The Night of Broken Glass, also commonly called the Night of Broken Glass, is what many historians consider the beginning of what would later be known as the Holocaust. Throughout the night of November 9, 1938 and into the early morning hours of November 10, 1938, brutal non-Jewish civilians and members of the SA, the “Brown Shirts” of the Nazi Party, looted Jewish homes, hospitals and schools. The broken glass of the windows lying on the ground inspired the name Kristallnacht. But what caused the tragic events? Many historians believe that it was the assassination of Ernst Von Rath on November 7, 1938 that caused the tension to begin. Von Rath, a German diplomat, was assassinated by Herschel Grynspan. Grynspan was a Polish Jew, born in Germany but living in Paris, France. As a reason for shooting Von Rath, Grynspan stated that he was avenging the deaths of 12,000 Jews. But the real beginning of Kristallnacht was when Joseph Goebbles gave a provocative speech after Von Rath's funeral saying that he would not be surprised if the German people took the law into their own hands to avenge Von Rath's death by destroying everything Jewish. , namely synagogues, businesses and community centers. Almost instantly, Clausen 2, the German people and especially the members of the Nazi Party sprung into action committing terrible acts of racial discrimination. According to Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom (ushmm.org) a total of 267 synagogues were decimated in Germany, Austria and in. Members of the SA and Hitler Youth shattered windows in the Sudetenland and over 7,500 Jewish establishments. While mass murder was not the goal, at the time of the events 91 Jews died and an estimated 30,000 Jewish males were arrested… half of the paper… we wish Germany. Due to the idea of ​​“social Darwinism” and the growing interest in genetics, the anti-Semitic campaign took a more racial turn. Suddenly people were infatuated with the idea of ​​“racial purity.” The Germans considered the Aryans to be the purest of these races. After Germany's crushing defeat in World War I, a young Adolf Hitler wrote the definitive anti-Semitic book Mein Kampf. Later, as Chancellor of Germany, Hitler employed racial theorists to justify his persecution of Jews and other races (Anti-Semitism in Germany: Historical Backgroung; web.mnstate.edu). In conclusion, Von Rath's assassination may have triggered the start of Kristallnacht from the outside and used as an excuse to persecute the Jews, but in reality Germany's already present anti-Semitic views were the real reason behind the start of the “Final Solution.”