| 1938 |
- In March, Annexation (Anschluss) of Austria to the Third Reich and start of persecution of Austrian Jews.
- In April, decrees are proclaimed against the "camouflage of Jewish industrial enterprises."
- In June, the Munich Synagogue is destroyed, a decree proclaimed requiring the registration and identification of Jewish industrial enterprises, and lists of wealthy Jews created at treasury offices and police districts.
- In July, a law was passed (effective January 1, 1939) requiring all Jews to carry identification
cards.
- A decree to carry out the law pertaining to the change
of first and last names is proclaimed. Effective January 1, 1939, all Jews must add to their name either "Israel" or "Sara."
- On October 1st, German troops annex Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia.
- Jews of Polish citizenship arrested, relocated and interned in relocation camps on the Polish frontier.
- On November 6th, 17-year old Herschel Grynszpan assassinated Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath.
- The assassination provided Joseph
Goebbels, Hitler's Chief of Propaganda, with the excuse he needed to launch a pogrom (Kristallnacht) against German Jews.
- On the nights of November 9th and 10th, rampaging mobs throughout Germany, Austria and Sudetenland freely attacked Jews in the street, in their homes and at their places of work and worship.
- On November 12th, Hermann Goering called a meeting of the top Nazi leadership to assess the damage done during Kristallnacht and place responsibility for it. It was decided that, since Jews were to blame for these events, they be held legally and financially responsible for the damages incurred by the pogrom.
- Kristallnacht turns out to be a crucial turning point in German policy regarding the Jews and may be considered as the actual beginning of what is now called the Holocaust. In the meeting, Goering announced, "I have received a letter written on the Fuehrer's orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another." The path to the Final Solution had been chosen. And, all the bureaucratic mechanisms for its implementation were now in place.
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