Germany marks November 9 pogrom anniversary and Berlin Wall date
The gist
Germany held nationwide commemorations for the 88th anniversary of the 1938 November pogroms.
The same date brought the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
How it unfolded
- Nov 9, 1918Philipp Scheidemann, a Social Democrat and later chancellor of the Weimar Republic, proclaimed an end to Kaiser Wilhelm II's monarchy and the start of a new democracy from a Reichstag balcony in Berlin.
- Nov 9, 1938Nazis and antisemitic mobs looted and burned synagogues and thousands of Jewish-owned stores and houses in Germany and Austria in the pogrom known as Kristallnacht; at least 91 Jewish people were killed.
- Nov 9, 1989Communist East Germany threw open its borders, allowing citizens to travel freely to the West for the first time in decades — the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Key terms
- pogrom
- A violent riot aimed at massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, historically often attacks on Jews.
- Holocaust
- The genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.
- Kristallnacht
- The November 1938 Nazi-coordinated pogrom against Jews across Germany and Austria.
Source: Wikipedia