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Question: How did the Kristallnacht signal change in Nazi polcy toward the German Jewish population!?
Please describe its events and their effects!.Www@QuestionHome@Com


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On the nights of November 9 and 10, gangs of Nazi youth roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of Jewish businesses and homes, burning synagogues and looting!. In all 101 synagogues were destroyed and almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed!. 26,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps, Jews were physically attacked and beaten and 91 died (Snyder, Louis L!. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich!. New York: Paragon House, 1989:201)!.

The official German position on these events, which were clearly orchestrated by Goebbels, was that they were spontaneous outbursts!. The Fuehrer, Goebbels reported to Party officials in Munich, "has decided that such demonstrations are not to be prepared or organized by the party, but so far as they originate spontaneously, they are not to be discouraged either!." (Conot, Robert E!. Justice at Nuremberg!. New York: Harper & Row, 1983:165)

Three days later, on November 12, Goering called a meeting of the top Nazi leadership to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it!. Present at the meeting were Goering, Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Walter Funk and other ranking Nazi officials!. The intent of this meeting was two-fold: to make the Jews responsible for Kristallnacht and to use the events of the preceding days as a rationale for promulgating a series of antisemitic laws which would, in effect, remove Jews from the German economy!. An interpretive transcript of this meeting is provided by Robert Conot, Justice at Nuremberg, New York: Harper and Row, 1983:164-172):
Kristallnacht turns out to be a crucial turning point in German policy regarding the Jews and may be considered as the actual beginning of what is now called the Holocaust!.


By now it is clear to Hitler and his top advisors that forced immigration of Jews out of the Reich is not a feasible option!.
Hitler is already considering the invasion of Poland!.
Numerous concentration camps and forced labor camps are already in operation!.
The Nuremberg Laws are in place!.
The doctrine of lebensraum has emerged as a guiding principle of Hitler's ideology!. And,
The passivity of the German people in the face of the events of Kristallnacht made it clear that the Nazis would encounter little opposition -- even from the German churches!.
http://www!.mtsu!.edu/~baustin/knacht!.html
On November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed a wave of pogroms against Germany's Jews!. In the space of a few hours, thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses and homes were damaged or destroyed!. This event came to be called Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") for the shattered store windowpanes that carpeted German streets!.

The pretext for this violence was the November 7 assassination of a German diplomat in Paris, Ernst vom Rath, by Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish teenager whose parents, along with 17,000 other Polish Jews, had been recently expelled from the Reich!. Though portrayed as spontaneous outbursts of popular outrage, these pogroms were calculated acts of retaliation carried out by the SA, SS, and local Nazi party organizations!.

Stormtroopers killed at least 91 Jews and injured many others!. For the first time, Jews were arrested on a massive scale and transported to Nazi concentration camps!. About 30,000 Jews were sent to Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen, where hundreds died within weeks of arrival!. Release came only after the prisoners arranged to emigrate and agreed to transfer their property to "Aryans!."

Kristallnacht culminated the escalating violence against Jews that began during the incorporation of Austria into the Reich in March 1938!. It also signaled the fateful transfer of responsibility for "solving" the "Jewish Question" to the SS
http://www!.ushmm!.org/museum/exhibit/onli!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com