Wolfgang Benz, author of numerous books on the Nazi era, said the events in the city of Chemnitz (east) this year reminded the Germans of the 80th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom against the Jews.
Riots against people considered to be foreigners broke out in Chemnitz on August 26, following a deadly assault. One night later, suspected neo-Nazis threw stones and bottles at a Jewish restaurant in Chemnitz. His owner said that he had been told to "disappear from Germany".
"This is not a state initiative, but a persistent hunt," Benz told the German news agency DPA, citing the ongoing debate about how the authorities have defined the troubles of the Chemnitz weekend.
Read more: No pogrom in Chemnitz, it is claimed
Sayony first
At first, this riot was not aimed at Jews, Benz said, "but it shows how easily a pogrom can grow and how easy it is to form a crowd and generate emotional thrust."
From discrimination against Jews to persecution
On November 9, 1938, nearly six years after Hitler 's accession to power, Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister, seized the shooting of a Nazi diplomat in Paris. two days ago and address members of the Nazi party in a Munich beer cellar. his diary – before telephoning attack orders addressed to Nazi paramilitary units across German territory.
The pogrom broke out until 13 November.
Estimates of the number of people killed range from several hundred to 1,300 people killed or murdered – far more than the 91 officially declared shortly after the attacks. Some 1,400 synagogues and prayer halls and 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed. Some 30,000 people chosen as Jews, mostly men, were taken to concentration camps as a result of Kristallnacht or Broken Glass Night.
"November 9, for which the term Kristallnacht was quickly adopted, was a turning point: from discrimination against Jews in Germany to persecution," Benz told the news agency Catholic KNA.
More than 1,000 synagogues in Germany and Austria were destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom
Read more: November 9, recall of the fall of Kristallnacht and the Berlin Wall
"It can be said that the Holocaust began on November 9, 1938. Since then, violence against Jews has been publicly and officially approved," said Benz, born in 1941, whose first studies on the subject of the Holocaust. extremism led to the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, in the 1960s and later to head the Technical University of Berlin
Center for research on anti-Semitism, from 1990 to 2011.
"In 1938, the state organized a pogrom that sparked a populace against a minority … People were persuaded by state propaganda, against their fellow citizens, to turn against their neighbors and their business friends, "Benz said.
"Everyone knew exactly what was going on," he said.
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80 years ago: the Nazi pogrom 'The night of broken glass & # 39;
What happened on November 9th and 10th, 1938?
Antisemitic crowds, led by South African paramilitaries, have been unleashed all over Nazi Germany. Synagogues like this one in the eastern city of Chemnitz and other property belonging to Jews have been destroyed. Jews were subjected to public humiliation and arrested, and at least 91 and probably more were killed.
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80 years ago: the Nazi pogrom 'The night of broken glass & # 39;
What's in a name?
Street violence on a national scale against German Jews is known by different names. The Berliners called it Kristallnacht, the origin of the English night of broken glass. Nowadays in German, it is also common to speak of "pogrom night" or "November pogrom".
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80 years ago: the Nazi pogrom 'The night of broken glass & # 39;
What was the official reason for the pogrom?
The murder of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris by a Polish Jewish teenager, Herschel Grynszpan, served as a pretext for the violence. Ironically, he was not executed for the crime. Nobody knows if he survived the Third Reich or died in a concentration camp.
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80 years ago: the Nazi pogrom 'The night of broken glass & # 39;
How did the violence begin?
After the death of vom Rath, Adolf Hitler gave oral permission to the Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, to launch the pogrom. The violence had already erupted in some places. The SS have been instructed to authorize "only measures such that they pose no danger to the lives and property of the Germans".
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80 years ago: the Nazi pogrom 'The night of broken glass & # 39;
Was violence an expression of popular anger?
No, it was the official line of the Nazi party, but nobody believed it. Constant references to "operations" and "measures" clearly indicate that violence was an act of the state. We do not know what ordinary Germans thought of chaos. There is evidence of the disapproval of the population, but the fact that the couple on the left of this picture seems to be laughing says so much.
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80 years ago: the Nazi pogrom 'The night of broken glass & # 39;
What did the Nazis hope to gain from violence?
In accordance with their racist ideology, the Nazis wanted to intimidate the Jews to let them voluntarily leave Germany. To this end, Jews often marched through the streets and were humiliated as in this picture. Their persecutors were also motivated by economic interests. Jews fleeing the Third Reich have been accused of extortion of "emigration" and their property has often been confiscated.
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80 years ago: the Nazi pogrom 'The night of broken glass & # 39;
Did the pogrom serve its purpose?
After such violence, German Jews could no longer be fooled by the intentions of the Nazis and those who could leave. But such naked aggression played badly in the foreign press and ran into the desire of order of many Germans. New anti-Jewish measures have thus taken on more bureaucratic forms, such as the requirement for Jews to wear visible stars on their garments.
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80 years ago: the Nazi pogrom 'The night of broken glass & # 39;
What was the immediate result?
After the pogroms, the Nazi leaders instituted a series of anti-Jewish measures, including a fee to cover the damage caused by the damage of November 9 and 10, 1939. Hermann Göring, the second most powerful man of the Third Reich of the "I would not want to be Jewish in Germany"
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80 years ago: the Nazi pogrom 'The night of broken glass & # 39;
What is the place of the Night of Broken Glass in History?
In 1938, there were only two years left before the beginning of what was called the Holocaust. But there is a clear continuity of the pogrom to the mass murder of European Jews, in which Nazi leaders would continue to develop and intensify their anti-Semitic hatred. According to a contemporary historian, the pogrom was a "prelude to genocide".
Author: Jefferson Chase
"Hitler started as a populist"
Asked about current Germany, Benz told KNA that he considered the opposition party of the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as regressive: "absolutely resistant to the And enlightenment and liberal realizations, without which our modern form of life would no longer be conceivable. "
"This [voter] Membership in this movement is rising, which shows that little has been learned from history, "added Benz. Adolf Hitler, a mass criminal, began his populist career.
Germany will mark the anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom at ceremonies held across the country on Friday.
