The German Question, Part One Hundred Twenty-Eight

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/B
"Foreign Policy & The German Question" Part Six
"Kristallnacht"

In early November 1938, a German diplomat, Ernst vom Rath, serving with the German embassy in Paris, was shot by a Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan, whose parents had been forcibly taken out of Germany and put over the border into Poland.* As vom Rath lay in the hospital severely wounded, Nazi propaganda leader Joseph Goebbels prepared a massive attack on Germany's Jews to demonstrate Germans' "spontaneous" revenge for the shooting. Folks, you can't have a "prepared 'spontaneous' attack." The Nazis "claimed" a Jewish conspiracy, which was absolute nonsense.

Vom Rath died two days later and Nazi thugs, I mean Storm Troopers, and other thugs rampaged through Jewish businesses, community buildings and religious facilities, smashing windows and setting fires. German authorities simply stood by and did not intervene. The name "Kristallnacht," literally "Crystal Night," comes from the "broken glass" on the streets from all of the broken windows. Jews were assaulted and others were arrested, with many sent to concentration camps. Nearly all of Germany's synagogues were damaged or destroyed.

Now....get this. The Nazis "fined" the German Jewish community for the outbreak of violence!!! Further, a special charge was also put into effect to repair all of the broken windows and to secure damaged property. All in all, the whole terrible matter lowered world respect for Germany, at least for people with any sense of decency and conscience. Any illusions held by Germany's remaining Jews that the Nazi repressions would pass or lessen should have now been dispelled. In fact, far worse was to come. International protests were really just symbolic,** and many people seemed to remain in a state of denial that the escalating Nazi anti-Jewish persecutions were leading to the possibility of far more drastic actions.

* Poland was not renewing passport papers for Polish citizens who had lived outside of Poland for an extensive period of time, and this included the Grynszpans. The German authorities rounded up several thousand Polish Jews without notice, forcing them to leave with few belongings, and they simply put them over the border into Poland. The Grynszpans' son had been staying with relatives in Paris, so the expulsion of his parents was the apparent motivation for the shooting.

** The United States, for instance, temporarily recalled its ambassador from Germany.

WORD HISTORY:
Terror-This word goes back to Indo European "ter/tre," with the general meaning "to shake." This gave Latin "terrere," a verb meaning "to frighten." From the verb came the noun "terrorem," with the meaning "tremendous fear, dread." Old French inherited the word as part of its Latin-based vocabulary as "terreur," which was then borrowed into English in the late 1300s, first as "terrour," before the modern spelling. German also borrowed the word, and for those studying German it is masculine; thus "der Terror."