'Crystal Night' 1938: The great Anti-German spectacle
Ingrid Weckert
"Crystal Night" is the name that's been given to the night of
9-10 November 1938. In almost all large German cities and some smaller
ones that night, store windows of Jewish shops were broken, Jewish
houses and apartments were destroyed, and synagogues were demolished and
set on fire. Many Jews were arrested, some were beaten, and some were
even killed. The "Reich Crystal Night" (
Reichskristallnacht) was
one of the most shameful events of National Socialist Germany. Although
the Jews suffered initially, the greatest harm was ultimately done to
Germany and the German people.
Even people who are sympathetic to National Socialism cannot
understand how this event could have happened. Julius Streicher, the
so-called "number one Jew baiter" [note 1] for example, was shocked when
he first learned about the demonstrations and destruction the next
morning.
The all-important question is: Who was responsible for the incident?
It is generally accepted, especially by contemporary historians, that
the Nazi gang organized and carried out the pogrom, and that the chief
instigator was Propaganda Minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels. The truth of the
matter is that Adolf Hitler was so disgusted by the incident that he
forbade anyone from discussing the matter in his presence. Dr. Goebbels
complained that he would now have to explain this terrible affair to the
German people and the world, and that he simply did not know what kind
of credible explanation to give. If he had actually been responsible for
the Crystal Night, he surely would have had a well-prepared
explanation. The explanation he gave on the morning of the 10th was
extremely unconvincing and was generally not believed by the German
public.
During my study of this subject, which resulted in my book on
the Crystal Night, Feuerzeichen, I found many facts which do not
agree with the generally accepted thesis. On the contrary, the evidence
which I have found gives a completely different picture.
The Story We Are Given
The generally accepted sequence of events, according to most writers on the subject, is this:
In early October 1938 the Polish government announced that all Polish
passports would become invalid at the end of the month unless they
received a special stamp before then, obtainable only in Poland. This
measure was meant to rid Poland effectively for all time of all Polish
Jews living in foreign countries, most of whom were in Germany. Many of
the approximately 70,000 Polish Jews living in the Reich at the time had
arrived after the First World War. Of course, the German government now
feared that it would have to permanently accept these 70,000 Jews. The
German government tried to negotiate this issue with the Poles, but they
flatly refused.
On 28 October, just two days before the deadline, German police
rounded up between 15,000 and 17,000 Polish Jews, mostly adult males,
from across the Reich and transported them to the German-Polish border.
The deportees traveled in regular German passenger trains with more than
adequate space. Contrary to some claims, they were not crammed into
cattle cars. The deportees were well provided with food and medical
care. Red Cross personnel and medical doctors accompanied them on the
trains.[note 2]
The Polish border officials were surprised when the first trainloads
arrived at the border, and they let the Jews enter Poland. At about the
same time, the Polish government was deporting German Jews back to
Germany. The next day, 29 October, the Polish and German governments
suddenly agreed to stop the deportations of their respective Jewish
populations to each other's countries. The deportations were completely
halted that night.
Among the Polish Jews deported was the family of Herschel Feibel
Grynszpan (Gruenspan), a l7-year-old then living Paris. What followed
next is generally reported either incorrectly or very one-sidedly.
On 7
November Grynszpan went to the German Embassy in Paris and shot Embassy
Secretary Ernst vom Rath. It is said that Grynszpan did this because he
was furious over the deportation of his family. The truth about his
motivation is very different. It is also claimed that the German
population, upset by the news of vom Rath's death on the 8th, organized
anti-Jewish demonstrations, destroyed Jewish stores, and demolished or
set on fire all the synagogues in Germany. Demonstrations and
destruction did take place, but the truth is that they were not
organized by the German people and did not affect most of the synagogues
in the Reich. Finally, it is claimed that the Crystal Night was the
beginning of the extermination of the Jews in Germany. This is entirely
false.
German-Jewish Relations Prior to the Crystal Night
Before explaining how the events surrounding the Crystal Night differ
from what is generally believed, I must first give some background
information about the peaceful years in Germany after Hitler came to
power in 1933. Anyone who is aware of the true situation in Germany
during the Third Reich era recognizes that the Crystal Night episode was
quite extraordinary. It was a radical aberation from the normal pattern
of daily life. The outburst was not in keeping with either the official
National Socialist Jewish policy nor with the general German attitude
towards the Jews.
The Germans were no more anti-Semitic than any other
people. In fact, Jews who had to leave other European countries
preferred Germany as a place to live and work.
Within the National Socialist-Party itself there were two distinct
anti-Semitic factions. One was scholarly and one was vulgar. The
scholarly faction was centered around the Institute for the Study of the
Jewish Question. It published several journals and gave lectures to
civic and political groups.
Its activities were consistent with the
policy of peacefully removing the Jews from Germany and resettling them
elsewhere. The SS was totally committed to this policy and rejected
vulgar anti-Semitism. The vulgar anti-Semitic faction tried to influence
popular feeling. The chief exponent of this approach was Julius
Streicher, who published the unofficial monthly
Der Stuermer. It
used crude caricatures to portray Jews in the most horrible way in an
effort to convince readers that the Jews were as evil as Satan. For
years the motto
"The Jews Are Our Misfortune" appeared on the front page
of every issue.
Der Stuermer often employed improper and undignified means to make its point.
German National Socialism basically regarded the Jews as non-German
aliens who had proven themselves destructive to any nation that
permitted them to dominate. Therefore, the only way to prevent further
problems was to separate the Jews from the Germans. In other words, they
had to emigrate.
On this point the National Socialists and the Zionists
were in full agreement. Although the Jews made up less than one percent
of the total German population in 1933, they had power and influence in
finance, business, cultural affairs and scientific life far out of
proportion to their small numbers. Jewish influence was very widely
regarded as harmful to German recovery after the First World War. This "declaration" took the form of a worldwide boycott of
German goods. A week later there was an officially sanctioned boycott of
Jewish shops and stores throughout Germany. This action was in direct
response to the international Jewish boycott of German goods already in
effect. However, the German response was a rather absurd affair and it
was therefore limited to a single day, the first of April 1933. Hitler
and Goebbels privately recognized that the German counter-boycott was a
failure and would only turn people against the new government.
