Kristallnacht 1938

* Contents * Note on Names * Introduction: A German Pogrom *"Our Path Is the Right One" *"This Bloody Jewish Deed" *"And Now the People Shall Act" *"The Time for Revenge Has Now Arrived" *"Things that Must be Implemented by Means of Violence" *"Synagogues Ignited Themselves" *"Defendants and Witnesses Openly Hold Back with the Truth" * Note on Sources * Notes * Acknowledgments * Index

Alan E. Steinweis is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont.

Illuminating...To capture the full significance of Kristallnacht, it is necessary to see the pogrom not in hindsight, but through contemporary eyes--and that is the achievement of Steinweis's short but revelatory book. Knowing what came after, we tend to see the pogrom of November 1938 as a prelude to genocide; but to those who lived through it, it was precisely the unprecedented quality of Kristallnacht that made it so momentous. -- Adam Kirsch The Tablet 20091110 In this brief but searing book, Steinweis provides a vivid retelling, buttressed by numerous accounts of individual incidents and also provides a new slant on what actually happened in those terrible days. -- Martin Rubin Washington Times 20091129 Utilizing primary sources, including the voices of both victims and victimizers, he illustrates that "ordinary" Germans gleefully took part in what amounted to a pogrom against their fellow citizens. This is an outstanding re-examination of a seminal event along the road leading to mass murder. -- Jay Freeman Booklist 20091115 A great deal has been written about these appalling events, but Alan Steinweis makes excellent use of a hitherto untapped source, namely the documentary record of more than 1,000 separate trials, involving some 7,000 perpetrators, conducted in Germany and Austria in the years following the end of the war, to tell the story again. His account adds fresh and often illuminating depth and detail to the familiar picture, and for anyone looking for a readable and accurate portrayal of the pogrom, its origins and its aftermath, this book is now the best place to go... Deliver[s] a powerful, nuanced and detailed account that should be required reading for everyone concerned with the history of Nazism and indeed more generally with the place of racial hatred in the modern world. -- Richard J. Evans Times Higher Education 20100311