When Hitler learned of the shooting he ordered his personal physician Dr. Brandt with Prof. Magnus, Director of the Munich University Clinic to fly to Paris. Under their care vom Rath conveniently died at 4:25 PM November 9th, an historic date for Hitler, Nazis and Germany:
- The 15th anniversary of the failed Beer Hall Putsch
- The 20th anniversary of the WWI “stab in the back” surrender
- The eve of Martin Luther’s birthday.
When Hitler was informed of vom Rath’s death he was at a commemorative dinner in Munich’s Old Town Hall. Hitler pushed his dinner aside, turned to Goebbels and said, “The SA (Storm Troopers) should have a fling.”
A Carefully Planned Industrial Age Profit Based Pogrom
This began the Nazi “Final Solution” plan to finance the Wehrmacht by stealing the assets of the 500,000 remaining Germans who happened to be Jewish and in the process blame the 0.76% of the German population they represented for the German defeat in WWI; the postwar hyperinflation; the great depression and all things wrong in the World.
Slave Camps to Sell Jewish Slave Labor
The population had been groomed, weapons were cached, Jewish owned buildings to be destroyed and those to only be damaged to allow rehabilitation for “Aryian use” were delineated. The buildings marked for destruction were catalonged as “to burn” and “demolish by hand” to prevent the spread of fires to German properties; Jewish slave built concentration camps were ready for a harvest of Jewish slaves.
Fire units were ordered to stand aside so long as no German lives or property were threatened. Police units were alerted to expect mass arrests.
Nazi Fulfilment of Martin Luther’s Instructions
On his birthday November 10, 1543 Martin Luther published the 65,000 word pastoral letter On the Jews and Their Lies; instructing his followers:
- Jews were “full of the devils feces;”
- “Eject them forever from this country.”
- Jewish “houses be razed and destroyed.”
- “Their books and Talmudic writings be taken from them.”
- “Their Rabbis be forbidden to teach” on “pain of loss of life.”
- “All cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them.”
- “Their synagogues be burned down.”
November Pogrom Peels Away the Thin Veneer of Civilization
Following the instructions of Martin Luther, the “November Action” pogrom began to peel away the thin veneer of civilization at 3:00 AM November 10, 1938; a two-day orchestrated “spontaneous outrage” was unleashed in a carefully planned industrial age pogrom across Germany, Austria and Sudetenland. Sledge hammers, axes and wrecking bars were distributed. To prevent, “soft-hearted squeamishness" the army distributed endless supplies of Russian vodka.
A Righteous Few
Pastor Julius van Jan stopped his tiny parish of Oberlennigen, Wurttemberg from joining the drunken outburst of planned brutality. He was declared a “White Jew” and sentenced to a concentration camp. Storm Trooper Krugel resigned from the 180th SA Company to protest the illegal killings.
To avoid feelings of empathy disrupting the orgy of violence; adhesive tape covered the mouths of Jews before they were stabbed, bludgeoned, raped, or burned alive. Jewish homeowners were dispossessed by being gagged with adhesive tape and thrown out of the nearest window, in their bedclothes, onto the pyre.
Some Jews, seeing the mobs, committed suicide to escape torture. In the resort community of Baden-Baden the pogrom was delayed to 7:00 AM to avoid disturbing the guests.
Rise in Bloody Vengeance Against the Jew
Some synagogues were looted, the Torahs ripped apart, urinated and defecated on, then forced down the throat of the nearest Jew. The silver decorations of the Torah were fought over by the drunken mob. Furniture and prayer books were thrown into the streets and burned.
Rabbis were pulled from their beds by their beards and ordered to assemble the congregations in their synagogues. The doors of the synagogues were locked and the synagogues were burned with the congregations inside.
SS leader Reinhard “Blonde Butcher” Heydrich reported 267 synagogues attacked with 177 destroyed by fire; 91 “official Jew deaths.” An unknown number of Human Beings were burned alive as Hermann Goring supervised art work seizures.
School Children are Recruited to Maximize Nazi Profits
Schools were emptied and the students given clubs to join in methodically breaking every Jewish window of every Jewish business. The police delivered fresh supplies of bricks and vodka.
To maximize Nazi profits SS troops stood guard against looting until the Jewish owner could be forced to board up the windows and clean up the broken glass at gunpoint.
Kristallnacht Euphemism for Pogrom Euphemism for Murder
To invoke a vision of glittering streets in winter the November Pogrom was publicized as Kristallnacht -The Night of Broken Crystal (twinkling in the moonlight). Jewish hospitals were burned with the patients in them. SS leader Reinhard Heydrich reported 7,500 Jewish businesses, including hospitals, were vandalized.
Nazis Proudly Boast of their Achievement
Goebbels publcizied the pogrom. Reports were carried by every major newspaper and radio station world wide. Diplomats filed eyewitness accounts. The world stood by as human beings were publicly tortured to death. Pogroms broke out in Poland; the violence spread to other countries.
The SS arrested Jewish men of military age and marched them through the drunken mobs and burning streets of the November Pogrom leaving a trail of blood and bodies. SS leader Reinhard Heydrich reported 15,000 Jews were harvested to be worked to death in concentration camps.
After the Kristallnacht the Financial Pogrom Continued
During the following weeks Jewish business owners were summoned to police and SS headquarters. They were forced to file inflated insurance claims for the damages then forced to sign the insurance money over to the Nazis.
The business owners were then charged with filing false insurance claims, arrested and sent to concentration camps. The “abandoned” stores and homes were then sold to Nazi party members for pennies. SS leader Reinhard Heydrich reported another 10,000 human beings harvested for slavery in concentration camps following “business transactions.”
Sources
- "Hitler Rides the Financial Benefits of Anti-Semitism to Power"
- "Financial Planning for a Profitable Kristallnacht Pogrom"
- Shoa Education
- The United States Holocost Museum
- Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass, Stephanie Fitzgerald, Compass Point Books, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
- Kristallnacht, Prelude to Destruction, Martin Gilbers, Harper-Collins Publishers, New York
- Crystal Night, Rita Thalmann & Emmanuel Feinermann, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, New York
Larry Goldberg - I am that rare thing, a native Californian. I was born in 1950 in downtown Los Angeles in Queens of Angels Hospital. My father was the ...
