A Spark of History: Herschel Grynszpan and the Kristallnacht Pogroms

Who shot Ernest vom Rath and when?

1. Herschel Grynszpan on November 7, 1938

Answer:

Herschel Grynszpan shot Ernest vom Rath on November 7, 1938, which was a catalyst for the Kristallnacht pogroms on November 9-10 of the same year.

The event that sparked the Kristallnacht pogroms was the assassination of German diplomat Ernest vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan on November 7, 1938. This incident set off a chain of events that led to one of the most infamous nights in history.

Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew living in Paris, was motivated by the news of his family's deportation from Germany to Poland. In an act of desperation and protest against the Nazi regime's treatment of Jews, Grynszpan shot and fatally wounded vom Rath in the German embassy in Paris.

As a result of this assassination, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime used it as a pretext to incite violence against Jews. The Kristallnacht pogroms, also known as the Night of Broken Glass, were a series of coordinated attacks on Jewish communities, homes, businesses, and synagogues throughout Germany and Austria on November 9-10, 1938.

The orchestrated violence during Kristallnacht led to the destruction of thousands of Jewish properties, the arrest and deportation of Jewish men to concentration camps, and marked a significant escalation in the persecution of Jews by the Nazis.