I ran across a post from a friend of mine with the above title and some information linking to a post at The Guardian. Of course, the post is dated Friday 11 November 1938 and tells of “Germany’s Day of Wrecking and Looting.” What’s most interesting is the eerie parallels between what went on in 1938 and what is taking place in 2020 united States.
Here’s the post:
Friday 11 November 1938
guardian.co.uk
After a statement by Dr. Goebbels that the disorders must stop had been broadcast twice the wrecking parties (which included members of the Hitler Youth) withdrew last night.
The rioters at Frankfurt even went so far as to tear up valuable books found in a Jewish library.
In Vienna all Jews waiting outside the British Consulate in the hope of getting visas to enable them to emigrate were arrested. It is believed that in all 10,000 Jews were arrested. It is thought that they will be sent to a concentration camp. Twenty-two suicides are reported.
Another signal for the wrecking was given earlier in the week by the Nazi “Angriff” under the headlines of “The Jews are Doing too Well,” “An End to the Jewish Big Profit-makers of Berlin.”
Cause of the riots
The cause of the outbreak was the shooting of a young German diplomatist in Paris by a 17-year-old Polish Jew, who was born in Germany. His parents were suddenly arrested and sent in a penniless state to the Polish frontier to be expelled from Germany. The boy received news of this in Paris at the very time he had been refused permission to work in France and ordered to leave the country. In despair he bought a revolver, determined to shoot some German official.
To-day the Jews of Germany have been put under a reign of terror in revenge for the murder in Paris of Herr Vom Rath by the young Polish Jew Grynsban. Synagogues have been set on fire and every Jewish shop or place of business throughout Berlin is being systematically wrecked and many of them set on fire by gangs in civilian clothes enjoying the toleration of the police and authorities.
Wholesale arrests of Jews have taken place throughout the Reich to-day. In small places all the male Jews are reported to have been arrested, while in bigger towns like Nuremberg the whole of the executive officers of the Jewish community have been taken into custody. The headquarters of the Zionist Organisation in Berlin has been completely wrecked and many of its officials arrested. All Jewish schools have been closed.
At Munich a Jewish banker and his wife are reported to have thrown themselves out of the window and some young Jews from a training camp have been injured in a collision with Nazis, but these are the only reports received here of actual bloodshed and cannot be confirmed yet.
In the streets of Berlin a number of Jews, however, were roughly handled, two being dragged from their houses and others jostled through the streets. Photographers who tried to take pictures of the wrecking operations were stopped by the police and one American photographer was arrested but later released.
Shop-wrecking for 18 hours
Plundering and destruction of Jewish property are taking place all over the capital, but the plundering has not been uniform. As darkness fell this evening the gangs of wreckers were supplemented by dubious elements of the population. There are streets in the business quarters whole sections of which this evening are literally paved with broken glass, while in the kerbs and on the road are lying smashed office furniture, typewriters, telephones, bales of papers, and other wreckage which had been hurled out of the windows by the wrecking squads. By to-night these squads had been busy for the better part of 18 hours.
Were it not for the figures of the wreckers to be seen at the windows, and for the crashing of their hammers upon the glass and furniture of the buildings, it might have been thought that the destruction was the work of air bombardment.
Fire Brigade’s part
Wrecking squads began their operations in the small hours. In groups they entered the synagogues, throwing petrol over the pews and setting the interiors on fire. As far as could be observed the work of the fire brigades was largely to stand by and keep an expert watch that the fires did not spread from the synagogue interiors to neighbouring buildings.
These interior fires were allowed slowly to burn themselves out. In one synagogue where the fire brigade actually put out the fire it was started by incendiaries again later. One of the Berlin synagogues escaped the incendiaries after being prepared for conflagration because the fire brigade warned the wrecking squad that no guarantee could be given for the safety of two adjacent blocks of flats if the synagogue were actually set alight.
The crowds watched the burning of the synagogues with apathy.
Arrested for disapproving
Few police were to be seen. Their function seemed to be to prevent any interruption to the movement of traffic caused by the spectators.
The only arrests made by the police were of a large number of the Jewish proprietors of the wrecked premises and of more than a hundred Aryan Germans who ventured to express their disapproval of these scenes.
One foreigner, incensed by what he saw, declared audibly, “And this is what is called Kultur.” His remark was taken up by Nazis in the crowd and he was ordered to clear out and hustled away into the distance quickly.
This evening an order was issued by Dr. Goebbels, who is the Nazi District Chief of Berlin, ordering the population to stop the attacks upon the Jews. It is announced that new legislative measures will be taken against them. These measures are awaited by the Jews with trepidation.
It is believed that one of them will be a law for the expropriation of Jewish property above a few hundred pounds’ value. It is unlikely in any case that the Jews will be able to open their wrecked business premises again. The expulsion of all foreign Jews is another measure that will probably be ordered.
Of course, we know that the current insurrections taking place across the country are pre-planned and the actors paid in advance, but still, the eerie similarities to what is taking place now and what took place more than 80 years ago in Germany are rather striking. Could this be a foretelling of what is about to come in our land in the not so distant future?
The obvious question remains, why are those who claim to be for America first and have the authority and duty to put down these insurrections not doing so? Are you being played, people of the united States?
