Hershel didn’t try to escape or hide his identity. When he was arrested by the French police, he confessed and openly stated his motive. It was the same as what he had written on the postcard to his family, which he had not yet mailed:
With God’s help. My dear parents, I could not do otherwise, may God forgive me, the heart bleeds when I hear of your tragedy and that of the 12,000 Jews. I must protest so that the whole world hears my protest, and that I will do. Forgive me.
Hermann
A Dark Response
While Grynszpan might have hoped to fire a Jewish equivalent of “the shot heard round the world,” the assassination of vom Rath had only tragic consequences for the Jews. The day of the embassy official’s death coincided with the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, a failed coup attempt by Adolph Hitler, yemach shemo, to seize power. Although the coup may have failed, Hitler got considerable publicity and a forum to publicize his party’s platform. Thus, it turned out to be an important stepping stone in Hitler’s rise to power, and by 1938 the day was one of celebration for the Nazis.
In his speech on the evening of November 9, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels told a crowd of veteran Nazi party members that it wouldn’t be surprising if the German people responded to the outrage perpetrated by a Jew by taking the law into their own hands and attacking Jewish synagogues, community centers and businesses. While Goebbels warned that the “spontaneous outbursts” shouldn’t be openly organized by the Nazi Party or the SA (Sturmabteilung, also known as the Brownshirts, because of the color of their uniform)—and, indeed, the attackers did follow orders and dress in civilian clothes—Goebbels also assured the crowd that the attacks wouldn’t be opposed or prevented.
A few hours later, the “spontaneous outburst” began.
While the violence began in Germany, it quickly spread to Austria and the Sudetenland. Synagogues were especially targeted for vandalism. Several hundred were set on fire and totally destroyed and flames partially damaged several hundreds more, all while the German public and local fire departments looked on; the firemen were concerned only that the blazes didn’t spread to buildings nearby. SA and Hitler Youth members shattered the windows of 7,500 Jewish-owned shops (hence the name Kristallnacht, or Night of Shattered Glass) and the stores were looted. Jewish cemeteries were also desecrated in many areas.
Jews were physically attacked as well, and at least 91 Jews were killed during the rampages.
In Berlin and Vienna, home to the German Reich’s two largest Jewish communities, mobs of SA storm troopers roamed the streets looking for Jews to brutalize and humiliate. They also attacked Jews in their homes. A U.S. official stationed in Leipzig described what he saw of the atrocities when he reported back to the State Department: “Having demolished dwellings and hurled most of the moveable effects to the streets, the insatiably sadistic perpetrators threw many of the trembling inmates into a small stream that flows through the zoological park, commanding horrified spectators to spit at them, defile them with mud and jeer at their plight.”
Following the instructions of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the security police, police officials arrested approximately 30,000 Jewish men, who were taken to concentration camps located in Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen (Orianienburg). There they were singled out by the SS guards for especially brutal treatment, and several hundred died.
Over the next three months, most of the Jewish men were released from the camps on the condition that they emigrate from Germany. Yet the arrests of Kristallnacht will be remembered as the first time the Nazi regime incarcerated Jews en masse simply because they were Jews.