Posted on 11/09/2008 7:55:57 AM PST by SJackson
On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi storm troopers throughout Germany and Austria ransacked Jewish homes, marauded through the streets, broke windows of Jewish-owned stores and looted merchandise, set fire to synagogues, randomly attacked Jewish men, women and children and arrested thousands of men. When the violence ended, at least 96 Jews were dead, 1,300 synagogues and 7,500 businesses destroyed and countless Jewish cemeteries and schools vandalized. A total of 30,000 Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. The broken glass strewn through the streets from the mayhem caused the pogrom to be called "Crystal Night" or Kristallnacht.
A Jewish shop in Berlin damaged during Kristallnacht. Photo: AP Some Germans claimed after the war that they did not know what the Nazis were doing to the Jews. On Kristallnacht, for the first and only time during the Third Reich, historian Ian Kershaw observed, "the German public was confronted directly on a nationwide scale with the full savagery of the attack on the Jews."
After Kristallnacht, a member of the Hitler Youth admitted, "no German old enough to walk could ever plead ignorance of the persecution of the Jews, and no Jews could harbor any delusion that Hitler wanted Germany anything but judenrein, clean of Jews."
While many Americans would also claim they were unaware of the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, the events of November 9-10 were well documented. The New York Times ran a front-page story on November 11: "A wave of destruction, looting and incendiarism unparalleled in Germany since the Thirty Years War and in Europe generally since the Bolshevist Revolution swept over Great Germany today as National Socialist cohorts took vengeance on Jewish shops, offices and synagogues for the murder by a young Polish Jew of Ernst vom Rath, third secretary of the German Embassy in Paris." Another Times story was headlined, "All Vienna's synagogues attacked."
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT made no immediate comment after Kristallnacht, referring questions about it to the State Department. Only after five days of widespread public outrage did he take any action: recalling the US ambassador from Germany and stating in a press conference, "The news of the past few days from Germany has deeply shocked public opinion in the US. Such news from any part of the world would inevitably produce a similar profound reaction among American people in every part of the nation. I myself could scarcely believe that such things could happen in a 20th century civilization..."
Roosevelt agreed to allow 15,000 German Jews already in the United States to remain, but resisted all calls to increase the overall quota of immigrants from Nazi-occupied countries. Equally significant, his failure to take any action against Germany, or to mobilize an international coalition to challenge Hitler, sent the message that the world would not intervene to save the Jews. How much he could have done given the isolationist and xenophobic mood of the American public at that time is debatable, but the consequences of his inaction were catastrophic.
On January 21, 1939, Hitler told the Czech foreign minister, "We are going to destroy the Jews." Nine days later he spoke of "the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe." By the time the war started in September 1939, most Jews, about 370,000, had escaped Germany and Austria. The 175,000 who remained were viewed by the Nazis as hostages in case the Jews outside Germany were considering any vengeful acts.
The deportation of German Jews to their deaths began in October 1941. At the end of April 1943, 150 Jewish children who had been living on a farm training to be Zionist pioneers were deported in one of the final transports of German Jews. Most died in concentration camps. Fewer than 10,000 of the 131,800 German Jews targeted for extermination by the Nazis survived.
Of the 43,700 Austrian Jews who had failed to escape the Nazis, fewer than 2,000 returned to their homes after the war. These were just a fraction of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
On this 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht we should be reminded of Edmund Burke's warning: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
We have to work harder for the Republican Party because it's going to be a rough four years.
There is a small glimmer of hope, though. It's in the form of a nutcase aptly named Phil Berg. On December 1, obama has to surrender his birth certificate to the Supreme Court. It might get interesting.
I don't know, but I'd question that assertion. If I'm not mistaken the infamous badges were instituted immediately after Kristallnacht, worn under penalty of death. Enforcement of restrictions on things like employment were tigntened. I can't imagine things "on the street" got better for Jews, now immediately identifiable.
Ironically, it was Hitler’s loathsome civilian national security corps, the SA, or brownshirts, who provided the “boots on the ground” to make the Kristallnacht happen. Without them, the German public probably wouldn’t have committed such an act on such a grand scale.
But Hitler loved corps. Along with the SA, and the Stormtroopers, he had the Labor Service Corps, Hitler Youth Corps, German Veterans Corps, Hitler Leadership Corps, Speakers Corps, Women’s Corps, German Student’s Corps, Teacher’s Corps, Labor Corps, and Lawyer’s Corps.
Obama plans to expand AmeriCorps, USA Freedom Corps, VISTA, YouthBuild Program, and the Senior Corps. And form new Classroom Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veterans Corps, Homeland Security Corps, Global Energy Corps, and a Green Jobs Corps.
That’s true, just as they assured his election in 1933.
Though quite dissimilar, there is an underlying connection between armed militia outside te Reichstag for the vote and open balloting for union ratification. Intimidation.
Hitler was never elected. He was appointed Chancellor.
Again, I’d go back to the badges. Ones Jewishness on clear display, under penalty of death, it doesn’t get much more visible than that. I’d be curious what he meant myself. He’s correct persecution in general continued to ramp up, but I can’t see how everyday, public life could have been easier.
I wasn’t clear, I was referring to the Enabling Act which essentially cemented his power. The vote taken with the SA providing “security”, and mobs of supporters surrounding the temporary Reichstag building.
BTTT
Actually, the SA was effectively ended by Hitler in 1934 with the purge of its leaders:
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/roehm-bio.htm
But Hitler had other paramilitary groups as you state.
At that point they'd been stripped of citizenship, government and many forms of private empolyment, the right to transfer and in many cases own property. Most were attempting to flee the country. It's possible there was a short term decline in public humiliations, many Christians were outraged by Kristallnacht, many participated. IMO common sense suggests that probaly wasn't the case. It would be interesting to know just what evidence the professor bases that opinion on. Point 5 of Heydrich's order
5. As soon as the course of events during the night permits the release of the officials required, as many Jews in all districts – especially the rich – as can be accommodated in existing prisons are to be arrested. For the time being only healthy male Jews, who are not too old, are to be detained. After the detentions have been carried out the appropriate concentration camps are to be contacted immediately for the prompt accommodation of the Jews in the camps. Special care is to be taken that the Jews arrested in accordance with these instructions are not ill-treated....
suggests that if things did imporve, the improvement was accidental
Don't know the answer, or even if your assumption is true.
But it's worth remembering that by this time, nearly every Jew who could leave Germany had left, or was desperately trying to.
Those who remained were mostly too old, too poor, or possibly believed they were somehow protected from the worst. For sure, they would try to remain inconspicuous.
Which means that from the perspective of public humiliations, there may well indeed have been fewer after Kristallnact.
Because there were fewer Jews to humiliate!
Let us never forget.
Why is it always the Jews?
Considering their population size, you ascribe them far more voting power than they really have.
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