by Ian Kershaw
7. Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 170.
8. Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 171–5.
9. IMG, xxvii, 163.
10. Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 171; Peter Hanke, Zur Geschichte der Juden in München zwischen 1933 und 1945, Munich, 1967, 204–5; Baruch Z. Ophir and Falk Wiesemann (eds.), Die jüdischen Gemeinden in Bayern 1918–1945. Geschichte und Zerstörung, Munich, 1979, 50.
11. Ophir and Wiesemann, 211; Fritz Nadler, Eine Stadt im Schatten Streichers, Nuremberg, 1969, 8–10, and Bild 2.
12. Gordon, 153.
13. Bankier, ‘Hitler’, 8.
14. Examples include pressure from Heß to include Mischlinge (part-Jews) in the discriminatory legislation, demands from the NS Lawyers’League (NS-Rechtswahrerbund) to exclude Jewish lawyers, and the successful complaint by the Reich Doctors’ Leader Gerhard Wagner to Hitler that Jewish doctors were still allowed to practise in Germany. (Adam, Judenpolitik 167–70; Bankier, ‘Hitler’, 15; Wildt, 45; Longerich, Hitlers Stellvertreter, 214–16.)
15. See Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, (1961), Viewpoints edn, New York, 1973, 60ff.; Karl A. Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz. Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933–1939, Urbana/Chicago/London, 1970,160–64, 222–3; Barkai, ‘Schicksalsjahr’, 96–109; Barkai, Boykott, ch.3; Friedländer, 243; Harold James, ‘Die Deutsche Bank und die Diktatur’, in Lothar Gall et al., Die Deutsche Bank 1870–1995, Munich, 1995, pt.II, especially 347–51.
16. Michael H. Kater, Doctors under Hitler, Chapel Hill/London, 1989, 198–201; Barkai, Boykott, 133–4.
17. Victor Klemperer, Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten. Tagebücher 1933–1941, ed. Walter Nowojski and Hadwig Klemperer, (1995), 10th edn, Darmstadt, 1998, 415 (12 July 1938).
18. One poignant account, among the many, of the impact of the rapidly deteriorating conditions on a single family is that of Peter Gay, My German Question. Growing Up in Nazi Berlin, New Haven/London, 1998, here especially 119–23.
19. The role of denunciation in helping to enforce and drive on anti-Jewish policy has been examined by Robert Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society. Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945, Oxford, 1990.
20. See especially, Wildt, 35ff., and Dok.9–32; also, the files relating to Eichmann’s Department II.112, in BA, R58/991–5; and Hachmeister, ch.V.
21. Tb Irving, 169–70 (23 April 1938).
22. See Magnus Brechtken, ‘Madagaskar für die Juden’. Antisemitische Idee und politische Praxis 1885–1945, Munich, 1997, especially chs.II–III.
23. According to the SD’s figures, some 370,000 Jews still remained in the ‘Old Reich’ territory on 1 January 1938 – almost three-quarters of the recorded figure in 1933. Taking account of an estimated 200–250,000 Jews who found themselves on German territory after the annexations of Austria and the Sudetenland, there were by late summer 1938 – even taking account of the forced emigration that year – probably more Jews in Nazi hands than there had been at the time of Hitler’s takeover of power (MadR, ii.21–2, 27–9).
24. Zionists had contacted Eichmann in February 1937 in the hope of encouraging more favourable arrangements for allowing Jews to emigrate to Palestine. Feivel Polkes, an emissary of the Haganah, a Jewish underground military organization, was authorized to come to Berlin and meet Eichmann for discussions about easing restrictions on the transfer of foreign currency in order to facilitate emigration. Polkes left empty-handed, but subsequently invited Eichmann to visit the Middle East. With his superior, Herbert Hagen, Eichmann left for Palestine in early November 1937. Unrest in Palestine prevented any meeting taking place there, but Eichmann and Hagen met Polkes again in Cairo. On his return, Eichmann reported negatively to Heydrich on Polkes’s proposals for subsidizing Jewish emigration to Palestine. By then, in any case, fears in the Nazi leadership of the dangers of helping erect a Jewish state in Palestine had grown rapidly. Hitler himself had intervened to order the suspension of negotiations for further transfer agreements between Germany and Palestine. (BA, R58/954, Fols.11–66 (Hagen’s report); Schleunes, 207–11; Jochen von Lang, Das Eichmann-Protokoll. Tonbandaufzeichnungen der israelischen Verhöre, Berlin, 1982, 31–5, 43–6; Wildt, 44. And see Francis R. Nicosia, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question, Austin/London, 1985.)