Furthermore, this one-day action came on a Saturday, the Jewish sabbath.
Religious Jews took malicious pleasure at the discomfort of the Jews
who normally kept their stores open on Saturdays and were now, in
effect, forced by the government to obey the Jewish law against work on
the sabbath. The National Socialist regime thereafter sought to diminish
Jewish influence and power by strictly legal means. The first German
law which could be considered anti-Jewish was dated 7 April 1933.
Although the legal status of the Jews was restricted, each and every Jew
knew what his legal rights were and to what he was still entitled.
There were no secret or extra-legal measures against the Jews.
No
legal measures were taken against the Jews in Germany until after the
international Jewish "Declaration of War" against Germany, as announced,
for example, on the front page of the London Daily Express of 24
March 1933.
Ironically, it was precisely the official discrimination policy
against the Jews which reduced the effectiveness of anti-Semitic
propaganda to almost nothing. The Germans are a generally fair-minded
people. When Germans saw their Jewish neighbors being treated unjustly,
they considered that far worse than the dangers which the Jews
supposedly represented simply because they were Jewish. Furthermore,
the
examples of Jewish criminality and perversion described in Der Stürmer
were widely regarded as exceptions to normal Jewish behavior. The
average German was convinced that the Jews whom he knew personally were
completely unlike the criminal types sometimes described in newspapers.
In my home town of Berlin most of the doctors and lawyers were still
Jewish. And even the public health officer for children in the district
of Berlin where my family lived was a Jew who kept this job throughout
the war. I still remember one day when my mother returned from her
Jewish doctor. She told us that she hadn't been able to see him because
he was no longer there. He had been taken away-hauled off the previous
night. My mother was very upset. A crowd of people had gathered outside
his house. They were all shocked, and they discussed the injustice of
this measure quite openly. My parents later talked about what had
happened, and they both agreed that the doctor had never really done
anything wrong. Their reaction was typical. A few days later our family
pediatrician, who was also Jewish, was likewise taken away.
At the time I did not know what it meant to be taken away. It was
only many years after the war, when I started reading the Holocaust
literature, that I learned that I was supposed to believe that to be
taken away meant deportation to a concentration camp and probable death.
But like so many thousands of others, these two doctor families were
not exterminated. One summer day in 1973, as I was walking through the
streets of the German quarter in Tel Aviv, I came upon the name plates
of both doctors on the doors of two houses. I immediately tried to visit
them and found out that both families had migrated to Palestine in
1939. Although one of them had died in the meantime in Israel, I was
able to speak to the other. He remembered my father very well and
explained that
when he and his family were arrested, they were taken to a
camp and given the choice of either signing a document declaring their
intention of emigrating from Germany or being taken to a labor camp. He
and his family chose to emigrate. In fact, most German Jews survived the
anti-Semitic measures quite well. That does not mean that those
measures were not unfair to individual Jews, but they could usually
manage to live with them.
The Haavara Agreement
As already mentioned, the main goal of Germany's Jewish policy was to
encourage the Jews to emigrate. After the beginning of the
international Jewish boycott against German goods in March 1933, the
Jewish community in Palestine contacted the German government and
offered a break in the boycott as far as Palestine was concerned
provided it was combined with Jewish emigration from Germany. As a
result, the "Haavara" or "Transfer" agreement was signed by the Germans
and Jews in May 1933. [note 3] The Jewish community thus concluded an
extremely beneficial agreement with the National Socialist government
only a few months after its formation.
This agreement was a crucial
phase in the creation of the State of Israel. When I made this claim in
my book
Feuerzeichen, which appeared in 1981, some readers
considered it outrageous. [note 4] But then this same claim was made in
The Transfer Agreement, a book by Edwin Black published in 1984. The
final paragraph of his book concludes with the statement that the
continuing economic relationship between the Jewish community of
Palestine and
National Socialist Germany was "an indispendable factor in
the creation of the State of' Israel." [note 5]
The Haavara agreement made it possible for any Jew to emigrate from
Germany with practically all of his possessions and personal fortune
provided that Jews could deposit all of their assets in one of two
Jewish-owned banks in Germany which had branch offices in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem. Upon arrival in Palestine they could withdraw their assets
according to the terms of the agreement. The German capital of these two
Jewish banking firms was guaranteed by the German government. Even
after the war these assets were fully available to the Jewish owners or
their representatives If a Jew did not wish to emigrate immediately he
could transfer all of his personal assets to Palestine where they would
be safeguarded by a trustee while he remained in Germany for an
indefinite period with emigration as his eventual goal. In the meantime
his personal fortune was safe outside of Germany.
Even poorer Jews who did not possess 1,000 English pounds were able
to emigrate to Palestine with credits provided through the Haavara. The
British authorities generally required minimum assets of 1,000 pounds
for each immigrant to Palestine if he was not entitled to a so-called
worker's certificate. Only a limited number of these certificates were
available and they were issued only to persons with special job skills.
In addition, Jews emigrating to Palestine were exempt from the so-called
"Reich flight tax," which all emigrating Germans normally had to pay.
However, the Jewish companies which arranged the transfers charged the
emigrants a fixed percentage of their total assets. The Haavara
agreement remained in operation until the end of 1941 when the United
States entered the war.
National Socialist Ethical Standards
I am always amazed whenever I read books about the Third Reich
published after the war. Most give an almost totally false impression of
the reality of the Third Reich. The Germany of Adolf Hitler was not the
Germany described by such books. It was quite different. I was brought
up during the Third Reich. Along with my entire generation, I received
an education of the highest ethical standards. We were brought up to
love and respect our country and people. We were taught to be proud of
its great history. The heroes of Germany's past represented our great
ideals. They spurred us to honesty and responsibility in our own lives.
In my opinion, the youth of Adolf Hitler's Germany was the finest of all
Europe and perhaps of the entire world.
