Non­fic­tion

Kristall­nacht 1938

Alan E. Steinweis
  • Review
By – August 25, 2011
So much has been writ­ten about the Night of Bro­ken Glass; is there any­thing new to add to what is already known? The most impor­tant new ele­ment of Alan Stein­weis’ short book, Kristall­nacht 1938, is that it focus­es not so much on the vic­tims of the parox­ysm of anti-Semit­ic bru­tal­i­ty on the eve of the Holo­caust but on those respon­si­ble for the vio­lence. These, Stein­weis writes, were not just the Nazi lead­er­ship but large num­bers of ordi­nary Ger­mans riot­ing in the streets and loot­ing Jew­ish prop­er­ty on a gigan­tic scale.
Stein­weis ana­lyzes new­ly released inter­nal mem­os and court doc­u­ments from the tri­als of the pogrom’s per­pe­tra­tors, enabling us to bet­ter under­stand the day that set the stage for the mur­der of the Jews of Europe.
Mic­ah D. Halpern is a colum­nist and a social and polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor. He is the author of What You Need To Know About: Ter­ror, and main­tains The Mic­ah Report at www​.mic​ah​halpern​.com.

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