Rioting in Chemnitz was reminiscent of how the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom unfolded in Nazi Germany, says historian Wolfgang Benz. Friday marks the 80th anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass violence against Jews.
As Germany on Friday remembers the 80th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews, Wolfgang Benz, the author of many books documenting the Nazi era, said events in the eastern city of Chemnitz this year showed “how easily a pogrom can develop.”
Unrest directed at persons perceived as foreign erupted in Chemnitz on August 26 after a fatal stabbing. One night later, suspected neo-Nazis threw stones and bottles at a Jewish restaurant in Chemnitz. Its proprietor said he was told to “vanish from Germany.”
“That was not state-instigated, but it was a persistent hunting of people,” Benz told the German dpa news agency, referring to the ongoing debate on how officials defined Chemnitz’ weekend unrest.
Initially, that rioting was not focused on Jews, Benz said, “but it shows how easily a pogrom can develop, and how easily a mob can be formed and an emotional surge generated.”
From discrimination against Jews to persecution
On November 9, 1938, nearly six years after Hitler assumed power, Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister, seized on a two-day-old shooting in Paris of a Nazi diplomat and addresses Nazi party adherents in a Munich beer cellar — as noted in his diary — before telephoning attack orders to Nazi paramilitary units across German territory.
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