On the evening of November ninth, and early morning of November tenth, a wave of violence spread across Germany. Shards of broken glass from destroyed windows filled the streets. Thousands of Jewish people were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Beforehand, Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat was assassinated by a Jewish teenager, which ignited a spark of fury among many. Most importantly, it severed as an opportunity to the Nazis. Not long after the assassination, a chain reaction of events soon followed. Ernst vom Rath assassination may have led to the outbreak of violence, but the true cause of the Kristallnacht was the influence of Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda campaign.
To begin with, the Kristallnacht may have appeared to be spontaneous from the public eye, but it was actually deliberately planned. For instance, it was noted that the “German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and other Nazis carefully organized the pogroms.”1 To describe the Kristallnacht as just an act of revenge would completely undermine its true importance. To the Nazis, it was the perfect opportunity to launch an attack after the assassination. As a matter of fact, “Groups of SA and SS men (the Elite Guards and Storm Troops), wearing civilian clothes, went by motorcycle, with sidecars filled with stones, to designated places.”2 The
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Not only did the incident encourage violence and terror against Jews, it also signaled the rise of the Nazis. The Kristallnacht was significant because it marked the beginning of anti-Jewish actions that were to come in the future. Germany was still suffering the consequences of World War Ⅰ, and the Kristallnacht worsened the conditions even more. All in all, the events from the Kristallnacht proved that there were many unsolved problems left from the previous war and that new conflicts were soon to be introduced leading up to the next world