“In a single hour on that night, a horde of drunken animals in uniform wrecked the possessions, the past and the future of thousands of people, while bloodthirsty, savage, brutal creatures, decked out in and protected by the brown and black uniforms of the ruling party, slaughtered poor, tormented people in the thousands and sadistically abused thousands of wretched people” said Moses, an eyewitness of Kristallnacht (Gerhardt and Karlauf 19). Kristallnacht, the anti-Jewish riots that occurred on November 9 and 10 of 1938, was an unforgettable memory for thousands of people, not limited to Jews. However, there is much more to the story; the events were filled with much more loss and terror than imaginable next to the concentration camps. Not …show more content…
They were all convened in bars drinking when they received news that Ernst vom Rath had passed that evening. Interestingly enough, although Hitler was supposedly against these types of riots, he was the one who ultimately approved the order for violence, and his instructions were sent to the Gestapo offices (Steinweis 46). This only further establishes the hypocrisy of the organization. Later that night, Goebbels delivered a speech to everyone at the gathering, informing them of the news, and he told them to organize anti-Jewish riots but to make it look like they were not started by the party. Many even wore “civilian clothes” to make it look like an “outraged public reaction” (“Kristallnacht”). After Goebbels finished, the large group of Germans fled almost immediately to wreak havoc on the streets. An important aspect of the initiation of this national event that many people do not realize is the state these individuals were in. Since they had been out at the bars all night, many of them were drunk, which means their reactions were likely to be much more dramatic, aggressive, and barbaric than if they were sober. Although this does not in any way justify their actions, it definitely affected how the corresponding events played out and their intensity as well. This factor should be considered when thinking about the fact that the decision to carry out these riots was unplanned and impulsive; the Nazis were instantly ready for it. They had not previously planned a single part of it out, yet they were able to cause such mass destruction and mental damage across the country within such short period of time. The drunken state of the Nazi party contributed to the level of horror they caused the Jews to experience within these nights, and this influence must have caused these riots to escalade more