Editing Kristallnacht (section)

==Overview==
The pretext for ''Kristallnacht'' was the assassination of the German diplomat [[Ernst vom Rath]] by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris. When [[Adolf Hitler]] was notified, he instructed Goebbels to organize a pogrom in retaliation. [[Gestapo]] leaders [[Reinhard Heydrich]] and [[Heinrich Müller]] played important roles in the planning of the pogrom, instructing the ''[[Ordnungspolizei]]'' to not interfere in the riots. 

Estimates of the number of fatalities caused by the pogrom have varied. Early reports estimated that 91 Jews were murdered during the attacks. Modern analysis of German scholarly sources by historians such as Sir Richard Evans puts the number much higher. When deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included, the death toll climbs into the hundreds. Additionally, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in [[Concentration Camp|concentration camps]]. [[Rape]] was also widespread.

Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, [[Looting|looted]], and [[Vandalism|vandalized]] as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland, and over 7,000 Jewish businesses were either destroyed or damaged. The British historian Martin Gilbert wrote that no event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening, and the accounts from the foreign journalists working in Germany sent shock waves around the world. The British newspaper ''The Times'' wrote at the time: "No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenseless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday."

The synagogues, some centuries old, were also victims of considerable violence and vandalism, with the tactics the Stormtroopers practiced on these and other sacred sites described as "approaching the ghoulish" by the United States Consul in Leipzig and "thuggish" by others. Tombstones were uprooted and graves violated. Fires were lit, and prayer books, scrolls, artwork and philosophy texts were thrown upon them, and precious buildings were either burned or smashed until unrecognizable. 

Many Berliners were deeply ashamed of the pogrom, and some took great personal risks to offer help to their beleaguered Jewish neighbors. The son of a US consular official heard the janitor of his block cry: "They must have emptied the insane asylums and penitentiaries to find people who'd do things like that!"

When former German Kaiser [[Wilhelm II]] heard about this pogrom he recalled: "For the first time in history, I am ashamed to be a German."
[[Category:Villainous Event]]
[[Category:List]]
[[Category:Terrorists]]
[[Category:Corrupt Officials]]
[[Category:Xenophobes]]
[[Category:Totalitarians]]
[[Category:Modern Villains]]
[[Category:Mass Murderers]]
[[Category:Destroyer of Innocence]]
[[Category:Destroyer]]
[[Category:Iconoclasts]]
[[Category:Oppressors]]
[[Category:Arsonist]]
[[Category:War Criminal]]
[[Category:Villains of World War 2]]
[[Category:Government support]]
[[Category:Successful]]
[[Category:Anti-Semitic]]
[[Category:Vandals]]
[[Category:Rapists]]
[[Category:Germany]]
[[Category:Austria]]
[[Category:Misogynists]]