The same ethical standards applied to the SS and SA. The SA
stormtroopers were not sophisticated men. They usually preferred to use
their fists before using their heads, but they acted according to the
ideals which they had been taught: honor, faithfulness, honesty and
devotion to their people and country. They were not at all the sadistic
beasts portrayed by so-called historians. It was their faithfulness and
gallantry which saved Germany from chaos and Communism. It is sheer
stupidity to describe the SA men as blood-thirsty killers, as is widely
done today. Although some individual SA men may have committed acts of
brutality, it is nonsense to blame the entire organization or the whole
German people and its government for such behavior. Individual SA men
were indeed involved in the Crystal Night incident. But far fewer
actually participated than has been claimed. Of the 28 SA Groups which
existed in Germany at the time, the available evidence identifies only
three as having actually received orders to join the anti-Jewish
demonstrations.
What Really Happened During the Crystal Night
Now let us look at what really happened during that fateful night.
After 1945 any harm ever done to any Jew in National Socialist
Germany has been described in great detail in many publications and
combined with other.stories to give exaggerated figures which have then
become the so-called "historical truth." How strange it is then that
despite the passage of more than forty years, no one has established the
true extent of the damage done to the Jews during the Crystal Night.
All one can learn from history writers is that "all" synagogues were
demolished and that "all" shop windows were destroyed. Aside from this
vague description, one is given almost no details.
On the basis of the so-called "historical truth" about the Crystal
Night, the President of the World Jewish Congress, Nahum Goldmann, had
the chutzpah in 1952 to claim 500 million dollars from German Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer as reparation payment for the damage done during that
November night. When Adenauer asked Goldmann for his justification for
this enormous request, Goldmann replied: "You find the justification
yourself! What I want is not the justification but the money." [note 7]
And he got his money! Goldmann may have interpreted the willingness of
the German Chancellor to pay a half billion dollars as proof for the
claim that all synagogues had been destroyed. Why else would Germany be
so foolish as to pay for something which never happened? All the same,
the "historical truth" that "all" German synagogues were destroyed is a
lie.
In 1938 there were approximately 1,400 synagogues in Germany, of
which only about 180 were destroyed or damaged. Furthermore, Jews owned
approximately 100,000 shops and department stores in Germany in 1938. Of
this number, only about 7,500 had their windows broken. These figures
show just how much the so-called "historical truth" differs from what
actually happened. The damage and destruction that did actually occur
was, of course, a terrible shame, but the exaggerations, especially by
German historians who use them to condemn their own people, are also a
shame.
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. 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.
Also contrary to what we have been told, most Jews were not 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. Heinemann Stern, the
Jewish principal of that school, wrote in his postwar memoirs that he
noticed a burning synagogue on his way to the school on the morning
after the Crystal Night, but he thought it was just an accidental fire.
It was only after he arrived at the school that he received a telephone
call informing him of the destruction of the previous night. He then
went on with his classes of the day and only during the first recess did
he take the trouble to inform the entire student body about what had
happened. [note 8]
How can such evidence be reconciled with the claim by Herman Graml, a
prominent German historian and associate of the Munich Institute of
Contemporary History, who 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." [note 9] Is it conceivable
that thousands of Jewish children would be have been sent to school by
their parents on the morning after that fateful night if the attacks
against Jews had been so horrific or extensive? Would any parents have
let their children go to school if they had thought there was even the
slightest danger of them being attacked by roving gangs of SA men? I
think the answer is clearly no! Deplorable things did indeed happen
which were bad enough, but the fantasies of modern historians and
history writers such as Graml are simply inexcusable.
The Grynszpan Story
It was Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (Gruenspan) who initiated the entire
Crystal Night affair by shooting the Secretary of the German Embassy in
Paris, Ernst vom Rath. History writers tell us that the 17-year-old
Grynszpan was merely a poor Jewish boy who had been driven to despair by
the injustice done to his family and who, in his deep depression, shot
the young German diplomat. The fact, however, is that Grynszpan had not
shown any previous interest in his family's fate. He had wanted to be
free of them and had gone to Paris to live on his own.
When the French police asked Grynszpan why he had shot vom Rath, he gave several contradictory explanations:
Version 1: He did not mean to kill vom Rath. He had wanted to kill
the German ambassador but because he did not know the ambassador
personally, he shot vom Rath instead by mistake.
Version 2: He had only wanted to kill himself, but wanted to do so
directly beneath a portrait of Adolf Hitler. In this way he hoped to
become a symbol for the Jewish people, who were being murdered daily in
Germany.
Version 3: He had not intended to kill anyone. Although he had a
pistol in his hand, he did not know how to handle it properly and it
simply went off accidentally.
Version 4: He could not remember what had happened while he stood in
vom Rath's office. All he remembered was that he was there, but did not
remember why.
Version 5: He couldn't understand the question at all. He must have
had a complete blackout because he no longer remembered anything.
And finally, version 6, which he gave several years later to German
officials: Whatever the French police had written down about his reason
was nonsense. The true story is that he used to procure young boys for
the German embassy secretary because vom Rath had been a homosexual. And
he shot vom Rath because he had not been paid for his services. This is
the only explanation which he later retracted during interrogation.
However, none of these explanations is correct.
The true story is far less heroic. Grynszpan had left his family in
Hannover, Germany, in 1936 after finishing elementary school but without
graduating. His father had been a piece-work tailor who had moved from
Poland to Germany after the First World War. Herschel had a reputation
for disliking work and he hung out at the homes of his uncles in
Brussels and Paris. In February 1938 his Polish passport expired and the
French government refused to renew his residence permit. As a direct
result, his Paris uncle insisted that Herschel leave his home because he
was afraid of getting into touble with the law. And now the story
begins to get extremely interesting. Although Grynszpan had no job or
money (his uncle refused to support him), he was nevertheless able to
move into a hotel. His hotel happened to be just around the corner from
the offices of an important and influential Jewish organization, the
International League Against Anti-Semitism, or LICA. The questions which
now arise are: Who supported him after February 1938 and who paid for
his hotel room? Although he had no apparent means of support or even
valid identity papers between February and November 1938, Grynszpan was
nevertheless able to purchase a handgun for 250 francs on the morning of
7 November 1938 and then, about an hour later, go to the German Embassy
and shoot vom Rath.
