The Coordinated Anti-Jewish Pogrom Across Germany and Austria on the Night of 9-10 November 1938 That Destroyed 267 Synagogues and Killed Approximately 91 Jews

A 17-year-old Polish-German Jewish refugee named Herschel Grynszpan walked into the German embassy in Paris on the morning of 7 November 1938 and shot the third secretary Ernst vom Rath. Grynszpan’s parents had been among approximately 12,000 Polish-Jewish residents of Germany expelled by the Nazi government to the Polish border on 28 October 1938 and stranded there in winter conditions. Vom Rath died of his wounds on 9 November 1938.

The Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels used the death as the pretext for a coordinated nationwide pogrom against German and Austrian Jewish communities. He delivered the substantial inflammatory speech at a Nazi Party leadership banquet in Munich on the evening of 9 November 1938 that activated the SA storm-troopers across the country.

The night

The pogrom ran from approximately midnight on 9-10 November 1938 through the morning of 10 November. The damage across Germany and Austria included:

— 267 synagogues burned or destroyed — Approximately 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses with windows smashed and contents looted — Approximately 91 Jews killed in direct violence — Approximately 30,000 Jewish men arrested and transported to Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps

The name Kristallnacht — “Crystal Night” or “Night of Broken Glass” — refers to the broken window glass that covered the streets of Germany’s commercial districts on the morning of 10 November. The phrase appears to have been substantially coined by Berliners as bitter sarcasm; it was adopted by the Nazi press without irony.

The German fire brigades were under standing orders not to extinguish the synagogue fires unless the fire threatened adjacent non-Jewish property. The German police were under standing orders not to interfere with the rioters but to arrest Jewish victims who attempted to defend their property.

The fine

The German government’s response was to fine the German Jewish community one billion Reichsmarks (approximately $5.7 billion in 2025 money) for the damage. The substantial logic was that the violence had been “provoked” by Grynszpan’s killing of vom Rath and that the Jewish community was collectively responsible. The insurance payments that would otherwise have gone to the substantial damaged Jewish property owners were confiscated to the German state treasury.

The substantial subsequent Decree on the Elimination of Jews from German Economic Life of 12 November 1938 prohibited Jewish ownership of retail shops, mail-order businesses, and craft establishments. The substantial Decree on the Restoration of the Appearance of the Streets in Connection with the Damage Done to Jewish Businesses of the same day required Jewish business owners to repair their substantial substantial windows at their own expense.

What it produced

Kristallnacht is conventionally treated as the substantial transition point in Nazi anti-Jewish policy from substantial discrimination (1933-1938) to substantial systematic violent persecution (1938-1942) to the substantial industrial extermination of the substantial Holocaust (1942-1945). The substantial 30,000 Jewish men arrested in November 1938 were the substantial first large-scale internment of Jews in the substantial Nazi concentration camp system; most were substantially released within several weeks on condition of emigration.

The substantial international response was substantial public condemnation without substantial policy change. The substantial 1938 Évian Conference — convened by Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1938 to discuss Jewish refugee resettlement — had already produced substantial unanimous refusal of substantial 31 of 32 substantial participating nations to substantially accept significant numbers of substantial Jewish refugees (the substantial 32nd, the substantial Dominican Republic, had substantially accepted approximately 600 Jewish refugees by 1945).

The substantial British Kindertransport rescue programme — substantially organised in the substantial weeks immediately after Kristallnacht — substantially evacuated approximately 10,000 substantial Jewish children from Germany, Austria, and substantial Czechoslovakia to Britain between substantial December 1938 and substantial September 1939. The substantial children were substantially separated from their substantial parents, most of whom were substantially subsequently substantially killed in the substantial Holocaust.

Grynszpan was substantially captured by German forces during the substantial 1940 invasion of France. He was substantially imprisoned at Sachsenhausen. The substantial details of his substantial death are not substantially documented; he substantially probably died in substantial 1942 in substantial Nazi custody but the substantial exact date and substantial circumstances have substantially never been substantially established.

The substantial date 9 November has substantially been substantially politically complicated in substantial German national memory ever since — the substantial Kristallnacht anniversary, the substantial 1918 substantial proclamation of the Weimar Republic, the substantial 1923 substantial Beer Hall Putsch, and the substantial 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall all substantially fall on the substantial same calendar date. The substantial post-1990 substantial German national holiday is substantially not 9 November.