General rehearsal of the Holocaust

How the Reich prepared a crystal night

75 years ago, from November 9 to 10, 1938, the largest Jewish pogrom of the 20th century took place. "Imperial Crystal Night" (Reichskristallnacht) - so solemnly called the Nazis

Berlin street after a crystal night. Broken windows of "Jewish" stores. November 1938

The Russian word "pogrom" in Nazi Germany was not used. It was replaced by the phrase "spontaneous indignation of the people." On that tragic and shameful night, gateways for the Holocaust were opened - the most large -scale crime of the 20th century. The Nazis clearly showed the whole world that they can do anything within the country. And the world is not a judge or a hindrance to them.

Crowding out

In the metro area "Bayerischer Platz" in the center of West Berlin, signs are attached to dozens of lampposts, which are narrated by the day after the day of the Jewish population were taken away by human rights. Signs are considered historical monuments and inviolable.

At first, no one could believe that this is generally possible. Even after two months of Nazi rule, on March 29, 1933, Jewish organizations made a statement stating that their "holy duty to help update and raise the German nation."

And this is how the "update" went.

Two days after this statement, tens of thousands of attack aircraft and members of the Nazi party blocked shops, restaurants, cafes, and firms belonging to Jews throughout the country. On April 7, a law was issued, expelling Jews from the civil service. In the specification, it was clarified: "It is enough if one of the parents or parents of the parents were non -Aryans or confessed Judaism."

Similar inscriptions on the windows of restaurants, cafes, shops, owners of which were Jews, appeared long before the crystal night. Berlin, June 1938

Two weeks later, from all medical government, Jewish doctors were fired. And three days later, a law was adopted, which established the interest rate for Jews in schools and universities - one and a half percent of the total number of those who received.

Those who received citizenship in the period 1918-1933 were deprived of him. On May 6, 1933, an order followed to include professors and notaries in the category of “professional officials”, which meant immediate dismissal for Jews. Later, lawyers were included in this category. On June 2, dentologists were expelled from all the clinics of the Reich.

Then it went on the growing. The ban on making journalism and music, put on the stage the works of Germanic medieval authors and representatives of romanticism, to stage the works of Schiller and Goethe. Publicly play Wagner, Richard Strauss, Mozart, Beethoven. Engage in retail and parcel trade, swim on city beaches, drive a car, have a radio equipment, participate in exchange operations, be a member of singing unions and the Red Cross, give children German names (they had to be attributed to Jewish - Israel, Sarah); Publishers and bookstores were closed - both those where the owners were Jews and those that published and sold Jewish literature. To combat mixed marriages on September 5, 1933, benefits for the newlyweds were canceled if one of them is the "NEARITS".

After the adoption of the “Nuremberg laws” on the purity of blood in 1935, until the crystal night, 1234 anti -Jewish laws and by -laws were adopted. No one in the world should have any doubts about the true goals of the Nazis.

Nobody wanted to accept

In July 1938, the famous Evian conference was held on the problems of Jewish refugees.

It was a unique and shameful sight. Almost all of the 32 participating countries alternately announced that they had already done everything possible to facilitate the fate of about 150 thousand refugees from Germany and Austria. The US representative said that on the 1938 entrance quota for refugees from Germany and Austria, America had already accepted 27 thousand 370 people and "exhausted its capabilities." A similar position was taken by France and Belgium. Canada and the countries of Latin America motivated their refusal to unemployment and economic crisis. The Netherlands proposed helping refugee transit to other countries. The UK decided to provide her colonies in East Africa for refugees. But completely refused to review the issue of emigration to Palestine. There was no talk about entering the metropolis at all: overpopulated. Only the Dominican Republic agreed to accept 100 thousand refugees for five years.

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Participants in the Evian Conference did not challenge the "rights of the German government to legislative measures in relation to some of their citizens"

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A telegram was sent to Berlin from Evian, where, among other things, there was such a passage: none of the 32 countries disputed the "rights of the German government to legislative measures in relation to some of its citizens." The word "Jew" was bypassed.

The German journalists present at the conference accepted the signal, and already on July 15, 1938, the Danziger Opeosten newspaper wrote: “We see that Jews are pity only until it helps to conduct evil propaganda against Germany, but no one is ready to challenge the“ cultural shame of Europe ”, having adopted several thousand Jews. That is why this conference justifies German policy against Jewry. ”

The Conference was summed up by the Reich Home Newspaper Fölkisher Beobakhter, and just one phrase: "Nobody needs them."

About sport ...

Another step that untied the Nazis hands was the winter and summer Olympic Games of 1936 in Germany.

