The Night of Broken Glass

On the nights of November 9th and 10th, 1938, a series of attacks took place throughout Germany and in some parts of Austria called Kristallnacht. The attacks targeted Jewish property, synagogues, the Jews themselves and practically anything the Jewish people owned. On November 10th, Joseph Goebbels the current Reich Minister of Propaganda at that time called of the pogrom. The events were called Kristallnacht, which literally means 'crystal night', because of all the shattered glass left on the streets the following days. German estimates say that fewer than 100 were killed and that 30000 were arrested and taken to concentration camps. On top of the destruction of Jewish property, the Jews were made to pay 6 million Reichmarks as the Nazis argued that the Jews actually caused it.

The Kristallnacht attacks took place in response to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath by a 17 year old Jew. But the aggression that took place probably would not have been so strong were it not for the propaganda released by the Nazi Party. The propaganda was used to shape every German citizen to believe what Hitler believed, and that was that Jews were the enemy. Hitler also targeted propaganda towards children as he knew that it would be a member of the youth in Germany that would grow to become the next Fuhrer. He wanted the future-Fuhrer to teach what Hitler instilled into Germany’s people to the Nazis of the future.

I’m surprised that so many people would change their opinions on Jewish people so radically as Germany was not particularly an anti-Semitist nation before the Nazi Party came to power. Other people did not agree particularly with the Nazis but they still did not do anything about it and just chose to accept what was going on, in turn, becoming a bystander. If it were me in that same situation, I would probably also choose to be a bystander.