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| Goebbels speaks to a Hitler Youth. |
In the days following Kristallnacht, the German leadership announced that the attacks had originated as a spontaneous outburst of public unrest, and that it was in response to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath in Paris by Herschel Grynszpan. The Nazi Party chose to use the assassination as a pretext to launch this night of anti-Jewish attacks. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda, was the chief instigator of the pogrom. At his command, regional Party leaders issued instructions to their local offices, and violence began to erupt in various parts of Germany throughout the night of November 9 and the early morning hours of November 10.
The rioters destroyed more than 260 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Many of the synagogues burned throughout the night. Local firefighters had been told to stand down and to only intervene to keep flames from spreading to non-Jewish buildings. According to some estimates, the gangs of Nazi storm troopers had destroyed more than 7,000 Jewish businesses, set fire to more than 900 synagogues, while killing 91 Jews and arresting and deporting roughly 30,000 Jewish men to various concentration camps.
-- from Mini-Adventure #1
The Night of Broken Glass
Joseph Goebbels was born in Rheydt, Germany, on October 29, 1897. He was a good student winning a Catholic scholarship and eventually achieved a PhD from Heidelberg University. He became the Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism. His ability to push the Nazi message through impassioned speeches and simple artwork would help define Goebbels as an archetype for being able to mislead a large population of people into believing that even the most heinous activities could be done for the greater good.
Goebbels was under five feet tall with a bad limp caused by a bone operation as a child and in 1914 was rejected by the German Army. It was later claimed that he spent the next two days crying hysterically in his room.
Goebbels spent the next ten years writing novels, plays and poems. When he failed to find a publisher for his work he developed the theory that this was because the publishing companies were owned by Jews. He was also rejected as a reporter by the newspaper Berliner Tageblatt.
Goebbels joined the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) in 1926. Goebbels described one of their first meetings with Adolf Hitler in his diary: "Shakes my hand. Like an old friend. And those big blue eyes. Like stars. He is glad to see me. I am in heaven. That man has everything to be king."
Famous Quotes by Joseph Goebbels:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”
“Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state, for every form of power politics and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the street.”
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4
KILLING FOR COUNTRY
Available at Amazon.com!
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2
A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3
WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
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