Grynszpan was arrested at the scene and was taken to a police
station. Although he was a totally obscure Polish Jew with no money and
no apparent supporters, nevertheless one of France's most famous
lawyers, Moro Giafferi, appeared at the police station a few hours after
the shooting and told the police that he was Grynszpan's attorney.
Nothing could possibly have appeared about the shooting in any newspaper
before his arrival. How then could Moro Giafferi have possibly known
about the shooting? Why was he so eager to defend this young foreigner?
And finally, who was going to pay his attorney fees? As it turned out,
Giafferi took good care of Grynszpan during the following years. Before
the Grynszpan case could come before a French court, the war broke out.
After the Germans occupied France, he was turned over to them by the
French authorities. He was taken to Germany where he was interrogated
many times, but no trial ever took place. Moro Giafferi, who had moved
to Switzerland in the meantime, still managed to take good care of
Grynszpan.
Many German officials were actively interested in the case. They
wanted Grynszpan brought to trial, but this never happened. Rumors
circulated. A trial date was scheduled but then postponed again and
again and again. Whenever any official asked why Grynszpan had not been
brought to trial, he was given a different answer each time. The veil of
mystery surrounding this case was lifted only slightly many years after
the war when a note was discovered among the many hundreds of pages in
the Grynszpan file. This single short note stated simply that the trial
against Grynszpan would not take place for "other than official
reasons." [note 10] It gave no further explanation. Although the
National Socialist regime supposedly committed the greatest imaginable
crimes against the Jews, the murderer Grynszpan survived the war and
returned to Paris. Why to Paris, where he could still have been arrested
and tried for murder? But instead he received a new name and new
identity papers there. [note 11] From whom? Who was in Paris to help him
and once again take such good care of him?
Incidentally, the Grynszpan family also survived the war. The young
man's father, mother, brother and sister were deported to Poland as a
result of the Polish passport affair and shortly thereafter were somehow
able to emigrate to Palestine. Amazingly enough, this took place at a
time when immigration to Palestine was limited to persons who possessed
at least 1,000 English pounds in cash. Grynszpan's father, a poor
piece-work tailor, certainly never had a fortune of 4,000 English
pounds. Many years after the war the father testified at the Eichmann
trial in Jerusalem that he and his family had to give up all of their
money except for ten marks per family member when they arrived at the
German-Polish border in October l938. [note l2] How did they ever raise
the 4,000 English pounds only a short time later for their migration to
Palestine? Who organized their move?
Perhaps the answer to all of these questions is ... Moro Giafferi! He
was not a sorcerer, but someone even more powerful: he was the legal
counsel of the LICA. The LICA was founded in Paris in 1933 by the Jew
Bernard Lecache and operated as a militant propaganda organization
against real or imagined anti-Semitism. Its main office is still in
Paris at the same address it was at in 1938. (Now known as the LICRA, it
unsuccessfully sued Robert Faurisson a few years ago.) Moro Giafferi
was well worth the fees LICA paid him as its legal counsel. He
apparently enjoyed spectacular scenes. He had already achieved
international renown at a mass meeting in Paris following the Berlin
Reichstag fire of February 1933. Without knowing at all what had
happened, he nevertheless delivered a spiteful speech against National
Socialist Germany in which he accused Hermann Göring of setting the
fire. In February 1936 Giafferi hurried to Davos, Switzerland, where the
Jew David Frankfurter had shot and killed Wilhelm Gustloff, the head of
the Swiss branch of the German National Socialist Party. During the
subsequent trial it was clearly established that Frankfurter had been a
hired murderer with backing from an unidentified but influential
organization. All clues pointed to the LICA, but with Moro Giafferi as
his defense counsel, Frankfurter remained silent about who, if anyone,
had hired him. Amazingly enough, Frankfurter's answers to questions
about the shooting showed the same pattern as Grynszpan's answers almost
three years later after Giafferi arrived to help following the shooting
of Ernst vom Rath.
Who Could the Provocateurs Have Been?
Like a medal, the Crystal Night has two sides. One side lies in the
shining glare of historical research while the other remains in the
shadows. Until now no one (at least as far as I know) has tried to
examine the hidden side.
In the wake of the Crystal Night, almost everyone wanted to know who
the culprits were. Dr. Goebbels had to give an official explanation
which was, in effect, that the German people had been so enraged by the
murder of Ernst vom Rath that they wanted to punish the Jews and
therefore started the pogrom. But Goebbels did not really believe this
story himself. To several persons he expressed his suspicion that a
secret organization must have instigated the entire affair. He simply
could not believe that anything so well organized could have been a
spontaneous popular outburst.
One must understand the broad popularity of the National Socialist
regime at that time to realize how incredibly difficult it was to
imagine that any secret, well organized opposition movement could have
instigated such a pogrom. We now know about some of these so-called
resistance organizations. But at that time such well-organized
opposition groups seemed preposterous, so overwhelming was the
popularity and self-confidence of Hitler and the National Sociatist
government. Although the National Socialists were probably more aware of
the danger of Jewish power and influence than anyone else, they
nevertheless totally underestimated it. In a real sense, they were far
too naive. One consequence of this enormous popularity and
self-confidence was that the Party leaders themselves simply could not
imagine that it was not one of their own colleagues behind the whole
affair. Among the Party leaders fingers were being pointed in all
directions. Apparently to avoid internal wrangling and the harm that
this would do to their public image, an investigation to determine the
instigators never took place. Hitler believed that Dr. Goebbels, his
closest confidant and the one man he could never abandon, had been the
instigator.
