International Reaction to Pogroms

The recent spate of violence in Germany and Austria against Jews there have provoked some criticism elsewhere in the world.

The United States will be recalling its ambassador. President Roosevelt stated that he could "scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth-century civilization". As an expression of the condemnation by the people and Government of the United States, the President ordered Ambassador Hugh Wilson to return from Germany at once.

No word yet on whether diplomatic ties will be severed. France has said it will ending any diplomatic connection with Germany in protest.

There has been talk among some politicians to declare war on Germany just for the atrocities it inflicted upon its own people. In addition, there has been an increase in German Jews trying to flee their homeland.

Jews forced to repay Reich

Yesterday, the German Government ordered the Jewish population of the Reich to pay possibly as much as 1 billion Reichsmark for the damages incurred during Kristallnacht.

Reichskristallnacht

Totals from the destructive progoms against German and Austrian Jews are now known. These may be adjusted slightly but all indications are that these are the figures. Some have been released by Minister Reinhard Heydrich and so come from the Nazi authority.

According to Minister Heydrich, 191 Synagogues were destroyed (constituting nearly all Germany had), with 76 completely demolished; 100,000 Jews were arrested; three foreigners were arrested; 174 people were arrested for looting Jewish shops; and 815 Jewish businesses were destroyed.

It is believed that 7500 Jewish stores and businesses were destroyed by violent Germans. The event has begun to be called Kristallnacht, Reichskristallnacht or Reichspogromnacht.

At this time there may have been a total of 91 deaths due to mob violence. It is unclear how many of these were Jews but it is believed to be all. Many Jews were beaten to death with other Jews being forced to watch on.

Synagogues were not merely damaged and burned but also looted with much of ceremonial treasures stolen and destroyed. Many Temples even had their mezuzot taken from the doorways.

Jewish cemeteries were not spared violence. Tombstones were uprooted and graves violated. Fires were lit, and prayer books, scrolls, artwork and philosophy texts were thrown upon them, and precious buildings were either burned or smashed until unrecognisable. Even the ancestors and the dead were not spared violence and the peace of being dearly departed.

Goebbels ascribed the events to the "healthy instincts" of the German people. He went on to explain: "The German people are anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race."

Events in only recently annexed Austria were no less horrendous. Of the entire Kristallnacht only the pogrom in Vienna was completely successful. Most of Vienna's 94 synagogues and prayer-houses were partially or totally destroyed. People were subjected to all manner of humiliations, including being forced to scrub the pavements whilst being tormented by their fellow Austrians, some of whom had been their friends and neighbors.

Thousands were arrested throughout the riots with no word on what the charges are (many were arrested under the pretence of protection as the Nazis call it) or when they will be released. Countless Jews commit suicide during the pogrom as well.

Internationally, the reaction to the extreme violence has been shock. Many foreign papers have printed accounts of the series of events and destruction of Jewish temples.

Riots against German & Austiran Jews subside

Mob law ruled in Berlin throughout the afternoon and evening and hordes of hooligans indulged in an orgy of destruction. There have several anti-Jewish outbreaks in Germany during the last five years, but never anything as nauseating as this. Racial hatred and hysteria seemed to have taken complete hold of otherwise decent people. Even fashionably dressed women were clapping their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable middle-class mothers held up their babies to see the "fun".

Much Jewish property was damaged and destroyed throughout the violence which has now come to an end after Propaganda minister Joseph Geobbels requested it, though it sounds more like an order. They have been accounts of several deaths during the riots. Figures of the actual destruction is still being accumulated. It mat be some days before the total figures are known, including the dead, injured and arrested.

Italian Jews under harder Laws

The Italian Government enacted anti-Jewish legislation. Many of the laws proposed would be similar to the Nuremberg Laws passed three years ago in Germany.

Riots in Germany & Austria

Violence erupted in the late hours last night. The riots and violence was in response to the murder of Nazi Ernst vom Rath in Paris at the hands of German-born Polish Jew Herschel Grynszpan. Rath lost his life last night at a hospital in Paris even with Chancellor Hitler's own personal physician Dr. Brandt tending to his recovery.