25. Wildt, 44.
26. Wildt, 32–3.
27. Wildt, 33.
28. Wildt, 60.
29. TBJG, I/3, 490 (25 July 1938).
30. See Christian Gerlach, ‘Die Wannsee-Konferenz, das Schicksal der deutschen Juden und Hitlers politische Grundsatzentscheidung, alle Juden Europas zu ermorden’, Werkstattgeschichte, 18 (1997), 7–44, here 27.
31. Tb Irving, 214 (25 May 1938). Economics Minister Walther Funk was brought into the discussions by Goebbels.
32. Wildt, 55–6.
33. Tb Irving, 214 (25 May 1938), 253 (2 July 1938).
34. Goebbels stated in his diary again in late July that ‘the Führer approves how I am going about things (mein Vorgehen) in Berlin’ (Tb Irving, 268 (26 July 1938).
35. Wildt, 55–6.
36. TBJG, I/3, 463 (22 June 1938); Tb Irving, 246–7 and n.1; Wildt, 57.
37. Wildt, 55.
38. See Kulka, ‘Public Opinion’, xliv.
39. See Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 174.
40. Graml, Reich skristallnacht, 174; Barkai, Schicksalsjahr’, 101.
41. Wildt, 99; Kulka, ‘Public Opinion’, 274–5.
42. Graml, Reich skristallnacht, 9–12; Helmut Heiber, ‘Der Fall Grünspan’, VfZ, 5 (1957), 134–72, here 134–9; Rita Thalmann and Emmanuel Feinermann, Crystal Night: 9–10 November 1938, London, 1974, 26–42; Anthony Read and David Fisher, Kristallnacht. Unleashing the Holocaust, London, 1989, 1–6, 33–55; Lionel Kochan, Pogrom: 10 November 1938, London, 1957, 34–49. The deportation of the Polish Jews had been set in motion by the actions of the Polish government, banning the return of Polish Jews living abroad. See Sybil Milton, ‘The Expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany, October 1938 to July 1939: A Documentation’, LBYB, 29 (1984), 166–99; Sybil Milton, ‘Menschen zwischen Grenzen: Die Polenausweisung 1938’, Menora: Jahrbuch für deutsch-jüdische Geschichte 1990, 184–206; and H. G. Adler, Der verwaltete Mensch. Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland, Tübingen, 1974, 91–105. Grynszpan later successfully deployed the argument that he had had a homosexual relationship with vom Rath to prevent the show-trial which the Nazi regime had intended from taking place. See Heiber, ‘Der Fall Grünspan’, 148ff., demonstrating the implausibility of this as a genuine motive for the shooting. Hans-Jürgen Döscher, Reichskristallnacht. Die November-Pogrome 1938, Frankfurt am Main, 1988, 62–3, attempts to revive the argument that vom Rath’s killing did in fact arise from a homosexual relationship with Grynszpan, though this remains no more than speculation. Döscher’s case rests heavily upon the fact that the bar to which Grynszpan went to load his revolver on the morning of 7 November was known as a haunt of homosexuals, and that, when he went to the embassy, Grynszpan did not ask for the Ambassador, but for ‘a legation secretary’ to whom – vom Rath – he was ushered in with little prior formality. The ambassador at the time, Johannes Graf von Welczek, recalled after the war, however, returning from his morning walk and meeting Grynszpan outside the embassy, where Grynszpan, not knowing whom he was addressing, asked how he might see the Ambassador and was directed to the porter of the building (Heiber, ‘Der Fall Grünspan’, 134–5).
43. Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 13.
44. Hermann Graml, Der 9. November 1938. ‘Reichskristallnacht’, Beilage zur Wochenzeitung ‘Das Parlament’, No.45,11 November 1953, here 6th edn, Bonn, 1958 (Schriftenreihe der Bundeszentrale für Heimatdienst), 17–23; Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 12–16.