The weak calls for the boycott were simply ignored. All the response of the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Berlin Olympiad Karl Fom Halt: “If the Anti -German press calls to bring the intra -German affairs to the Olympic level, then this is worthy of all regret and demonstrates an unfriendly attitude towards Germany in the worst of possible options. If individual voices are heard aimed at disrupting the Olympic Games, then they come from circles that do not understand what the Olympic spirit is. These voices should not be taken seriously. ”

They were not accepted. In the Reich, for personal familiarization with the course of preparation for the games in August 1935, the Honorary President of the IOC Pierre de Cuberten arrived. He was so fascinated by what he saw that he was going to bequeath the third Reich to his books (more than 12 thousand pages of the text), and speaking on state radio, called Hitler "one of the best creative spirits of our era."

Kuberten was so fascinated by the readiness of Berlin for the Olympics that he called Hitler "one of the best creative spirits of our era"

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The IOC sent a special verification commission to Berlin. However, its members also did not see anything that “could damage the Olympic movement,” and the head of the commission, US NOC President Ever Brandzh (future President of the IOC) made a public statement that the boycott is “an idea alien to the spirit of America, a conspiracy in order to politicize the Olympic Games,” and “Jews should understand that they cannot use the games as weapons in their struggle against their struggle against their struggle against their struggle Nazis. " Already during the competition, Avery Brendage was removed by Marty Glickman and San Stuller from participating in an athletics relay. These were the only Jews in the American team, and therefore the act of the brand was regarded by many as an attempt to please Hitler.

The fact that there was not a single Jew in the German team itself did not surprise anyone either. As well as the fact that in 150 Berlin television halls, where there was a direct broadcast from the games, there were no Jews. They did not let it go. Although in the streets and in the press anti -Jewish agitation was absent for a month.

Trigger

On the eve of the Berlin pogrom in the cities of Germany, the arrests of Jews took place. Baden-Baden, November 9, 1938

Back in February 1938, an article appeared in the newspaper SS "Black Corps", entitled: "What needs to be done with the Jews?" The article expressed dissatisfaction that not all Jews still seek to leave the country, and it was proposed to take “decisive measures”. Hitler believed that such a "decisive measure" could be the "spontaneous indignation of the masses." This is evidenced by the imperial head of the press Otto Dietrich in the book "12 years with Hitler."

Evian and the 1938 Munich conspiracy finally convinced the Fuhrer what he could do with Jews everything he wanted.

From this moment, the intrigue of the crystal night began to twist. Back in March 1938, the authorities in Warsaw announced the foreign passports of Polish Jews living in Germany: the majority could not re -register, since this was given only a two -week period, and at the end of October lost, along with passports, Polish citizenship. For Poland, the real reason for these actions was an unwillingness to accept “their” Jews back, and for the Nazis it became the basis for expeling about 17 thousand Polish Jews. Most of them were in the barracks in the border town of Zbonshchin in terrible conditions.

Among the expelled were the family of a certain Gersla Grunshpan, a native of Hanover, who ended up in Paris and lived there illegally, which was long known to Gestapo. Desperate, Sendel Grunshpan (according to other sources, sister Berta) writes him a postcard about their desperate position with a request to send money. A postcard, as expected, gets where necessary. According to the organizers of the future pogrom, it was supposed to play the role of a trigger. And that's why.

Attempt

A terrorist attack or a fatal ethnic conflict, as we know, is the best reason for popular indignation. And therefore, the head of the security police of Reich Reich Rainhard Heydrich took up his organization. He instructed the head of the secret police to Henry Muller to find a performer who could be used blindly. In Paris, the attention of Gestapo agents has already attracted 17-year-old Gershel Grunshpan, who was a frequent guest in a bar for homosexuals. There, the young man met with the third secretary of the German embassy, ​​Ernst Fom Rat, who provided him with signs of attention and, possibly, supported financially. Just at that time, the French authorities declared Grunshpan that he should leave the country. The Gestapovites managed to extend his life in France through their people. Information about this is contained in the materials of the interrogation at the Nuremberg process of agents who were monitoring Grunshpan.

In early November, Heydrich came to Paris to take the leadership of the operation. His agent conducted the psychological processing of Gerslash: he introduced himself as his father’s friend, handed over the very postcard from the family, reported on the suffering of loved ones, called for revenge, etc. On the morning of November 7, the agent met with Grunshpan, who agreed to make an attempt on the German ambassador. The agent gave him money and told him where it is better to buy a gun. Hershl wrote a farewell letter to his parents.

The German embassy was intensely guarded. The visitor had to name the duty of the diplomat on duty, with whom he had an appointment. He was checked by documents and searched. Grunshpan said that he wanted to inform the German Office Iohannes von Velkeke important information. The officer replied that the ambassador was absent, but he can be taken to the Secretary of the Embassy of the FOM Rate. The security service did not search for Grunshpan. He went into the office and released the entire clip in the FOM of the rat, who received a tangent wound in the shoulder and penetrating into the abdominal cavity.

