Kristallnacht Or Reich Pogram Night

Novemeber 9th, 1938 was a day that can be seen as the beginning of what set forth the Holocaust. While given the name Kristallnacht, many scholars have chosen to call it “November Pogram” or “Reich Pogram Night” instead. Kristallnacht means “night of broken glass” which is named after the streets those many years ago that were trashed and vandalized. For a book given that name, at first glance it doesn’t seem as important as it really is. When reading Kristallnacht by Alan E. Steinweis, I found myself constantly agreeing with the author, along with learning new events that had surrounded the Holocaust. I had specifically agreed where Steinweis calls it a product between unrest from below and manipulation from above. That made me immediately

I had always thought that it was formed by and motivated from the top. While thinking the Holocaust was a sudden event as well, I am shocked at how convinced and sure I am that it actually began from below. The attacks actually started on March 7th, 1933, where there were demonstrations in front of Jew businesses. This gives justification to the point of where there was escalation. You also must take a look at Bavaria, and how it contributed to social death. As silly as it sounds, this event reminded me of High School and teenagers. Although it is not as big as it was on the scale of the Holocaust, I have seen where there is annexation of teens seen as “aliens” or strangers that begins slowly with little things then gradually gets bigger. While there was that demonstration in March, Nazi activists were mad that the purging of Jews had not progressed quickly, and ended up having a second wave of violence in 1935. The escalation of events is what also led to the roundup of Jews in Poland on October 27th,

Steinweis states “The majority of Germans had not participated in directly in the pogrom, but they could not escape the magnitude of the event” (4). I had completely agreed on this point and noticed that tolerating the beginning events would only condone the events following, leading up to and after the Holocaust. When reading this chapter, I had realized right in the beginning that the ones who were disgusted by the acts committed against the Jews perhaps did not speak out because of fear. “Germans who voiced such criticism ran the risk of arrest and prosecution for violation of the 1934 law against maligning the leaders of the party or the government.” (5). In reading, I was shocked in seeing that in the both cases where someone was either defaming Germany, like Hermann B. or in denouncing the pogrom like Franz H. that there were extreme measures taken to prosecute them both. Fear is a feeling that is used to be dominated, as the saying goes better to be feared than loved. That is one tactic used in order to force the number of Germans who had disagreed, to submit. I see this happening in today’s world, where there is a small number of those who speak out against a wrong, and are then punished and forced. You can relate this to back to those people who say they would act out against a cruelty, and participate in events like protesting, but never fully commit to their word out of