Issues in Focus the Infamous Kristallnacht

Forty years ago, on Nov. II, 1938, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Berlin correspondent reported that “an estimated 25,000 Jews were under arrest today in the wake of the worst outbreak of anti-Jewish violence in modern German history, which left throughout the nation a trail of burned synagogues, smashed homes, wrecked and pillaged shops and at least four known dead.” This infamous event came to be known as Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.”

Several days earlier, a young Polish Jew named Herschel Feivel Grynszpan had attacked Ernst Edward vom Rath, a German Embassy official in Paris. Following the assassination attempt, the Nazi government banned Jewish children from public schools and suspended all Jewish newspapers. Anti-Jewish activities broke out, during which the synagogue at Kassel was vandalized. The German government warned of retaliation against the Jews for Grynszpan’s actions. On Nov. 9, vom Rath died, and anti-Jewish demonstrations of an increasingly severe nature broke out in Berlin. Kristallnacht, which began on the night of Nov. 10, continued until the following morning.

The Nazi press, which said at the time that the rioters were venting their wrath at the murder of the embassy official, congratulated the mobs for their “remarkable restraint.” German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels denied that the events were government-inspired, despite the fact that he allowed the violence to continue for 14 hours before intervening.

Jews were banned from universities and all Jewish organizations were closed. It was announced that the ban on Jewish newspapers was to continue for three months. Associated Press and United Press dispatches from Berlin reported that the Nazis were planning to restore the Jewish ghetto.

As a retaliatory measure for the murder of vom Rath, Field Marshall Hermann Goering imposed on Nov. 13 a billion Mark fine on German Jewry, and they were given 24 hours in which to pay. According to the Nazis, the fine incurred a total loss of one-eighth of German Jewry’s wealth; outside observers figured the total to be one-half.

INTERNATIONAL OUTRAGE EXPRESSED

Jewish businesses were banned, and the threat of famine endangered the lives of German Jews. An orphanage was closed without notice, with children turned out in the streets to fend for themselves. The Nazis refused to release Jewish doctors whom they were holding. It was estimated that, in the three days following Kristallnacht, 35,000 to 50,000 German Jews were arrested.

The New York Post predicted at the time that the “outbursts would stir sympathy for Jews in Nazi Germany.” Indeed, the sympathy was stirred and international reaction was prompt and outraged. The American and British press unanimously reflected horror at the events. The Archbiship of Canterbury, claiming to speak for “the Christian people of Great Britain,” expressed his “feelings of indignation.”

American political and labor organizations and leaders expressed their dismay. Major Jewish organizations issued formal statements of protest. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain spoke of “deep and widespread sympathy” and President Franklin D. Roosevelt said that the United States was “deeply shocked.”

Following the violence, German government circles had said that the night and day of rioting marked an “historic hour for international Jewry.” They said, “the Jewish problem is no longer a German problem, but has become a world question which all states must help to decide.” In reality, the “Jewish problem” was at that time already subject to international scrutiny. In March, 1938, Roosevelt had called for an international conference on the refugee crisis.

The major result of the conference, which met at Evian, was the establishment of a permanent Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (IGC), whose purpose was to deal with orderly emigration from Germany and opportunities for resettlement in refuge countries. Following Kristallnacht, expectations were aroused, and it was hoped that the international outcry would facilitate the IGC’s efforts to resettle the refugees. The Committee’s work, however, was never completed: FDR allowed the IGC to die, and no practical resettlement plan was ever carried out.

ASSESSMENT OF ROOSEVELT’S ROLE

Why? Historians have attempted to find answers, though pointing out at the same time that the answers are not necessarily understood. Some note that while FDR’s immediate reaction to Kristallnacht was to order the extension of visitors’ visas for a period of six months, he was unwilling to tamper with U.S. immigration laws or the quota system for the benefit of refugees. He was, after all, fearful of political risk.

He was afraid of a power struggle with a conservative Congress and sought to heed the mood of an increasingly isolationist public. “America First” organizations were the primary proponents of a new type of American nationalism which feared aliens as a threat to American culture. One of their successful ventures was the thwarting of the Wagner-Rogers Bill in 1939, which asked for the entry of 20,000 German refugee children over a period of two years, outside of the existing quota.

Emanuel Celler, the former Brooklyn Democratic Congressman, in his book due for release next month, “Decade of History, published by Contemporary Books, Chicago, III., charged that Roosevelt “could have saved many thousands of Jews from Hitler’s Holocaust, but he refused to do it.” He recalls that “I quarreled with him over his refusal to arrange for the admission of German Jews to this country from ’36 on.” Roosevelt refused to do so, the retired Democratic leader claims, because “He was afraid of what was called the ‘Jew Deal.'”

Celler, who was the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also related how he fought the State Department on behalf of Jewish immigration, again, to no avail. He notes that Secretary of State Cordell Hull “offered no help” and that “he followed the temper of the State Department which was always anti-Jewish… and still is.”

Few were able to foresee that the years 1938-42 were a prelude to mass extermination, or that the lack of a concrete resettlement plan by the United States or any other country would aid the Nazis in their “Final Solution.” Historians stress, nevertheless, that the Jews of Germany could have been saved, if the commitment of the nations and people of the world to achieving a resettlement plan had been more resolute.