Your history textbook was wrong

When Germany invaded Poland, some American journalist dubbed the campaign blitzkrieg which means lightening warfare. Not true. There was an actual Blitzkrieg strategy developed by the German military, but it called for unconventional punching holes in lines and other military stuff that I really don't understand. The German invasion of Poland was fast, conventional warfare but not actually blitzkrieg.

Behind the Page... the Terror of Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht was the first time that most German and Austrian Jews felt real terror in the face of Nazi persecution. While many of their Gentile neighbors helped, more did not. For every story of a kind Gentile helping a Jew in his time of distress, there are probably five stories of former Gentile "friends" shunning or profiting. Kristallnacht changed everything.

Behind the Page... Insult to Injury

As if the looting and plundering of Jewish owned businesses, the burning of synagogues and arrest of tens of thousands of men were not bad enough, the Nazis decided to make "the Jews" pay for the Nazi riots. This was, of course, no more than a power grab. The Nazis used the chaos left in the wake of Kristallnacht as an opportunity to seize control of Jewish owned businesses and assets.

Behind the Page... International Reaction to Kristallnacht

As seen in this newspaper headline from the time, the international community was very aware of the persecution of Jews in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. Great Britain responded by allowing 10,000 Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to immigrate to the UK (known as the Kindertransports). The USA decided it would be wrong to separate Jewish children from their families and refused to welcome these children. A shameful moment in American History.

Arrests during Kristallnacht

Behind the Page... More on Kristallnacht

Thousands of synagogues were burned during Kristallnacht. As portrayed in Slow Boil, fire fighters were on hand only to ensure that the fire did not spread to "Aryan" property.