The only persons actually punished were individual SA men who had
participated directly in the pogrom and been accused in German courts of
murder, assault, looting or other criminal acts by Jewish or German
witnesses to these crimes. But before any of these cases ever actually
came to trail, Hitler issued a special decree ordering the postponement
of all such cases until after the accused individuals were first
prosecuted by the Supreme Party Court, an internal court concerned with
discipline within the National Socialist Party organization. The most
severe punishment which the Court could impose was expulsion from the
Party. In this way the Party hoped to remove any guilty members from its
own ranks before they appeared as defendants in the criminal courts. In
February 1939 the Chief Judge of the Supreme Party Court, Walter Buch,
reported his findings to Hermann Göring. From an examination of the Buch
report as well as many documents from some of the thousands of trials
of so-called Nazi criminals held after the war, and corroborating
testimony by thousands of defendants and witnesses, I have been able to
gain a detailed and accurate understanding of what actually happened
during those fateful days and nights of November 1938.
Already 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. Most of those who were approached by
these strangers reported the incidents to the police or discussed them
with friends. 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
Standartenführer (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 Standartenführer 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 occured 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 8th. 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.
And this was only the beginning. 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 emotion. Nonetheless, it was their destruction that encouraged
certain other individuals from the lowest social classes to become a mob
and contimue the destruction. There is another mysterious aspect to all
this. Several district and local Party leaders (Kreisleiters and
Ortsgruppenleiters) were awakened from their sleep in the middle of the
night by telephone calls. Someone claiming to be from the regional Party
headquarters or the regional Party propaganda bureau (Gauleitung or
Gaupropagandaleitung) would ask what was happening in the official's
town or city. If the Party official answered "Nothing, everything is
quiet," the telephone caller would then say in German slang that he had
received an order to the effect that the Jews were going to get it
tonight and that the respective official should carry out the order. In
most cases the Party leader, disturbed from his sleep, did not even
understand what had happened. Some simply dismissed the call as a joke
and went back to bed. Others called back the office from where the
telephone voice had pretended to be calling. If they managed to reach
someone in charge, they were often told that nobody knew anything about
such a call. But if they reached only a lower official they were often
told: "Well, if you got that order, you'd better go ahead and do what
you were told." These telephone calls caused considerable confusion. All
this came out months later during the trials conducted by the Supreme
Party Court. The Chief Judge concluded that in every case a
misunderstanding had arisen in one link or other of the chain of
command. But when they were confronted with apparently genuine orders to
organize demonstrations against the Jews that night, most of the Party
leaders had simply not known what to do.
The pattern of seemingly sporadic anti-Jewish incidents in small
towns, followed only later by a carefully planned outburst in many large
cities throughout Germany, clearly suggests the work of a centrally
organized group of well-trained agents. Even shortly after the Crystal
Night, many leading Party officials suspected that the entire affair had
been centrally cordinated. Significantly, even Hermann Graml, the only
West German historian who has written in detail about the Crystal Night,
carefully distinguished between provocateurs and people who were simply
carried away by their emotions and spontaneously took part in the riot
and destruction. Without providing the slightest shred of real evidence,
Graml claims that the provocative agents were directed bv Dr. Goebbels.
Munich on the Ninth of November
While all this was happening across the Reich, a special annual
commemoration was being held in Munich. Fifteen years earlier, on 9
November 1923, a movement led by Adolf Hitler, Erich von Ludendorff (a
leading First World War General), and two major figures in the Bavarian
government tried to depose the legal government and take responsibility
themselves as a new national government. The uprising or putsch was put
down and 16 rebels were shot down next to the Feldherrnhalle, a famous
old monument building in central Munich. Accordingly, the 9th of
November had been commemorated every year since 1933 as the memorial day
for the martyred heroes of the National Socialist movement. Adolf
Hitler and the Party veterans, as well as all of the Gauleiters
(regional Party leaders) met every year in Munich for the occasion.
Hitler would usually deliver a speech to a select audience of Party
veterans at the famous Buergerbraeukeller restaurant on the evening of
the 8th. On the morning of the 9th Hitler and his veteran comrades would
reenact the 1923 "March to the Feldherrnhalle." On the evening of the
9th the Führer always held an informal dinner at the Old Town Hall
("Alte Rathaus") with old comrades as well as all the Gauleiters. At
midnight young men who were about to enter the SS and the SA were sworn
in at the Feldherrnhalle. All of the Gauleiters and other guests
participated in this very solemn ceremony. After it was over they left
Munich and returned to their homes throughout the Reich.
It is clear that the 8th of November date was chosen very cleverly.
The annual commemoration ceremony of that day insured that almost all of
the Gauleiters would be away from their home offices when the
anti-Jewish demonstrations began. In other words, the actual
decision-making responsibilities that were normally carried out by the
Gauleiters were temporarily in the hands of lower-ranking individuals
with less experience. Between 8 and 10 November, subordinate officials
stood in for the Gauleiters who were either in Munich or en route to or
from the annual commemoration there. This temporary transfer of
decision-making authority is very important because it contributed to
much of the subsequent confusion and thus helped the provocateurs.
Another contributing factor was the fact that no one expected any
trouble. At that time Germany was one of the most peaceful countries in
the world. There was no reason to expect any kind of unrest. It was only
during dinner at the Old Town Hall that the first sporadic reports of
riot and destruction reached Munich from some of the Gauleiter's home
offices. At the same time it was learned that Ernst vnm Rath had died in
Paris from his wounds.
What Was Goebbels Doing?
After the dinner was over, the Führer left at about 8 p.m. and
returned to his apartment. Dr. Goebbels then stood up and spoke briefly
about the latest news. He informed the audience that vom Rath had died
and that, as a result, anti-Jewish demonstrations had spontaneously
broken out in two or three places. Goebbels was renowned for his
passionate and inspiring speeches. But what he gave that evening was not
a speech at all but only a short and very informal announcement. He
pointed out that the times were over when Jews could kill Germans
without being punished. Legal measures would now be taken. Nevertheless,
the death of vom Rath should not be an excuse for private actions
against Jews. He suggested that the Gauleiters and the head of the SA,
Viktor Lutze, should contact their home offices to make sure that peace
and order were being maintained. It's very important to understand that
Dr. Goebbels had no authority to give any orders to the others present.
As fellow Gauleiters they were colleagues of equal rank. Anyway, what
he said was apparently considered so reasonable that the others agreed
and did what he suggested.
