The Night of Broken Glass

First Run Features

R1 DVD

This detailed documentary covers the steady increasing persecution of the Jews of Germany during the Nazi Party’s rise to power.

With confirmed anti-Semites like Himmler in the party the persecution started early with Jews being singled out for beatings and other random acts of violence. Those Jews who could see the persecution coming left Germany early. The later departees were forced to sacrifice everything they couldn’t carry to the State. The “taxes” on departures and the sale of Jewish properties brought revenue to the State and encouraged a forced emigration policy, although gradually the rest of the world started putting up barriers to these refugees. There are two areas here that are rarely examined. Why did the Jews meekly put up with it, and why did the German people allow it? The threat of Himmler’s SS and Heydrich’s gangs of Brownshirts may explain the second, but the attitude of the Jews who stayed behind has rarely been examined.

There seems to have been a blind “it won’t happen to us” attitude in spite of the increasing violence, exclusion from schools and workplaces, and anti-Jewish propaganda and legislation. Since this was obviously sponsored by the State it should have been clear warning to those who remained but hundreds of thousands ignored it.

Once the Nazis had control of the Police they effectively owned the streets. The pace of beatings, assaults and shop smashings was stepped up. It took a few years of ceaseless propaganda to do it but many Germans had now come to believe in “the evil Jew” and if they didn’t actually take part they certainly condoned the violence.

The major action took place on the nights of the ninth and tenth of November 1938. In a coordinated series of attacks over four hundred synagogues and other buildings were burned and over seven thousand Jewish businesses were looted and destroyed by the Hitler Youth, Gestapo and SS. Fire Departments were forced by the SS to stand idly by or concentrated on saving adjoining houses. Police arrested over 26,000 Jewish men and shipped them off to concentration camps. More than 90 people were killed on the one night. This night became known as Kristallnacht for the massive amounts of broken glass as the buildings were destroyed.

The excuse was the assassination of a German diplomat by a young Jew, Herschel Greenspan, in Paris. His family had been a victim of one of the earlier pograms and he wanted his revenge. Unfortunately he gave the Nazis the excuse they needed to start the organised campaign against his fellow Jews.

Worse was to come. Kristallnacht marked the start of organised large-scale arrests, deportations and imprisonments. The concentration camps and work camps, originally established to put pressure on the Jews to leave Germany, became increasingly used to provide slave labour to major industrial concerns, and led to the “Final Solution” – the extermination of the remaining Jews in Germany.

The film contains much horrifying footage, but unfortunately does little to explain the attitudes of the German or Jewish people. Those attitudes led to millions of deaths. These include many of the people who could have offered some sort of explanation as to why they did nothing.

Reviews appear on the Synergy website with a single cover image. In the digital and print edition, reviews appear with multiple images and with expanded content. We recommend you download the free digital edition (or buy the print edition) to get the most from Synergy Magazine.

This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 3 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

If you came to this page directly (and missed our menu), click here to go to the front page of Synergy Magazine Website or use the following link: http://www.synergy-magazine.com