From William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
On the night of November 9-10, shortly after the party bosses, led by Hitler and Goering, had concluded the annual celebration of the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, the worst pogrom that had yet taken place in the Third Reich occurred. According to Dr. Goebbels and the German press, which he controlled, it was a “spontaneous” demonstration of the German people in reaction to the news of the murder in Paris. But after the war, documents came to light which show how “spontaneous” it was. They are among the most illuminating — and gruesome — secret papers of the prewar Nazi era.
On the evening of November 9, according to a secret report made by the chief party judge, Major Walther Buch, Dr. Goebbels issued instructions that “spontaneous demonstrations” were to be “organized and executed” during the night. But the real organizer was Reinhard Heydrich, the sinister thirty-four-year-old Number Two man, after Himmler, in the SS, who ran the Security Service (SD) and the Gestapo. His teletyped orders during the evening are among the captured German documents.
At 1:20 am on November 10 he flashed an urgent teletype message to all headquarters and stations of the state police and the SD instructing them to get together with party and SS leaders “to discuss the organization of the demonstrations.”
a. Only such measures should be taken which do not involve danger to German property. (For instance synagogues are to be burned down only when there is no danger of fire to the surroundings.)
b. Business and private apartments of Jews may be destroyed but not looted …
d. …. 2. The demonstrations which are going to take place should not be hindered by the police …
5. As many Jews, especially rich ones, are to be arrested as can be accommodated in the existing prisons … Upon their arrest, the appropriate concentration camps should be contacted immediately, in order to confine them in these camps as soon as possible.
It was a night of horror throughout Germany. Synagoges, Jewish homes and shops went up in flames and several Jews, men, women and children, were shot or otherwise slain while trying to escape burning to death …
A number of German insurance firms faced bankruptcy if they were to make good the policies on gutted buildings (most of which, though they harbored Jewish shops, were owned by Gentiles) and damaged goods. The destruction in broken window glass alone came to five million marks ($1,250,000) as Herr Hilgard, who had been called in to speak for the insurance companies, reminded Goering; and most of the glass replacements would have to be imported from abroad in foreign exchange, of which Germany was very short.
“This cannot continue!” exclaimed Goering, who, among other things, was the czar of the German economy. “We won’t be able to last, with all this. Impossible!” And turning to Heydrich, he shouted, “I wish you had killed two hundred Jews instead of destroying so many valuables!”
