On 8 November 1938, one day before the Crystal Night, strange
persons who had never been seen there before suddenly appeared
in several small towns in Hessen near the French-German
border. They went to mayors, Kreisleiters (district Party
leaders) and other important officials in these towns and asked
them what actions were being planned against the Jews. The
officials were rather startled by these questions and replied
that they didn't know of any such plans. The strangers acted
as if they were shocked to hear this. They shouted and complained
that something had to be done against the Jews and then, without
further explanation, they disappeared. They usually regarded
the strangers as crazy anti-Semites and promptly forgot about
the incidents - until the next evening. Some of these
apparently crazy individuals really outdid themselves.
In one case two men, dressed as members of the
SS, went to an SA Standartenfuehrer (Colonel) and
ordered him to destroy the nearby synagogue. To
understand the absurdity of this one must know that
the SS and SA were completely separate
organizations. A real SS member would never have
tried to give orders to an SA unit. This case shows
that the strangers were foreigners who did not even
understand the distinctions of German
authority. The SA Standartenfuehrer rejected the
demands of the self-styled SS men and reported the incident
to his superiors.
When the provocateurs realized that their efforts were not working with local officials, they changed their tactics. Instead they tried to incite directly the people in the streets. In another town, for example, two men appeared at the market place and began making speeches to the people there, trying to incite them against the Jews. Eventually some people did indeed storm the synagogue, but by then the two provocateurs had, of course, disappeared. Similar incidents occurred in several towns. | |
Unidentified strangers suddenly appeared, gave speeches, started throwing stones at windows, stormed Jewish buildings, schools, hospitals, and synagogues, and then disappeared. |
These unusual incidents had already started on the 8th of
November, that is, before Ernst vom Rath was dead. His death
was only reported late on the evening of the 9th. The fact that
this strange pattern of incidents had already begun one day
earlier proves that the death of vom Rath was not the reason
for the Crystal Night outburst. Vom Rath was still alive
when the pogrom began.
Well organized and widespread incidents began on the evening of 9 November. Groups of generally five or six young men, armed with bars and clubs, went down the streets smashing store windows. They were not Jew-hating SA men, enraged over the murder of a German diplomat. They operated too methodically to have been motivated by anger. They carried out their work without any apparent | |
that encouraged certain other individuals from the lowest social classes to become a mob and continue the destruction. |
demolished and that "all" shop windows were destroyed. Aside
from this vague description, one is given almost no details.
History writers tell us that during the Crystal Night all the Jews
were frightened, meekly accepted whatever happened to them
and watched the destruction of their property with no
resistance. The contrary is true. While going through the files
on this subject, I found many documents which report precisely
just the opposite of what is claimed. The fact is that in many
cases Jews and their German neighbors fought together
against the attackers, pushing them down
staircases. Street mobs were beaten up and
chased away in more than one case.
SA officers stood watch preventing attacks
Police and Party officials were generally on the side
of the Jews. Some Jewish community leaders went to police
stations the next morning and asked the police to investigate
the damage done to their synagogues. The resulting police
reports are still available in the files today.
directly affected by these events. In Berlin, for example, all
of the teachers and pupils of the city's largest Jewish school, which
served the entire Berlin area, appeared in their classes the
next morning without having noticed anything unusual
during the previous night.
Jewish historians rewrote history
Historians wrote: "Every single Jew was beaten, chased,
robbed, insulted and humiliated. The SA tore the Jews from
their beds, mercilessly beat them in their apartments and
then ... chased them almost to death ... Blood flowed everywhere."
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