45. TBJG, I/6, 178 (9 November 1938); Tb Irving, 407 (9 November 1938).
46. TBJG, I/6, 180 (10 November 1938); Tb Irving, 409 (10 November 1938).
47. TBJG, I/6, 180 (10 November 1938); the alternative reading of the last word in Tb Irving, 409 (10 No
vember 1938): ‘Now it’s good’ (‘Nun aber ist es gut’), can almost certainly be discounted, even if the text remains difficult to decipher at this point. Close comparison of the handwriting, especially in adjacent passages, gives ‘gar’ as the best reading. I am grateful to Elke Fröhlich for advice on this point.
48. IfZ, ZS-243, Bd.I (Heinrich Heim), Fol.27: statement of former SA-Gruppenführer Max Jüttner. See also Irving, Goebbels, 274.
49. Adam, Judenpolitik, 206; Domarus, 966ff. for the speech.
50. Uwe Dietrich Adam, ‘Wie spontan war der Pogrom?’, in Pehle 74–93, here 76. It seems highly unlikely, as often claimed, that Hitler heard of vom Rath’s death for the first time shortly before nine o’clock that evening during the meal at the Old Town Hall in Munich. Vom Rath had by then been dead for several hours. The Foreign Office had been informed of vom Rath’s imminent death already that morning. A telegram from Dr Brandt to Hitler, notifying him of vom Rath’s death at 4.30p.m., arrived in Berlin at 6.20p.m. It could be surmised (and would be supported by the testimony of Below that Hitler heard the news that afternoon) that the telegram followed a telephone communication. (See Below, 136.) The German News Agency (DNB) circulated the news to newspaper editors by 7.00p.m. (Ralf Georg Reuth, Goebbels, Munich, 1990, 395 – according to Irving, Goebbels, 273 and 612 n.22, though without supporting source, even as early as 5.00p.m.). The Foreign Office dispatched a telegram of sympathy to vom Rath’s father at 7.40p.m. The above chronology (except where otherwise stated) is taken from Hans-Jürgen Döscher, ‘Der Tod Ernst vom Raths und die Auslösung der Pogrome am 9. November 1938 – ein Nachwort zur “Reichskris-tallnacht”’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 41 (1990), 619–20. If indeed the stories are correct – see Adam, in Pehle, 77, 92 – that the telegram announcing vom Rath’s death was delivered to Hitler during the meal in the Old Town Hall as late as 8.45p.m., it can only, therefore, have been for effect. It seems in the light of this probable that some degree of pre-planning between Goebbels and Hitler took place between vom Rath’s shooting on 7 November and the discussion in the Old Town Hall prior to Goebbels’s speech on the night of 9 November. See Adam, in Pehle, 91–2; Döscher, ‘Der Tod Ernst vom Raths’, 620. See also Döscher, ‘Reichskristallnacht’, 79.
51. Below, 136.
52. IMG, xxxii.20–29 (Doc.3063-PS, Report of the Party Court, Feb.1939); IMG, xx.320–21 (Eberstein testimony); Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 17–18; Graml, Der 9. November 1938, 23ff.
53. TBJG, I/6, 180 (10 November 1938); Tb Irving, 409 (10 November 1938). According to the Party Court’s assessment of the pogrom and its aftermath, sent on 13 February 1939 to Göring, ‘the Führer had decided after his [Goebbels’s] account, that such demonstrations [as had occurred in the Gaue of Kurhessen and Magdeburg-Anhalt] were neither to be prepared nor organized by the Party. But if they arose spontaneously, they were not to be countered’ (IMG, xxxii.21).
54. TBJG, I/6, 180 (10 November 1938). Away from Munich, among Party leaders who had not been present at Goebbels’s speech, there were some initial attempts to ignore the encouragement to unleash pogroms. See IMG, xx.48–9, for the instructions – only partially obeyed – of Gauleiter Karl Kaufmann (Hamburg) to prevent the ‘action’ being carried out in his Gau. See also Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 24–6; Graml, Der 9. November 1938, 30–35; Irving, Goebbels, 612 n.33. Goebbels had not been content to have his message conveyed only by telephone. At 12.30 and 1.40a.m. on 10 November, he cabled Gau Propaganda Offices to ensure as much Party coordination as possible (IMG, xxxii.21–2; Graml, Der 9. November 1938, 27).
