Kristallnacht, also known as the Night of Broken Glass or the November Pogroms, was a coordinated wave of anti-Jewish violence carried out across Nazi Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland on 9–10 November 1938. Synagogues were burned, Jewish businesses and homes were destroyed, people were assaulted and murdered, and more than 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The pogrom marked the transition from legal discrimination and economic exclusion to organised physical violence against the Jewish population, paving the way for the Holocaust.
Quick Facts
Event: Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass or November Pogroms
Date: 9–10 November 1938
Locations: Nazi Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland
Immediate pretext: The assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan
Perpetrators: SA and SS forces, members of the Hitler Youth, Nazi Party organisations and participating civilians
Synagogues attacked: More than 1,400 synagogues and Jewish prayer rooms were damaged, burned or destroyed
Businesses damaged: Approximately 7,500 Jewish-owned shops were looted and vandalised
Mass arrests: More than 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps
Fatalities: At least 91 people were reported murdered during the attacks, while hundreds more died from injuries, mistreatment in concentration camps and suicide in the following weeks and months
Historical significance: A decisive escalation from state discrimination to open, organised violence against the Jewish population
What was Kristallnacht?
On the night of 9–10 November 1938, the Nazi regime unleashed a state-directed wave of anti-Jewish violence throughout Germany, annexed Austria and the Sudetenland. Although Nazi propaganda presented the attacks as a spontaneous public reaction to the death of Ernst vom Rath, they were encouraged, coordinated and controlled by the Nazi leadership.
The attacks were carried out mainly by members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Hitler Youth, often dressed in civilian clothing. Some members of the German public joined the violence, while many others watched without intervening. Police officers were ordered not to stop the attacks, and fire brigades were generally instructed to protect neighbouring non-Jewish property rather than save burning synagogues.
Kristallnacht marked a catastrophic change in Nazi policy. Since Adolf Hitler became Chancellor on 30 January 1933, German Jews had been subjected to boycotts, dismissals, humiliation and increasingly restrictive laws. During the November Pogroms, persecution moved openly into mass violence, imprisonment and murder.
Why was it called Kristallnacht?
The German word Kristallnacht means “Crystal Night” and refers to the shattered glass that covered the streets after thousands of Jewish-owned shops, businesses, homes and synagogues were attacked. The expression became widely known in English as the Night of Broken Glass.
Many historians and memorial institutions now prefer the terms November Pogroms or Reich Pogrom Night. These descriptions place greater emphasis on the victims, the organised violence and the destruction of Jewish life. The traditional name can sound almost decorative and may understate the terror, humiliation, imprisonment and deaths caused by the attacks.
Escalating persecution before Kristallnacht
Anti-Jewish persecution had intensified steadily after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. Jewish civil servants, teachers, lawyers, doctors and business owners were gradually excluded from German public and economic life. Nazi propaganda, directed by Joseph Goebbels, portrayed Jews as enemies of Germany and encouraged widespread antisemitism.
On 15 September 1935, the Nuremberg Laws deprived German Jews of citizenship and prohibited marriages and sexual relationships between Jews and people classified by the regime as being of “German or related blood.” Further decrees restricted education, employment, property ownership and participation in society.
By 1938, the regime was accelerating the forced emigration and economic dispossession of Jewish families. Jewish-owned businesses were transferred to non-Jewish ownership through a process known as Aryanisation, while passports, identity papers and personal freedoms became increasingly restricted.
Ernst Röhm and the SA
The Sturmabteilung (SA), commonly known as the Brownshirts, played a leading role in carrying out the violence during Kristallnacht. The organisation had originally been built into a powerful paramilitary force under the leadership of Ernst Röhm. Although Röhm had been executed during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, the SA remained active and participated alongside the SS, the Hitler Youth and other Nazi organisations in the nationwide attacks against Germany's Jewish population.
The Polenaktion
On 28 October 1938, Nazi authorities launched the Polenaktion, forcibly arresting and expelling more than 12,000 Jews of Polish nationality from Germany. Families were removed from their homes with little warning and transported to the Polish frontier. Many became stranded in terrible conditions near the border town of Zbąszyń because Polish authorities initially refused to admit them.
Among those expelled were the parents and siblings of Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris. After receiving a message describing his family's expulsion and suffering, Grynszpan went to the German embassy in Paris on 7 November 1938 and shot the diplomat Ernst vom Rath.
The assassination of Ernst vom Rath
Ernst vom Rath was seriously wounded and died on 9 November 1938. His death gave the Nazi leadership the pretext it had been waiting for to intensify its campaign against Germany's Jewish population.
That evening, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and other senior Nazi officials were gathered in Munich to commemorate the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 8–9 November 1923. In a speech to Nazi Party leaders, Goebbels announced vom Rath's death and claimed that anti-Jewish demonstrations had already begun. He indicated that the Nazi Party would not openly organise the violence but would not prevent it.
Regional Nazi leaders understood the speech as authorisation to launch attacks. Orders were quickly transmitted to local party organisations, the SA, the SS and police authorities throughout the Reich.
Heydrich's instructions
At 1:20 a.m. on 10 November 1938, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Security Police and Security Service, sent a secret telegram containing detailed instructions for the pogrom. Police were ordered not to interfere with the destruction of Jewish property unless non-Jewish buildings were endangered. The instructions required the arrest of as many Jewish men as the concentration camps could hold, particularly those considered young, healthy and able to work. Archives and documents from synagogues and Jewish communities were to be seized, while foreign nationals and property belonging to non-Jews were to be protected.
