Why Did Kristallnact Take Place?

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Carl Phillips

5/3/07

History Coursework

Nazi Germany

Why Did Kristallnact Take Place?

  1. Source A is a summery by an historian, Fritz Hesse’s. The source was wrote in 1954, the fact that the night of the long knives took place on November 7th 1938 does not make this source any more reliable. In this source Hesse speaks of what we know that really happened. This is that the attack was carried out by SS and SA troops out of uniform. Hesse quotes “ Hitler squealed with delight and slapped his leg with enthusiasm” this makes me as the reader think that Hesse was an eyewitness but there is nothing to support this. This account was wrote 16 years after the nazi downfall, which meant that because Hitler wasn’t about Hesse had the freedom to express his views of what actually did happen.

Source B was from a secret report prepared by the Nazi party supreme court. This account was form an actual report by the Nazi’s. It was meant for only high leading Nazi men, not for the public eye. In the account it expresses the views from the Nazi opinion to change what they did to blame it on other going on’s. Everything that is mentioned in the account we know went on at the time of Kristallnact and the report was wrote immediately after Kristallnact happened

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In conclusion I feel that source B is he most reliable. Although they are both quite reliable and they both relate to each other, source B has more relevance. The fact that source A was wrote 16 years after Kristallnact happened and source B was wrote straight after Kristallnact. Source B suggests that Hitler had nothing to do with the riots. We can tell this when the report quotes “The Fuhrer, at Goebbels’ suggestion, had decided that such demonstrations were not to be organized by the party”. An the fact that this was a secret report that only went out ...

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