55. TBJG, I/6, 180 (10 November 1938); Tb Irving, 409 (10 November 1938). For the pogrom in Munich, see Hanke, 214ff.
56. According to a note dictated by Himmler at 3.00a.m. on 10 November (IMG, xxi.392), and the subsequent account of his chief adjutant, SS-Gruppenführer Karl Wolff (IfZ, ZS-317, Bd.II, Fol.28), Himmler was in Hitler’s apartment in Prinzregentenplatz at the time. Wolff said he had learned of the ‘action’ around 11.20p.m. – presumably at the same time as Heydrich – and had then immediately driven to Hitler’s private apartment. Heydrich was contacted at 11.15p.m. by Stapo Munich. He gave out a first order on the wearing of civilian clothing at 0.20a.m. (Adam, in Pehle, 77; Kurt Pätzold and Irene Runge, Kristallnacht. Zum Pogrom 1938, Cologne, 1988, 113–14).
57. IMG, xxi.392; IfZ, ZS-317, Bd.II, Fol.28.
58. Pätzold/Runge, 113–14.
59. IMG, xxxi. 516–18; Pätzold/Runge, 114–16; Adam, in Pehle, 77–9; Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 21, 33; Thalmann, 59–61.
60. IMG, xv, 377 (Doc.734-PS).
61. Peter Longerich, Die braunen Bataillone. Geschichte der SA, Munich, 1989, 230–37; Pätzold/Runge, 112–13, 116–18.
62. Milton Mayer, They Thought they were Free. The Germans 1933–45, Chicago, 1955, 16–20.
63. Adam, in Pehle, 74–5.
64. Goebbels does not specify which synagogue it was. But Munich newspaper reports of the pogrom-night refer to the old synagogue in Herzog-Rudolf-Straße in flames. The interior of the synagogue for east-European Jews in Reichenbachstraße was also set on fire, but the building itself was not burnt down. The main synagogue in Herzog-Max-Straße had been demolished in the summer. See Wolfgang Benz, ‘Der Rückfall in die Barbarei. Bericht über den Pogrom’, in Pehle, 28; Hanke, 214; and Ophir and Wiesemann 50, 52.
65. The figure of 20–30,000 Jews to be arrested was mentioned in the instructions sent by telegram by Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller just before midnight (IMG, xxv.377). This was after Himmler and Hitler had met in the latter’s apartment in Prinzregentenplatz in Munich, when the SS leader had sought clarification of directions. These preliminary instructions, passed on by Himmler to Müller, were amplified only once the SS chief had returned from the midnight swearing-in of SS recruits. On his return, Himmler immediately saw Heydrich, who put out more elaborate instructions to the Gestapo by telegram at 1.20 a.m. (IMG, xxxi.516–18). The number of Jews was not specified in this later telegram. It was emphasized that, in particular, well-off and healthy male Jews were to be arrested and taken to concentration camps (Pätzold/Runge, 113–16).
66. TBJG, I/6, 180–81 (10 November 1938); Tb Irving, 409–10 (10 November 1938).
67. TBJG, I/6, 181 (10 November 1938); Tb Irving, 411 (10 November 1938).
68. Benz, in Pehle, 32. The ‘action’ nevertheless continued in various places until 13 November, when it eventually petered out. The ‘stop’ orders can be seen in Pätzold/Runge, 127–9.
69. TBJG, I/6, 182 (11 November 1938); Tb Irving, 411 (11 November 1938).
70. TBJG, I/6, 182 (11 November 1938); Tb Irving, 411 (11 November 1938).
71. See the description, one among many, in Gay, 132–6.
72. Pätzold/Runge, 136 (Heydrich’s report), but the figures are an underestimate (Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 32).
73. Günter Fellner, ‘Der Novemberpogrom in Westösterreich’, in Kurt Schmid and Robert Streibel (eds.), Der Pogrom 1938. Judenverfolgung in Österreich und Deutschland, Vienna, 1990, 34–41, here 39.