You may have heard the widespread allegation that Goebbels started
the Crystal Night pogrom with a fiery speech on that evening of 9
November. This widely accepted story is false. The following facts will
clarify this point:
- As Gauleiter for Berlin, Dr. Goebbels had no authority outside
of his Berlin district. Although he was also the Propaganda Minister of
the German government, this did not give him any authority over Party
officials. Furthermore, he had no authority whatsoever over the SA or
the SS.
- Of all the National Socialist leaders, Dr. Goebbels would have
understood better than anyone else the immense damage that an
anti-Jewish pogrom would cause for Germany. On the morning of 10
November, when he first learned about the extent of the damage and
destruction of the previous night, he was furious and shocked at the
stupidity of those who had participated. There is substantial evidence
for this.
- How could a speech given after 9 p.m. on the evening of 9
November have possibly incited a "pogrom" which had already begun the
day before when the first provocateurs appeared at municipal and Party
offices to persuade officials to take action against the Jews?
- Although we do not know exactly what Dr. Goebbels said in his
supposedly fiery speech, we do know what the Gauleiters and the SA
commander did after the speech had ended: they went to the telephones
and called their espective home offices to order their subordinates to
do everything necessary to maintain peace and order. They emphasized
that under no circumstances must anyone take part in any demonstrations.
These telephone instructions were written down at the home offices by
whoever was on duty. The orders from each Gauleiter were then passed on
by telex to other offices within the Gau or district. These telex
messages are still in various records files and are available to anyone
who wishes to examine them.
Orders to Stop the Pogrom
While the Gauleiters were calling their home offices, the head of the
SA, Viktor Lutze, ordered all of his immediate subordinates, the SA
Gruppenführers, who were together with him in Munich, to call their home
offices as well. Lutze ordered that under no circumstances could SA men
take part in any demonstrations against Jews, and that furthermore the
SA was to intervene to stop any demonstrations already in progress. As a
result of these strict orders, SA men began to guard Jewish stores that
very night wherever windows had been broken. There is no doubt about
this order by Lutze because we have the postwar court testimony of
several witnesses confirming it. The SS and the police were given
similar orders to restore peace and order. Himmler ordered Reinhard
Heydrich to prevent all destruction of property and to protect Jews
against demonstrators. The telex communication of this order still
exists. It is in the files of the International Military Tribunal in
Nuremberg. However, during the Nuremberg trial this telex order was
presented in three different forms, with forged amendments to change the
original meaning. In my book Feuerzeichen I undertook to restore the
original text.
Adolf Hitler joined the midnight celebration at the Feldherrnhalle.
It was only after he returned to his apartment about one o'clock in the
morning that he learned about the demonstrations which had been taking
place in Munich, during which one synagogue had been set on fire. He was
furious and immediately ordered the police chief of Munich to come see
him. Hitler told him to immediately stop the fire and to make sure that
no other outrages took place in Munich. He then called various police
and Party officials throughout the Reich to learn the extent of these
demonstrations. Finally, he ordered a telex message sent to all
Gauleiter offices. It read: "By express order from the very highest
authority, arson against Jewish businesses or other property must in no
case and under no circumstances take place." Synagogues were not
specifically mentioned, apparently because Hitler was still unaware of
the burning of synagogues, apart from the one in Munich.
How Did the SA Get Involved Despite the Orders from Its Own Leaders?
How was it possible that in spite of all these emphatic orders, so
much damage and destruction could have been done and that so many SA
members could have participated? According to the records, at least
three of the 28 SA Groups did not obey the orders of SA chief Lutze.
Instead, they sent out their men to destroy synagogues and Jewish
buildings. In effect they did precisely the opposite of what Lutze had
ordered. What actually happened is clear from the testimony and evidence
presented at postwar trials against former SA men accused of
participating in the riot. The trials, held between 1946 and 1952, were
based to a large extent on the report of SA Brigade 50 chief Karl Lucke
and begins with these words: "On 10 November 1938, at 3 o'clock in the
morning, I received the following order: 'By order of the Gruppenführer,
all Jewish synagogues within the Brigade district are to be immediately
blown up or set on fire'." Lucke then included in his report a listing
of synagogues which had been destroyed by members of his Brigade. This
report has been cited by the prosecution at the Nuremberg Tribunal and
by practically all of the consensus historians ever since as proof that
the SA was given orders to destroy Jewish stores and synagogues.
The contradiction between the orders actually given and the statement
made in the Lucke report requires a detailed explanation. On 9 November
the leader of SA Group Mannheim, Herbert Fust, was in Munich together
with the other SA Group leaders and the SA Chief of Staff, Viktor Lutze.
When Lutze ordered the Group leaders to contact their home offices to
stop all anti-Jewish demonstrations, Fust, along with the other SA
leaders, did just that. He called his office in Mannheim and passed on
the orders he had received from Lutze. The man who was on duty that
night at the Mannheim SA office telephone and who received Fust's order
confirmed that he understood it and then hung up. But he never passed on
the order he had received. Instead, he transmitted precisely the
opposite order. The normal procedure would have been for the man on duty
at the telephone to immediately call the deputy group leader, Lucke,
who was in nearby Darmstadt. But instead he called SA Oberführer (senior
colonel) Fritsch and asked him to come to the office. Fritsch had a
reputation for not being particularly clever. When he arrived, the man
who had received the telephone call showed him a small paper slip with a
few notes on it which said that the synagogues within the Mannheim SA
Group district were to be destroyed. The man who had received the call
explained to Fritsch that the order had just arrived from Munich.
Slow-minded as he was, Fritsch did not know what to do and called the
local Kreisleiter (district Party leader) and his deputy. These two men
then arrived at the SA office and discussed the situation, while at the
same time the telephone duty man notified other SA leaders, but still
not the deputy Group leader Lucke. In the meantime the small paper slip
disappeared and the SA men now arriving at the headquarters met only the
Kreisleiter, who told them about the order which he thought had come
from Munich. No one asked for any further confirmation. The SA men then
left to begin the destruction. Hours later, when the whole action was
almost finished, the telephone guard finally called Deputy Group Leader
Lucke and passed on the false order. He also informed Lucke that the
action had already been going on for several hours. Since it was almost
all over by this time, Lucke also neglected to ask for confirmation of
the order. It was already 3 o'clock in the morning. Lucke then alerted
the Standartenführer of his Brigade and carried out the destruction
within the Darmstadt district.