Last night was also the fifteenth anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch which the Nazis look back fondly as an important day in the formation and evolution of their controversial political party.

Destruction of Jewish property has been widespread. Many synagogues, large and small, have been damaged and burned by angry German people. Using sledgehammers many shops windows have been shattered leaving glass shards and pieces all over the streets.

Jewish homes have been ransacked all throughout Germany and Austria. Although violence against Jews has not been explicitly condoned by the authorities, there have been cases of Jews being beaten or assaulted. In an interesting twist, foreign Jews have generally been left alone.

The Riots continue. The Police is not interfering with the mobs but many men are being arrested nontheless. A unsubstantiated rumor is the men are Jews being rounded up for further deportations.

Goebbels speaks at Bürgerbräukeller

In the hours after Ernst vom Rath's death in Paris, Minister Joseph Goebbels gave an impassioned speech at Bürgerbräukeller. This was also to commemorate the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. This night is accorded great significance by the Nazi Party as the Tag der Bewegung (Day of the Movement). Those present were many senior Party members who well remember the night fifteen years prior.

The night was set aside for all the Nazis to celebrate this event in the formation of the party. Chancellor Hitler was in attendance and was expected to speak as has been the tradition for numerous years. He was seen discussing a matter with associates and then abruptly left the event.

This left Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels to carry on with the event. Goebbels, though in charge of propaganda, lacks the fiery and passionate rhetoric and charisma of the Chancellor. He also has been seen as something of a failure due to his tepid performance during the Sudeten Crisis. Goebbels told those in attendance that "the Führer has decided that… demonstrations should not be prepared or organised by the party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered." Which seemed to say that if violence against Jews began in retaliation for the death of Ernst vom Rath, the Nazi Party would not interfere.

Ernst vom Rath dead from wounds

Ernst vom Rath was unable to recover from five gunshots he sustained from an attempted political assasination. He passed away while being cared for in a Paris hospital moments ago.

Polish Jew Herschel Grynszpan claimed it was in retaliation for 12,000 Polish Jews being treated extremely poorly in the Polish border town of Zbąszyń. The Polish Jews are in Zbąszyń and the German-Polish border due to a decision by the Polish Government to end the citizenship of Poles living outside Poland for longer than five years.

Grynszpan is still in French custody. He has made accusations that the deceased was a homosexual.

The Nazi Party has reacted harshly to the events in Paris.

German diplomat shot in Paris

Ernst vom Rath, a 29-year-old Nazi who was posted in the German Embassy in Paris, was shot last night.

The perpetrator was a Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan. The 17-year-old used a gun to shoot vom Rath five times in the abdomen. At the time of the shooting, he claimed it was for 12,000 Jews stranded on the German-Polish Border town of Zbąszyń.

The victim is still alive. He is in the hospital and in critical condition.

War of the Worlds

People throughout the United States were panicked the night of October 30th during a strange broadcast of the Mercury Theater on CBS Radio.

Many Americans were confused by the format of the hour-long broadcast. It used the format of narrative mixed with planned interruptions that were fake news flashes.

Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the Air program have been criticized by many newspapers. The radio play also used a real location with Grovers Mill, New Jersey rather than England in the original novel by H.G. Wells. This and the heightened tension many Americans feel following the recently resolved Sudeten crisis led many to a state of panic.

Some people called the local CBS Radio to see what was really going on particularly in the areas of New York and New Jersey.

Jack Paar was doing the announcing duties that night for Cleveland CBS affiliate WGAR when the phone lines to the studio started to light up with panicking listeners calling in, Paar attempted to calm them on the phone and on-air by saying, "The world is not coming to an end. Trust me. When have I ever lied to you?" When the frightened listeners started charging Paar with 'covering up the truth', he then called WGAR's station manager for help. Oblivious to the situation, the manager advised Paar to calm down, saying it was "all a tempest in a teapot".