74. Elisabeth Klamper, ‘Der “Anschlußpogrom”’, in Schmid and Streibel, 25–33, here 31.
75. Graml, Reichskristallnacht, 32.
76. This is the compelling suggestion of Peter Loewenberg, ‘The Kristallnacht as a Public Degradation Ritual’, LBYB, 32 (1987), 309–23.
77. Monika Richarz (ed.), Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland. Selbstzeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte 1918–1945, Stuttgart, 1982, 323–35. See also the testimony, along similar lines, provided in Loewenberg, 314.
78. See on this Loewenberg, especially 314, 321–3.
79. IMG, xxxii.27.
80. Wiener Library, London, PIId/15, 151, 749; Thomas Michel, Die Juden in Gaukönigshofenf/Unterfranken (1550–1942), Wiesbaden, 1988, 506–19.
81. See Walter Tausk, Breslauer Tagebuch 1933–1940, East Berlin, 1975, 181–2; Richarz, 326–7 (testimony of Hans Berger); Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 265.
82. Maschmann, Fazit, 58.
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br /> 83. DBS, v.1204–5.
84. See Wiener Library, London, ‘Der 10. November 1938’ (typescript of collected short reports of persecuted Jews, compiled in 1939 and 1940); and see Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 265ff.
85. GStA, Munich, Reichsstatthalter 823, cit. in Ian Kershaw, ‘Antisemitismus und Volksmeinung. Reaktionen auf die Judenverfolgung’, in Martin Broszat and Elke Fröhlich (eds.), Bayern in der NS-Zeit, Bd.II: Herrschaft und Gesellschaft im Konflikt, Munich, 1979, 281–348, here 332.
86. StA Amberg, BA Amberg 2399, GS Hirschau, 23 November 1938, cit. Kershaw, ‘Antisemitismus und Volksmeinung’, 333. For reactions in general of the public to the pogrom and its aftermath, see: Kershaw, Popular Opinion, 263ff.; Ian Kershaw, ‘Indifferenz des Gewissens. Die deutsche Bevölkerung und die “Reichskristallnacht”’, Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 11 (1988), 1319–30; Kulka, ‘Public Opinion’, xliii-iv, 277–86; David Bankier, The Germans and the Final Solution. Public Opinion under Nazism, Oxford, 1992, 85ff.; Hans Mommsen and Dieter Obst, ‘Die Reaktion der deutschen Bevölkerung auf die Verfolgung der Juden 1933–1943’, in Hans Mommsen and Susanne Willems (eds.), Herrschaftsalltag im Dritten Reich. Studien und Texte, Düsseldorf, 1988, 374–485, here 388ff.; William S. Allen, ‘Die deutsche Öffentlichkeit und die “Reichskristallnacht” – Konflikte zwischen Werthierarchie und Propaganda im Dritten Reich’, in Detlev Peukert and Jürgen Reulecke (eds.), Die Reihen fast geschlossen. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alltags unterm Nationalsozialismus, Wuppertal, 1981, 397–411.
87. IMG, xiii.131 (Funk testimony); Adam, in Pehle, 79–80; Adam, Judenpolitik, 208.
88. IMG, ix.312–13 (Göring testimony). Göring’s account has to be treated with care (despite being followed by Adam, Judenpolitik, 208, Read/Fisher, 146, Adam, in Pehle, 80, and other accounts). It was self-servingly unreliable and inaccurate, especially with regard to alleged meetings with Hitler and Goebbels in Berlin on the afternoon of 10 November. Göring claimed to have berated Hitler as soon as the Führer returned himself to Berlin, late on the morning of 10 November, about Goebbels’s irresponsibility. Hitler, Göring recalled, was equivocal. He ‘made some excuses, but agreed with me on the whole that these things should and could not happen’. This was consonant with Hitler’s continued attempts to distance himself from the events of the previous night. However, if the discussion between Göring and Hitler on 10 November took place at all, then it must have been by telephone. For, contrary to Göring’s recollection, Hitler did not return to Berlin that morning, but stayed in Munich and had lunch with Goebbels – TBJG, I/6,182 (11 November 1938). I am grateful to Karl Schleunes for alerting me to inconsistencies in Göring’s testimony.