Heydrich worked under Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS and one of the principal architects of the Nazi police and concentration camp system. Their organisations turned the violence into a coordinated operation involving police forces, security services and camp authorities.
Synagogues and prayer rooms destroyed
More than 1,400 synagogues and Jewish prayer rooms were ransacked, burned or demolished during the November Pogroms. Torah scrolls, religious objects, books, archives and works of art were dragged into the streets and publicly destroyed.
Many of the attacked buildings had served their communities for generations. Firefighters were frequently present but were ordered to prevent the flames from spreading to surrounding property rather than extinguish the burning synagogues. The destruction was therefore not the uncontrolled result of public disorder but part of an organised assault on Jewish religious and communal life.
Jewish businesses, homes and schools
Approximately 7,500 Jewish-owned shops and department stores were looted and vandalised. Their windows were smashed, merchandise was stolen or destroyed, and interiors were wrecked. The broken glass that covered the pavements gave the pogrom its commonly used name.
Jewish homes were invaded and ransacked. Furniture, photographs, books and personal possessions were thrown into the streets or deliberately destroyed. Jewish schools, hospitals, cemeteries and community buildings were also attacked. Men, women and children were beaten, humiliated and terrorised in front of neighbours and bystanders.
Mass arrests and concentration camps
More than 30,000 Jewish men were arrested during and immediately after Kristallnacht. Most were deported to the Nazi concentration camp system, primarily Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. This was the first mass incarceration of Jews based explicitly on their racial identity throughout Nazi Germany. Prisoners were beaten, abused, starved and subjected to brutal camp conditions. Hundreds died during their imprisonment or shortly after their release.
Many prisoners were released only after they or their families could demonstrate plans to leave Germany and surrender property or financial assets. The arrests therefore served both as an instrument of terror and as a means of accelerating forced Jewish emigration.
The number of victims
The official Nazi report recorded 91 Jewish people murdered during the pogrom, but this figure represented only a fraction of the true human cost. It excluded many people who later died from their injuries, those murdered or fatally mistreated in concentration camps and those who took their own lives following the destruction of their homes, livelihoods and communities.
Modern historical research therefore places the total number of deaths in the hundreds. Some broader estimates, which include suicides and deaths resulting from imprisonment and persecution during the following months, are considerably higher. Because records were incomplete and Nazi authorities concealed many crimes, an exact total cannot be established.
Göring's meeting and the collective fine
On 12 November 1938, Hermann Göring chaired a meeting of senior Nazi officials to coordinate the economic consequences of the pogrom. Rather than compensating the victims, the regime blamed Germany's Jewish community for the destruction inflicted upon it.
A collective fine of one billion Reichsmarks, known as the Judenvermögensabgabe, was imposed on German Jews as supposed “atonement” for the death of Ernst vom Rath. Insurance payments intended to cover damage to Jewish property were confiscated by the state, while Jewish owners were ordered to pay for repairs themselves.
The meeting also accelerated the removal of Jews from German economic life. Jewish-owned businesses were forced into non-Jewish ownership, and further decrees excluded Jews from schools, theatres, cinemas and many public spaces.
International response
The violence caused international outrage. Foreign diplomats and journalists reported the burning of synagogues, the destruction of businesses and the mass arrests. The pogrom made it increasingly difficult for foreign governments to ignore the violent nature of Nazi antisemitism.
The United States recalled its ambassador for consultations, while public protests took place in several countries. Britain expanded efforts that led to the Kindertransport, through which approximately 10,000 mainly Jewish children were admitted from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Despite the condemnation, most countries did not significantly relax immigration restrictions. For many Jewish families attempting to escape Nazi rule, obtaining visas and finding countries willing to accept them remained extremely difficult.
Jewish emigration after Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht destroyed any remaining hope among many German and Austrian Jews that persecution might eventually ease. Applications for visas increased sharply, and tens of thousands attempted to leave the Reich during the months that followed.
Emigration, however, often required families to surrender homes, businesses, savings and possessions. Nazi taxes and confiscations stripped many refugees of their wealth before they were permitted to leave. Older people, poorer families and those without foreign connections faced particularly severe obstacles.
Kristallnacht and the Holocaust
Kristallnacht did not mark the beginning of the systematic mass murder of Europe's Jews, but it was one of the most important turning points on the path to the Holocaust. The pogrom demonstrated that the Nazi regime could organise mass violence, destroy Jewish property, arrest tens of thousands of people and impose collective punishment without significant resistance from German institutions.
After Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen and other SS and police units began carrying out mass shootings of Jewish men, women and children behind the Eastern Front. These killings marked the transition from persecution and forced emigration to systematic mass murder.
Senior officials including Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann later played central roles in the persecution, deportation and murder of European Jews. The administrative coordination of the so-called Final Solution was discussed at the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942.
Historical significance
Kristallnacht exposed the true nature of the Nazi regime. It was not an isolated riot or uncontrolled public disturbance, but a coordinated pogrom enabled by the Nazi Party, police, security services and state authorities. The event shattered Jewish communities across Germany and Austria and showed that legal protection had effectively disappeared. It also revealed the willingness of many institutions to cooperate, remain silent or stand aside while neighbours were attacked and their places of worship destroyed.
For these reasons, historians regard the November Pogroms as a decisive escalation in Nazi persecution: the moment when years of discriminatory legislation and propaganda erupted into nationwide organised violence, mass imprisonment and murder.
