non - Jews resented the round up " , his opinion being supported by German witness Dr . Arthur Flehinger who recalls seeing " people crying while watching from behind their curtains " . The extent of the damage was so great that many Germans are said to have expressed their disapproval of it , and to have described it as senseless . Martin Sasse , bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia and a leading member of the German Christians movement , published a compendium of Martin Luther ' s writings shortly after the " Kristallnacht " ; Sasse " applauded the burning of the synagogues " and the coincidence of the day , writing in the introduction , " On 10 November 1938 , on Luther ' s birthday , the synagogues are burning in Germany . " The German people , he urged , ought to heed these words " of the greatest anti - Semite of his time , the warner of his people against the Jews . " Diarmaid MacCulloch argued that Luther ' s 1543 pamphlet , " On the Jews and Their Lies " was a " blueprint " for the " Kristallnacht " . In an article released for publication on the evening of 11 November , Goebbels ascribed the events of " Kristallnacht " to the " healthy instincts " of the German people . He went on to explain : " " The German people are anti - Semitic . It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race . " " Eyewitness accounts show the general response . Reports of the destruction are the main focus of the article . " They ripped up the belongings , the books , knocked over furniture , shouted obscenities " . < br > The scholarly response in that article is very much the same : " Houses of worship burned down , vandalized , in every community in the country where people either participate or watch . There are reports of people destroying family heirlooms and committing many other acts of vandalism . " From the global community . The " Kristallnacht " pogrom sparked international outrage . It discredited pro - Nazi movements in Europe and North America , leading to eventual decline of their support . Many newspapers condemned " Kristallnacht " , with some comparing it to the murderous pogroms incited by Imperial Russia in the 1880s . The United States recalled its ambassador ( but did not break off diplomatic relations ) while other governments severed diplomatic relations with Germany in protest . The British government approved the Kindertransport program for refugee children . As such , " Kristallnacht " also marked a turning point in relations between Nazi Germany and the rest of the world . The brutality of the pogrom , and the Nazi government ' s deliberate policy of encouraging the violence once it had begun , laid bare the repressive nature and widespread anti - Semitism entrenched in Germany , and turned world opinion sharply against the Nazi regime , with some politicians calling for war . The private protest against the Germans following " Kristallnacht " was held on 6 December 1938 . William Cooper , an aboriginal Australian , led a delegation of the Australian Aboriginal League on a march through Melbourne to the German Consulate to deliver a petition which condemned the “ cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany ” . German officials refused to accept the tendered document . A more personal response , in 1939 , was the oratorio " A Child of Our Time " by the English composer Michael Tippett . " Kristallnacht " as a turning point . " Kristallnacht " changed the nature of persecution from economic , political , and social to physical with beatings , incarceration , and murder ; the event is often referred to as the beginning of the Holocaust . In the words of historian Max Rein in 1988 , " Kristallnacht came . . . and everything was changed . " While November 1938 predated overt articulation of " the Final Solution " , it foreshadowed the genocide to come . Around the time of " Kristallnacht " , the SS newspaper " Das Schwarze Korps ' called for a " destruction by swords and flames . " At a conference on the day after the pogrom , Hermann Göring said : " The Jewish problem will reach its solution if , in any time soon , we will be drawn into war beyond our border — then it is obvious that we will have to manage a final account with the Jews . " Specifically , the Nazis managed to achieve in " Kristallnacht " all the theoretical targets they set for themselves : confiscation of Jewish belongings to provide finances for the military buildup to war , separation and isolation of the Jews , and most importantly , the move from the antisemitic policy of discrimination to one of physical damage , which began that night and continued until the end of World War II . The event showed the public attitude was not solidly behind the perpetrator s . Many Germans at the time found the pogroms troubling , because they equated them with the days of the SA street rule and lawlessness . The British Embassy in Berlin and British Consular offices throughout Germany received many protests and expressions of disquiet from members of the German public about the anti - Jewish actions of the time . Modern response . Many decades later , association with the " Kristallnacht " anniversary was cited as the main reason against choosing 9 November ( " Schicksalstag " ) , the day the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 , as the new German national holiday ; a different day was chosen ( 3 October 1990 , German reunification ) . The avant - garde guitarist Gary Lucas ' s 1988 composition " Verklärte Kristallnacht " , which juxtaposes the Israeli national anthem , " Hatikvah " , with phrases from " Deutschland Über Alles " amid wild electronic shrieks and noise , is intended to be a sonic representation of the horrors of " Kristallnacht " . It was premiered at the 1988 Berlin Jazz Festival and received rave reviews . ( The title is a reference to Arnold Schoenberg ' s 1899 work " Verklärte Nacht " that presaged his pioneering work on atonal music ; Schoenberg was an Austrian Jew exiled by the Nazis ) . " Kristallnacht " was the inspiration for the 1993 album " Kristallnacht " by the composer John Zorn . The German power metal band Masterplan ' s debut album , " Masterplan " ( 2003 ) , features an anti - Nazism song entitled " Crystal Night " as the fourth track . The German band BAP published a song titled " Kristallnaach " in their Cologne dialect , dealing with the emotions of the " Kristallnacht " .