Language:
German
Year of publication:
2006
Titel der Quelle:
Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung
Angaben zur Quelle:
15 (2006) 65-84
Keywords:
Jews History 1933-1939
;
Kristallnacht, 1938
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
Argues that the "Kristallnacht" pogrom occupies a special place in the cultural memory of Germany. No other crime of the Nazi regime has been documented as meticulously. Relates the evolution of the events in 1938. Researchers agree that it was Goebbels who called for the excessive violence against the Jews, on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the putsch of 9 November 1923. Beween 7-13 November 1938 members of the Hitler Jugend, Gestapo, SA, and SS, many disguised as civilians, burned synagogues and demolished thousands of Jewish enterprises and cemeteries. 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, maltreated, brutally abused, and in many cases murdered. Although the assassination of vom Rath was the external reason for the attack on the Jews, the systematic public humiliation and abuse of Jews point to a ritual of unveiled de-humanization. While the highest degree of de-humanization was realized later in concentration and extermination camps, the "Kristallnacht" pogrom constitutes a primordial event in the memory of German Jewry.
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