CBS informed officials that listeners were reminded throughout the broadcast that it was a performance.

The program was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and CBS itself. For this reason, there was no need for commercial interruption. The expected commercial interruptions would have helped listeners distinguish between fact and fiction. The resulting mass hysteria could have been averted.

Polish Jews at the German-Polish Border

Some of the Polish Jews deported by Germany have been accepted into Poland. The Polish authorities seem helpless as to what to with them.

Reports have surfaced that there is not enough to feed the 12,000 Jews in the border town of Zbąszyń. Some are forced to sleep in horse stables still filthy with horse dung.

Polish Jews deported to German-Polish Border

Germany has rounded up an estimated 15,000 Polish Jews and placed them on trains. They are being sent back to Poland. The Polish Government has refused to take them.

The German Government, remembering full well the results of the Évian Conference when no nation stepped up to take Jewish populations, is anxious to get rid of these Polish Jews. With their citizenship set to expire due to a Polish stipulation on passports and length of time outside Poland, they would become stateless and Germany's responsibility.

Regardless of Poland's refusal, the Germany gathered the Jews and have forced them to leave their homes in Germany. The trains are taking many thousands of them to Zbąszyń, a village on the frontier and also the village of Beuthen.

Polish passports must be revalidated by October 29th, today, for the Jews to be allowed to re-enter their homeland.

Polish Jews arrested in Germany

Polish Jews who've lived outside Poland too long will lose their citizenship in three days. The German government has tried to negotiate the removal of these Poles back to Poland. Poland refuses to allow them entry back into their homeland.

Since Poland is unwilling to take them, an order went out from Berlin last night to arrest all Polish Jews within 48 hours. It is unclear where the Polish Jews will go.

Lipski leaves Bertesgaden

Polish Ambassador Józef Lipski and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Robbentrop have had their meeting in the mountain retreat at Bertesgaden. Ambassador Lipski left yesterday after the one day meeting. The topic of discussion was indeed the Free City of Danzig. Ribbentrop demanded that Poland agree to Germany's annexation of the Free City of Danzig. Lipski refused.

The Free City of Danzig is administered by the League of Nations in accordance with the stipulation in Part III, Section XI of the Treaty of Versaille in 1919. Citizens of Danzig opposed this at the time.

Lipski meeting with Ribbentrop

Polish Ambassador to Germany, Józef Lipski, travelled to Bertesgaden yesterday to meet with German Foreign Minister Joachim Ribbentop. The topic of discussion is reportedly the Free City of Danzig.

The Free City of Danzig, a Baltic Sea port, was created on 10 January 1920, against the wishes of the local population but in accordance with the terms of Part III, Section XI of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919.

The Free City includes the city of Danzig and over two hundred nearby towns, villages, and settlements, all of which had been a part of the former German Empire. As the League of Nations decreed, the region is to remain separate from the nation of Germany, as well as the newly-resurrected nation of Poland. The Free City is not autonomous; it is under League of Nations "protection" and put into a binding customs union with Poland.

Poland also has other, special utilization rights towards the city. A peninsula, Westerplatte, is a munitions dumping ground as well as a military post. Poland also has a Post Office there and other support services.

Yesterday, October 24 is also the 17th anniversary of the Treaty of Warsaw.

Beneš Returns to Europe

The Former President Eduard Beneš resigned on October 6th. He then left for Chicago, Illinois, United States. This is also the place where his predecessor Tomáš Masaryk saught refuge. It was there that he was encouraged to create a Government-in-Exile.

He went to Paris but then travelled on to London when it appeared the French Government was lukewarm about hosting a Government-in-Exile. In London, he and his wife Hana were more warmly received. Yesterday, the President formally established a Government-in-Exile in Putney, London. His residence is believed to be on Gwendolen Avenue.

He has yet to name other members of the government.

Communist Party banned in Czecho-Slovakia

As part of the assumption of Czecho-Slovakia into Germany, the nation has complied and banned the Communist Party from political activity yesterday. It is illegal to even belong to the party.

