accordance with the instructions of the Propaganda Ministry, announced
that Grynspan’s deed, an attack by ‘world Jewry’, would have unforeseeable
consequences for the situation of the Jews in Germany.
117
On 7 and
8 November, in Hesse in particular, party activists attacked synagogues
and Jewish shops.
118
In this situation, on 8 November Himmler made his annual speech to the
SS-Gruppenfu
¨
hrer, who had assembled in Munich to take part in the
ceremonies commemorating the putsch of 1923 on the following day. In
his speech Himmler referred to the ‘Jewish question’. ‘During the next ten
years,’ he announced, ‘we shall undoubtedly face extraordinary and critical
conflicts’, for it was a question of surviving the ‘ideological struggle’ with
‘all the Jews, Freemasons, Marxists, and churches in the world’. He did not
omit to add that ‘I consider the Jews as the driving [force], as the essence of
everything that is negative [ . . . ] the Jews cannot remain in Germany—it’s
only a matter of years—we shall increasingly drive them out with unparal-
leled and ruthless brutality’.
119
However, Himmler made no reference to
the actual situation, and the formulation that they would drive the Jews out
in the course ‘of years’ does not suggest that at this point he was working on
the assumption that there was about to be a dramatic new development in
the persecution of the Jews.
The following day, 9 November, vom Rath died of his wounds. The
news, which was not unexpected, arrived in Munich in the afternoon. His
death was officially announced that evening during the usual commemora-
tion ceremony for the ‘old fighters’ in the Munich town hall. Hitler left the
event, while Goebbels roused the party leaders who were present with a
fiery tirade and in this way initiated the pogrom. The chronology of these
events, however, indicates that before the meeting took place Goebbels had
already agreed with Hitler on how to proceed.
120
Himmler was also present in the town hall.
121
It is not clear what he did
after Goebbels’s speech or whether he issued any orders to the SS. In any
case, throughout the Reich members of the SS, who had come together that
evening for the commemoration, took part in the attacks. It is impossible to
establish whether special orders would have had to be issued centrally by the
Reichsfu
¨
hrer-SS or whether the SS simply joined in the local attacks.
122
Later that evening Himmler went to Hitler’s Munich flat and was present
when, shortly before half past eleven, reports came in about the extent of
the destruction.
123
Presumably he then gave instructions to the Gestapo
chief Mu
¨
ller, based in Berlin, who then informed his officials shortly before
wa r pr e pa rat i o n s a n d ex pans i o n 409