Editing Kristallnacht (section)

===Early Nazi persecutions===
{{Antisemitism}}
In the 1920s, most German Jews were fully integrated into the country's society as citizens. They served in the army and navy and contributed to every field of German business, science and culture.<ref>Goldstein, Joseph (1995). ''Jewish History in Modern Times''. [[Sussex Academic Press]]. pp. 43–44. {{ISBN|978-1-898723-06-6}}.</ref> Conditions for German Jews began to worsen after the appointment of [[Adolf Hitler]] (the Austrian-born leader of the [[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]]) as [[Chancellor of Germany]] on 30 January 1933, and the [[Enabling Act of 1933|Enabling Act]] (implemented 23 March 1933) which enabled the assumption of power by Hitler after the [[Reichstag fire]] of 27 February 1933.<ref>{{cite web|title= Nazi Germany – dictatorship|url= http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Nazi_Germany_dictatorship.htm|author= Trueman, Chris|access-date= 12 March 2008|archive-date= 6 March 2008|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080306183157/http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Nazi_Germany_dictatorship.htm|url-status= live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title= Hitler's Enabling Act|url= http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/enabling.htm|access-date= 2008-03-12|archive-date= 9 May 2008|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080509145956/http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/enabling.htm|url-status= live}}</ref> From its inception, Hitler's regime moved quickly to introduce [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|anti-Jewish policies]]. [[Nazi propaganda]] alienated the 500,000 Jews living in Germany, who accounted for only 0.86% of the overall population, and framed them as an enemy responsible for Germany's defeat in the [[World War I|First World War]] and for its subsequent economic disasters, such as the [[Inflation in the Weimar Republic|1920s hyperinflation]] and the subsequent [[Great Depression]].<ref name=Gilbert23>{{harvnb|Gilbert|2006|p=23}}</ref> Beginning in 1933, the German government enacted a series of [[Anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany|anti-Jewish laws]] restricting the rights of German Jews to earn a living, to enjoy full citizenship and to gain education, including the ''[[Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service]]'' of 7 April 1933, which forbade Jews to work in the civil service.<ref>{{cite book |publisher=Moorland Publishing |title=Refugee Scholars: Conversations with Tess Simpson |last=Cooper |first=R.M. |location=Leeds |year=1992 |page=31}}</ref> The subsequent 1935 [[Nuremberg Laws]] stripped German Jews of their citizenship and prohibited Jews from marrying non-Jewish Germans.

These laws resulted in the exclusion and alienation of Jews from German social and political life.<ref>{{cite web |title=Introduction to the Holocaust |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust |access-date=12 March 2008|archive-date= 1 February 2013|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130201184325/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143|url-status= live}}</ref> Many sought asylum abroad; hundreds of thousands emigrated, but as [[Chaim Weizmann]] wrote in 1936, "The world seemed to be divided into two parts—those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter."<ref>''Manchester Guardian'', 23 May 1936, cited in A.J. Sherman, ''Island Refuge, Britain and the Refugees from the Third Reich, 1933–1939'', (London, Elek Books Ltd, 1973), p. 112, also in [http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/evian/evian.html ''The Evian Conference — Hitler's Green Light for Genocide''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130827082632/http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/evian/evian.html |date=27 August 2013 }}, by Annette Shaw<!-- ISBN# needed --></ref> The international [[Évian Conference]] on 6 July 1938 addressed the issue of Jewish and [[Romani people|Romani]] immigration to other countries. By the time the conference took place, more than 250,000 Jews had fled Germany and Austria, which had been [[Anschluss|annexed by Germany]] in March 1938; more than 300,000 German and Austrian Jews continued to seek refuge and asylum from oppression. As the number of Jews and Romani wanting to leave increased, the restrictions against them grew, with many countries tightening their rules for admission. By 1938, Germany "had entered a new radical phase in [[anti-Semitic]] activity".<ref>Johnson, Eric. ''The Nazi Terror: Gestapo, Jews and Ordinary Germans''. United States: Basic Books, 1999, p. 117.</ref> Some historians believe that the Nazi government had been contemplating a planned outbreak of violence against the Jews and were waiting for an appropriate provocation; there is evidence of this planning dating back to 1937.<ref>{{cite book |last=Friedländer |first=Saul |author-link=Saul Friedländer |title=Nazi Germany and The Jews |volume=The Years of Persecution 1933–1939 |location=London |publisher=Phoenix |year=1997 |page=270 }}</ref> In a 1997 interview, the German historian [[Hans Mommsen]] claimed that a major motive for the pogrom was the desire of the ''[[Gauleiter]]s'' of the NSDAP to seize Jewish property and [[business]]es.<ref name="yadvashem1997">{{cite web|last= Mommsen|first= Hans|title= Interview with Hans Mommsen|publisher= Yad Vashem|date= 12 December 1997|url= http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203850.pdf|access-date= 6 February 2010|archive-date= 16 July 2012|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120716185846/http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203850.pdf|url-status= live}}</ref> Mommsen stated:

<blockquote>The need for money by the party organization stemmed from the fact that [[Franz Xaver Schwarz]], the party treasurer, kept the local and regional organizations of the party short of money. In the fall of 1938, the increased pressure on Jewish property nourished the party's ambition, especially since Hjalmar Schacht had been ousted as ''Reich'' minister for economics. This, however, was only one aspect of the origin of the November 1938 pogrom. The Polish government threatened to extradite all Jews who were Polish citizens but would stay in Germany, thus creating a burden of responsibility on the German side. The immediate reaction by the Gestapo was to push the Polish Jews—16,000 persons—over the borderline, but this measure failed due to the stubbornness of the Polish customs officers. The loss of prestige as a result of this abortive operation called for some sort of compensation. Thus, the overreaction to Herschel Grynszpan's attempt against the diplomat Ernst vom Rath came into being and led to the November pogrom. The background of the pogrom was signified by a sharp cleavage of interests between the different agencies of party and state. While the Nazi party was interested in improving its financial strength on the regional and local level by taking over Jewish property, [[Hermann Göring]], in charge of the Four-Year Plan, hoped to acquire access to foreign currency in order to pay for the import of {{Sic|hide=y|urgently|-}}needed raw material. Heydrich and Himmler were interested in fostering Jewish emigration.<ref name="yadvashem1997"/> </blockquote>

The [[Zionist]] leadership in the [[Mandate Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]] wrote in February 1938 that according to "a very reliable private source—one which can be traced back to the highest echelons of the SS leadership", there was "an intention to carry out a genuine and dramatic pogrom in Germany on a large scale in the near future".<ref>
Georg Landauer to Martin Rosenbluth, 8 February 1938, cited in Friedländer, loc. cit.
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