Jews in Czecho-Slovakia are also beginning to have the same treatment that Germans and Austrians have. A systemic persecution is beginning to take shape there.

Crown Jewels of Holy Roman Empire go to Germany

The Crown Jewels and the Holy Lance were taken from Vienna where they have rested for years. The Imperial Regalia was transported by heavy guard to Nuremberg.

No New Businesses

Italian authorities decreed that no new business licences would be granted to any Jew should he seek it. This was announced yesterday and it assumed that it goes into effect immediately.

Czechoslovakia complies

Preceding the Munich conference, the Czechoslovakian people would say "Even if our allies fail us, no matter if we are left to face overwhelming odds and certain defeat, nevertheless Czechoslovakia will fight rather than yield!"

Newly installed Prime Minister General Jan Syrový said in a nationwide broadcast "As soldier and as Premier ... I am passing through the saddest moment of my life, for I am fulfilling a most painful duty, a duty which for me is worse than death. . . . We were confronted with a choice between desperate and hopeless defense, which would have meant the sacrifice of our whole younger generation, their children and their wives, and acceptance of the conditions imposed on us under pressure and without war, which in their mercilessness are unexampled in history. There are smaller states than ours that lead healthy existences. . . . We shall be within narrow frontiers, but we shall be all together in one family! . . . Our army will stand guard over the nation as before. . . . Trust us!"

The soldiers, as they withdrew, gave bystanders dark scowls and muttered oaths, the Czech officers avoided meeting civilian eyes, discharged their bitter duty with compressed lips. Nazi folk of the Sudeten town of Cesky Krumlov were the first Germans to dishonor themselves by opening dastardly fire upon the retreating Czech soldiers' backs. These Sudetens were also the first to smash windows and pillage shops and homes owned by Czechs, Jews and non-Nazi Sudetens such as Communists, Socialists and Social Democrats. Such outrages were not typical but exceptional, according to latest dispatches. The German army entered those parts of Czechoslovakia which it is to take over progressively by October 10 in the same peaceful fashion as it entered Austria, was cheered last week by civilians.

The German troops, ordered to swing across the frontier at three different points between Helfenberg and Finsterau at 2 PM. precisely, had set their legs in motion on German soil at 1:58 PM by the wrist watch of their commander, Colonel General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb. They entered first that part of the Bohemian Forest in which Schiller laid his play The Robbers. Since in these rustic parts there were no accommodations deemed suitable for high officers, these, on the first night, left their German troops sleeping in tents or peasant huts, themselves returned to sleep in hotels in Germany, hurried back next morning into Sudetenland.

Fifty-eight hours after the German Army, Dictator Hitler entered Czechoslovakia under a drizzling rain this week. Every German car on this road which might possibly have contained the Führer had been wildly cheered by Sudetens for hours beforehand, and when Adolf Hitler finally reached Eger, "The Sudeten Capital," its throngs were both hoarse and hysterical. It was less than seven months since Austrians had similarly welcomed "our Deliverer," and the Führer seemed much moved as he made what was for him an exceptionally humble speech: "In this hour I want to thank the Almighty for having blessed us in the past, and to pray that He may also bless us in the future. . . . Germany is happy! . . . All are comrades ready to stake their lives for each other. . . . Over this greater German Reich is laid a German shield protecting it and a German sword defending it!"

"Vote for the Fatherland!" In Prague, although the sweeping catastrophe was obvious, editors took up the task of putting as bright an aspect on the situation as they could. The optimistic vigor of President Beneš remained dauntless. As the Chief Executive, he at once turned on every organ of propaganda and reassurance to persuade Czech refugees from areas in which plebiscites are to be held to return to the homes from which they fled under Nazi threats and "Vote for the Fatherland!"

Everywhere food was still plentiful in the land, much more so than in Germany, and there was no break in the amazing Czech morale, which endured nearly 400 years of oppression under Habsburg masters. With backhanded cheerfulness, the Narodni Listy reminded its readers: ''The history of the Czechs is almost an uninterrupted tragedy!"