Grunshpan was arrested. FOM of the house was sent to the hospital, where the operation was performed. Successful. A team of doctors from Germany, led by the personal doctor of Fuhrer, Karl Brandt, flew in. On the morning of November 9, blood transfusion was made. It turned out that the not that group. At 17 o’clock after the third transfusion, the patient died “from the wounds received”.

The strip was successful. Homosexual Fom Rat alive was nobody alive. But he was posthumously raised immediately by three diplomatic ranks and buried with pomp.

In the Moscow press, the fact of an attempt on a diplomat was called "a provocation of Gestapo." I wonder how they found out?

Pogrom

The largest synagogue of Berlin on Phazanenstrasse, burned by the Nazis on November 9, 1938

American journalist and historian William Schirer in his book “Take -out and Fall of the Third Reich” gives excerpts from Heydrich’s order to headquarters and police and diabetes about “Organization of demonstration” against Jews:

1. a) Only measures should be taken that will not be dangerous for the life and property of the Germans (for example, the synagogue can be set on fire only if there is no threat that the fire will spread to neighboring houses).

b) Jewish business and private houses can be destroyed, but not looted.

1. The police should not disperse the demonstrations. <...>

2. There can be so many Jews, especially the rich as they will fit in the available prisons. After their arrest, one must immediately contact the corresponding concentration camp in order to convey them to this camp as soon as possible.

In the "Fyolkisher Beobakhter" in the editorial article an official call for the pogrom was also thrown: “The German people made the necessary conclusions from your crime. He will not endure the unbearable situation. ”

The hatred of the Jews spilled onto the streets and turned into a wave of legalized violence of incredible size. Thousands of Jewish houses were defeated, 4.5 thousand (according to other sources, 7.5 thousand) of Jewish trade and commercial enterprises were plundered. Jewish cemeteries were abused, 150 synagogues were burned and 75 were defeated (according to other sources, about 1 thousand 400 religious institutions were destroyed). The result of the imperial pogrom - 91 people were killed, hundreds were injured, crippled, raped; Dozens committed suicide. From 25 thousand to 30 thousand people were sent to concentration camps, several hundred of them died on the road as a result of the brutal bullying of the SS men. These figures are also impossible to fully check.

“Pravda” for November 11, 1938 wrote: “In its size and cruelty, the pogrom surpasses everything that has happened so far in Germany. The Jewish population is beaten right on the streets of cities. ”

Robbery

The consequences of the crystal night (otherwise it was also called the “Night of Broken Shoes”) affected not only Jews (although on them first of all), but throughout the German economy.

For example, Goring appreciated the broken mirror glasses that had to be bought for currency in Belgium. Insurance agencies were supposed to pay for the damage, since the houses where shops were located often belonged to the “Aryan” owners, and the plundered goods were “Aryan” wholesalers. The total amount of insurance was called - 25 million Reichsmarks.

The exit was found: a renewal of 1 billion of the Reichsmarks ($ 400 million at the then rate) was applied to the Jewish community of Germany, because "the Jews themselves are to blame for the unrest." All insurance payments were confiscated to those whose private enterprises and houses were plundered or destroyed.

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After the pogrom on the Jewish community of Germany, a indemnity of 1 billion of the Reichsmarks was applied, because "the Jews themselves are to blame for the unrest"

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On November 21, 1938, the Minister of Economy Walter Fun signed the circular “On the registration of Jewish property”, which was subject to ariing, that is, a bought -out for cheap or confiscation. The total amount of alienated Jewish property was 8.426 billion of the Reichsmarks. As a result, by the summer of 1939, the Jewish population of Germany represented the poorest group of the country.

After a crystal night, measures against the remaining Jews became just dragon. It was impossible to use filled transport, sit in the car, if there is a German, ride a train in the same compartment with the “Aryans”, leave the house after eight in the evening (in the summer after nine); go to theaters, cinema, variety or dance salons; Products could be bought only from four to five in the afternoon; Jews at any moment could evict from the apartment without explanation; Their children were expelled from all schools; All Jews were involved in forced labor; They stopped selling meat and meat products.

And finally, they began to just kill them.

"Final decision"

Until October 1941, they could somehow leave, having previously given everything: securities-to the state treasury, precious metals-to the city collateral, arts of art-to the land chamber of fine arts. They did not even forget about furniture and goods of consumption, up to the smallest, which were claimed by the "Aryan houses in the house."

In October 1941, mass deportations began. For each exposed Jew, the scammer was supposed to be a prize. Since 1942, the destruction was transferred to industrial rails. German Jews, who did not have time to leave, were initially taken to Kaunas and Riga, where executions and murderer were waiting for them, then to Treblinka, Sobibor (executions, murderers, gas chambers), Auschwitz-Ovventtsim (gas chambers).

In 1933, the Jewish population of Germany exceeded 550 thousand people, not counting half -bloods. In 1943, Germany was declared Jüdenfrei - free of Jews.

Photos: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Library of Congress, Ap Photo