| Date: |
November 9 - 10, 1938 |
| Sites: |
Jewish communities throughout Germany and Austria |
| Perpetrators: |
Mobs of Germans and Austrians, acting under instructions of the Nazi hierarchy |
| Damage: |
Arrested and sent to concentration camps (Buchenwald, Dachau, Sachsenhausen): 30,000 Jews (8,000 from Austria) |
| Murdered: |
36 Jews (other sources put this figure at 91) 36 more severely injured |
| Vandalized and/or set ablaze: |
7500 Jewish homes and businesses 267 synagogues (76 completely destroyed) |
| Pretext: |
Assassination of German diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, by Polish- Jewish refugee, Herschel Grynszpan, in an attempt to protest the forced deportation of his family, among the others, to the Polish- German border. |
| Causes: |
Nazi policy decision based on:
- Internal Nazi Party power struggles as segments of the party (i.e. The S.A., the propaganda section) wanted a greater role in the anti- Jewish activities
- Urge to expedite the exclusion of Jews from German life
- Economic factors such as the necessity to raise large amounts of money to pay for the rearmament of the German military
- 15th anniversary of Hitler's "Beer-Hall m Putsch" of 1923 created an atmosphere that encouraged street violence
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| Aftermath: |
- The Jewish community is immediately fined 1,000,000,000 Reichsmarks; Nazi government confiscates all insurance claims
- Nazis expedite plan for "elimination of the Jew from (the) economic life" of Germany established as official policy, November 12, 1938
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