At 8 o'clock the next morning Lucke sat down and wrote the report
which was later cited at the Nuremberg Tribunal. In fact, as already
shown, there was no order to commit arson or carry out destruction
against any Jewish property from the Gruppenführer in Munich, but only
from the telephone guard. Who he was remains a mystery. During the
postwar trials against members of this SA unit, none of the judges asked
for the name or identity of this telephone guard. This mysterious man
was very probably an agent for those who were actually behind the entire
Crystal Night Affair.
The Fine Imposed on the Jews
Early in the morning following the Crystal Night, Propaganda Minister
Dr. Goebbels announced in a radio broadcast that any action against
Jews was strictly prohibited. He warned that severe penalties would be
imposed on anyone who did not obey this order. He also explained that
the Jewish question would be resolved only by legal means. As already
mentioned, German government and Party officials were furious about what
had happened. Hermann Göring, who was responsible for Germany's
economy, complained that it would be impossible to replace the special
plate glass of the broken store windows because it was not manufactured
in Germany. It had to be imported from Belgium and would cost a great
deal of precious foreign currency. Because of the Jewish boycott against
German goods, the Reich was short of foreign exchange currency. Göring
therefore decided that because this shortage was caused by the Jews, it
was they who would have to pay for the broken glass. He imposed a fine
of one billion Reichsmarks on the German Jews. This fine is always
mentioned by anyone who writes about the Crystal Night. But historians
and history writers invariably neglect to explain the reason for the
fine.
It was certainly unjust to force Jews to pay for damage which they
had not caused. Göring understood this. However, in private he justified
the fine by citing the fact that the 1933 Jewish declaration of war
against Germany was proclaimed in the name of the millions of Jews
throughout the world. Therefore they could now help their
co-religionists in Germany bear the consequences of the boycott. It
should also be pointed out that only German Jews with assets of more
than 5,000 Reichsmarks in cash had to con- tribute to the fine. In 1938,
when prices were very low, 5,000 Reichsmarks was a small fortune.
Anyone with that much money in cash would certainly have had far more
wealth in other assets and could therefore well afford to pay their
assessed portion of the fine without being reduced to poverty, despite
what history writers have maintained.
The Consequences of the Crystal Night
It is often said that the Crystal Night incident was the official
start of the German "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." This is
quite true, but "Final Solution" did not mean physical extermination --
it meant only emigration of the Jews from Germany. Immediately after
the Crystal Night, Hitler ordered the creation of a central agency to
organize the emigration of the Jews from Germany as rapidly as possible.
Accordingly, Göring set up the Reich Central Office for Jewish
Emigration ("Reichszentrale fuer die juedische Auswanderung") with
Reinhard Heydrich as director. This agency combined the various
government departments which had been involved with Jewish emigration.
It simplified official procedures for Jewish emigration, but its work
was severely hampered by the unwillingness of almost all countries to
admit Jews. The only country to which Jews could still easily emigrate
was Palestine, provided they possessed one thousand pounds sterling
each, as required by the British authorities there.
Despite the favorable terms of the Haavara or Transfer Agreement,
only a few German Jews were willing to emigrate to Palestine. In those
days Palestine was only at the beginning of its development. It was
still an agrarian country with very little industry. It was only after
the arrival of thousands of German Jews with their capital and
experience that industrial development really began there. The Jews in
Germany were generally employed in trade, industry, or the professions.
There were little or no oppor tunities for them in Palestine. For
example, there was virtually no financial structure in Palestine in the
1930s. There was no money market, no stock exchange, and no investment
banking. How could businessmen operate in such an environment?
Because so few Jews wanted to migrate to Palestine, special efforts
were made to open the doors of other countries, but this proved very
difficult. Prosperous nations did not want Jewish immigrants and poor
countries were very unattractive. In the summer of 1938 an
Inter-Governmental Refugee Committee was established with the American
lawyer George Rublee as its director. In January 1939 (that is, after
the Crystal Night), Rublee and the German government signed an agreement
by which all German Jews could emigrate to the country of their choice.
Interestingly enough, it was the father of a future American president
and the father of a future German president who nearly torpedoed this
agreement: Joseph Kennedy, the U.S. Ambassador to Britain, and Ernst von
Weizsaecker, State Secretary of the German Foreign Office and father of
the current president of the Ger- man Federal Republic. Adolf Hitler
personally intervened in the negotiating process and saved the agreement
by sending Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht to London to negotiate
with Rublee.
Rublee himself later called it a "sensational agreement" -- and it
was indeed sensational. Special arrangements between the
Inter-Governmental Committee and governments of individual countries
would guarantee the financial security of the migrating Jews. Training
camps would be established to prepare emigrating Jews for new jobs in
their future homelands. Jews in Germany who were more than 45 years old
could either emigrate or remain in Germany. If they decided to remain,
they would be exempt from discriminatory restrictions. They would be
able to live and work wherever they wanted. Their social security would
be guaranteed by the Reich government, the same as for any German
citizen. As Rublee later noted, there were practically no incidents
against Jews during the time between the signing of the agreement and
the outbreak of war in September 1939.
The Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration, which was organized
shortly after the Crystal Night, was based on the provisions of the
Rublee plan. A parallel Jewish organization, the Reich Union of Jews in
Germany ("Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland"), was established.
Its task was to advise Jews on all questions of emigration and to act
on behalf of Jews with the Reich Central Office. The two agencies worked
closely together to facilitate Jewish emigration as much as possible.
In addition, the SS and certain other National Socialist organizations
worked with Zionist organizations to facilitate Jewish emigration.
Jewish groups greatly appreciated the cooperation of the SS. For
example, the SS established training centers where prospective Jewish
emigrants learned new job skills to prepare them for their new lives.
