Eichmann in Jerusalem

by

Hannah Arendt

A major 1938 pogrom against German Jews, named after the broken glass that covered streets across the country after the windows of Jewish establishments were shattered on the night of November 9. It was nominally a response to the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by the Polish Herschel Grynszpan (whose father testified at the Eichmann trial), and it marked a turning point in Nazi policy toward the Jews, from disenfranchisement to outright violence and persecution. About 100 Jews died in the violence, but many thousands were deported to concentration camps.
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Kristallnacht Term Timeline in Eichmann in Jerusalem

The timeline below shows where the term Kristallnacht appears in Eichmann in Jerusalem. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3: An Expert on the Jewish Question
The Banality of Evil Theme Icon
Justice and Legal Responsibility Theme Icon
...offices, and universities, and small-scale Jewish emigration was beginning. Anti-Jewish policy did not accelerate until Kristallnacht in 1938; the 1935 Nuremberg Laws “deprived the Jews of their political but not of... (full context)
Chapter 14: Evidence and Witnesses
Conscience, Authority, and Totalitarianism Theme Icon
Zionism and Nazism Theme Icon
Storytelling and Resistance Theme Icon
...frail Zindel Grynszpan, whose son assassinated a German secretary in Paris in 1938—which triggered the Kristallnacht pogrom. The prosecution portrays Grynszpan’s son as a hero, but he was in fact a... (full context)