The November pogrom in 1938 ("Reichskristallnacht")

The Year 1938: from "Anschluss" to November pogrom The November pogrom in 1938 ("Reichskristallnacht") On November 7, 1938, 17-year-old, Herschel Grynszpan, shot the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris in protest against the persecution of Jews. Vom Rath died of his injuries two days later. The Reichspropagandaminister, Joseph Goebbels, thereupon initiated in the night from November 9 to 10, 1938, a pogrom across the entire "Reich" directed at the Jewish population as a "spontaneous" act of retaliation. The operation in Vienna lasted several days and by no means just one night, as the expression "Reichskristallnacht" intends to down-play the impact of this event. During this pogrom forty-two synagogues and houses of prayer were set on fire and severly damaged. Thousands of Jewish shops and flats were plundered, destroyed and requisitioned. 6,547 Viennese Jews were arrested, of whom 3,700 were sent to Dachau. Many of them were murdered in Dachau, Buchenwald and other concentration camps. The bloodiest violence occurred in Innsbruck, where National Socialists murdered three people during the night of November 9/10, 1938. An other man died of his injuries a short time later. Four elderly people were thrown into the river Sill. The assassination carried out by Grynszpan and the subsequent pogrom ordered by the Nazi state and party leadership offered the Nazi rulers a welcome opportunity to push through and legitimize the complete elimination of the Jews participation in the German economy. On November 12, 1938, the decree dealing with the elimination of Jews from the German economy was issued at a meeting in the Reichsluftfahrtministerium headed by Hermann Göring, the commissioner for the four year plan. This decree forbade the Jews to run an independent merchant or trade enterprise. At the same meeting the German Jewish population was put under the obligation to pay "reparations" of one billion Reichsmark for the assassination in Paris and to pay for all damage done during the pogrom.	Richard Graubart, who was murdered during the November pogrom in Innsbruck. Ruins of the Sephardic synagogue ('Turkish Temple') in Zirkusgasse, 2nd district of Vienna.
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