With the help of the Transfer Agreement and the Rublee plan, hundreds
of thousands of Jews migrated from Europe to Palestine. In September
1940 the Jewish news agency in Palestine, "Palcor," reported that
500,000 Jewish emigrants had already arrived from the German Reich,
including Austria, the Sudetenland, Bohemia- Moravia, and German-ruled
Poland. Nevertheless, after 1950 it was claimed that the total number of
Jewish emigrants to Palestine from all European countries was only
about 80,000. What happened to the other 420,000 Jews? In 1940 they
probably had no idea that later on they were supposed to have been
"gassed"!
Conclusion
I have tried to point out just a few unmentioned aspects of the
Crystal Night issue which, in my opinion, give a picture of what
actually happened that is entirely different than the one generally
accepted. I am convinced that neither the German government nor the
leaders of the National Socialist Party instigated the Crystal Night.
Ultimately it was not the Jews but the Germans who suffered most as a
result of this event. Even persons sympathetic to National Socialism are
still appalled when they think of the Crystal Night. Many are under the
impression that murder and arson were quite common under National
Socialism and that no Jew could be sure of his life or property. Nazi
Germany was supposedly a country without any civil rights. The Crystal
Night incident was indeed one of the darkest episodes of German history
in the era of 1933 to 1945. But based on all of the available evidence,
these demonstrations were neither thought up nor organized by German
Party or government officials. In fact, they were completely suprised
and shocked when they learned of the riot and destruction. The pogrom
must have been thought up and organized by those who actually benefited
from it and who wanted to create havoc in Germany.
Who could they have been? If we keep in mind the deep involve ment of
the Jewish organization LICA in the murder of vom Rath, we may ask:
Could the Jews themselves have hoped to benefit from a pogrom? In the
aftermath of the Crystal Night, the world press became overwhelmingly
sympathetic to the Jews, which is precisely what they wanted above all
else. The Zionists in particular counted on worldwide support in their
struggle against England, which then ruled Palestine as a British
mandate. Jewish immigration to Palestine was strictly limited at that
time by the British because of vehement Arab opposition to the arrival
of ever larger numbers of Jews. As a result, the number of Jewish
immigrants dropped in 1938 to the lowest level since the beginning of
the century, when the Zionist mass migration to Palestine began.
To stabilize the situation, the British formulated a partition plan
dividing Palestine into Arab and Jewish portions. Despite serious
reservations, the Jews agreed to the plan, but the Arabs did not. They
responded with an uprising known as the Arab Revolt. In March 1938 the
British government sent Sir Harold MacMichaels as High Commissioner to
Palestine. He succeeded in suppressing the uprising, but to appease the
Arabs he promised to urge his government to abandon the partition plan
and halt further Jewish immigration. MacMichaels returned to London in
October 1938 to discuss his proposals with the British parliament. The
scheduled date for the final decision was 8 November 1938, the day on
which the Crystal Night violence actually began.
German Embassy Secretary Ernst vom Rath had been shot just one day
earlier, on 7 November. The conspirators no doubt hoped that vom Rath
would die immediately, in which case the anti-Jewish demonstrations
would probably have also started on the 7th. Could someone have hoped
that a pogrom in nearby Germany would influence the British to change
their Palestine policy? Or that it would induce the outside world to
exert pressure on Britain to open Palestine to the Jews who were being
so terribly treated in Germany? I cannot give any definite answers. I
can only speculate as to who conspirators behind the Crystal Night
really were and as to their motives. To me it seems entirely plausible
that certain Jewish groups were involved. The LICA was almost certainly
involved in the murder of vom Rath. In any case, the Crystal Night
incident was not an expression of the will of the German people. Nor was
it organized by Dr. Goebbels or any of the other German leaders. On the
contrary, it was carefully organized by people who worked in the
shadows.
Notes
1.William P. Varga,
The Number One Nazi Jew-Baiter: A Political Biography of Julius Streicher (New York: 1981).
2. Even Helmut Heiber, a prominent contemporary German historian, had
to admit these facts. Helmut Heiber, "Der Fall Gruenspan,"
ViertelFahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 5. Hg., 1957, pp. 154-172.
3. See: Werner Feilchenfeld, Dolf Michaelis, and Ludwig Pinner,
Haavara-Transfer nach Palaestina (Tuebingen: 1972); and, Edwin Black,
The Transfer Agreement (New York and London: 1984)
4. Ingrid Weckert, Feuerzeichen: Die "Reichslcristallnacht,"
Anstifter und Brandstifterpfer und Nutzniesser (Tuebingen: 1981), p.
225.
5. Edwin Black,
The Transfer Agreement, p. 382.
6. W. Feilchenfeld, et al.,
Haavara-Transfer Nach Palaestina, p. 71.
7. Nahum Goldmann,
Das Juedische Paradox: Zionismus und Judentum nach Hitler (Cologne: 1978), p. 181.
8. Heinemann Stern,
Warum Hassen Sie Uns Eigentlich? (Duesseldorf: 1970), pp. 298-299.
9. Hermann Graml,
Der 9. November 1938 (Bonn: 1958), p. 47.
10. H. Heiber, "Der Fall Gruenspan," p. 164.
11. H. Heiber, "Der Fall Gruenspan," p. 172.
12. Gideon Hausner,
Justice in Jerusalem (New York: 1968), p. 41.
From
The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1985 (Vol.
6, No. 2), pages 183-206. This item was first presented at the Sixth IHR
conference, February 1985, in Anaheim, California.
About the Author
Ingrid Weckert is the author of a detailed examination of "Crystal
Night" and German-Jewish relations during the 1930s that was published
as a book in Germany in 1981 under the title
Feuerzeichen, and in the USA in 1991 under the title
Flashpoint.
At the end of the Second World War Weckert was a teenager in devastated
Berlin. After Gymnasium graduation she studied theology, including
Judaic studies, in Switzerland. She deepened her understanding of the
history and character of the Jewish people during numerous visits to
Israel. Frau Weckert lived for years in Munich, where she worked as a
librarian, and then devoted considerable time to historical research and
writing.
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