Reminders of Kristallnacht in Germany

This article first appeared in New English Review. 

On July 18 in Munich, Jewish citizens and their supporters formed a protective human chain around their synagogue as today’s new Nazis (pro-Hamas supporters) held a raucous demonstration close by. For Germany, of all nations, the optics were terrible and brought back memories of the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) in 1938 when Stormtroopers rampaged through German cities, breaking into Jewish businesses, homes, and places of worship, hauling Jews off in the dead of night, and in some cases murdering them. As synagogues burned, German police and firefighters stood watching and making sure that the fires did not spread to other buildings.

This time, the German police were on hand at the synagogue in Munich in a more protective mode. Yet, the symbolism could not have been greater, as the pro-Hamas crowd chanted, “death to the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), waving their obnoxious, obscene, actually, Palestinian flags and wearing their equally obscene Palestinian keffiyahs. Fortunately, the Jews and their synagogue were spared violence and destruction at the hands of Germany’s new Nazis.

While not ignoring the fact that Germany is still dealing with young, white, skinhead types who are referred to as Neo-Nazis, to me, the greater threat is coming from those who support Hamas and the Palestinian cause, which is to destroy the Jewish state of Israel and its citizens. While every Western country, including the US, has its share of knuckleheads and Jew haters who have jumped on the Hamas bandwagon since October 7, 2023, seemingly inspired by the horrific violence carried out that day by Hamas, Germany has a special interest and responsibility to avoid anti-Semitic violence. For the benefit of our US-based, college-indoctrinated pro-Palestinian activists, I am referring to the Holocaust. If you have never heard of it, you might want to Google it.

Ever since the end of World War 2, Germany and its citizens, including generations born after the war, have been saddled with the shame of what happened to the Jews while Hitler was in power. To be sure, once Germany began occupying other countries in the war, they had their share of local satraps, all too willing to help carry out the mass murder of their own Jews. But the inspiration and the direction came from the German government and its occupation leaders.    

Thus, the Germans (at least the West Germans when the country was divided) have spent decades and generations trying to atone for their nation’s crimes. Indeed, I would argue that Germany had succeeded in rejoining the family of decent, democratic nations. Not only were reparations being paid to victims and survivors of the Holocaust, but Germany supported Israel and its right to exist while passing strict laws designed to prevent a recurrence of Nazism and anti-Semitic acts.

But in 2015, with the Syrian civil war raging, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had become one of Europe’s leading political figures, opened the floodgates to refugees while pushing her European counterparts to do the same. The result was millions of overwhelmingly young, male men from Syria and other Muslim countries pouring into Germany and the rest of Western Europe. They almost all claimed to be refugees from something. Nobody knew who they were or how old they were. Far too many of them came for the wrong reasons: They were either fleeing police after committing crimes in their home countries. looking for a life of welfare, plotting to commit terrorism, or simply to commit crimes, drug dealing, assaults, robberies, rapes, and murder. The result has been sky-high social welfare costs, unprecedented violence, crimes, acts of random terror, and the tearing of the social fabric. Jews, particularly, have been made to feel unsafe. The German government, like other Western European governments, has been unable and/or unwilling to stop the flood and remove the troublemakers. 

In addition, we now add the explosion in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, October 7th, and the war in Gaza. Not only did the new arrivals bring a centuries-old, religiously-inspired hatred of Jews, but many of them are fully prepared to join the mobs marching in support of Hamas, screaming for the deaths of Jews in a land where that was once the order of the day, and, ironically, in a land where calling for that and the open display of the swastika today are illegal.

When Merkel was chancellor and implementing the admission of millions of these people, her slogan was, “Wir schaffen das” (We can do this). Of course, what she envisioned was that all these people would integrate, assimilate, become Germans, adopt German values, fill jobs, and pay their taxes to support the country’s welfare system. In that, she failed. What she succeeded in doing was importing an entire new generation of Jew-haters, who would bring back the ugly memories of Kristallnacht and the persecution of Jews. Had Merkel had any common sense, she would have realized that before she opened her country’s borders, and led the movement for her Western European counterparts to do the same. (I specify Western Europe because, ironically enough, it is the Eastern European members of the European Union who are resisting mass migration. Being recently freed from the shackles of communism, they want no part of what they see happening in Western Europe. Who can blame them?)

For decades since World War 2, the world-and Germany itself- have spoken of that country’s “special responsibility” to Israel and the Jewish people, to be a leader in fighting anti-Semitism and preventing its return to Germany.  That hardly squares with the scenes we are now witnessing in places like Munich, Berlin, and other cities where Jews cannot walk the streets wearing Jewish garb lest they be attacked, not so much by German skinheads as by people who have been “imported”, people who have zero sensitivity for Germany’s history and special responsibility. To be sure, Germany is not the only country that is importing its anti-Semitism and making its own Jews unsafe. But the spectacle we just saw in Munich carries a visual impact much greater than if it were to occur (as it does) in any other country. I would hope that Germany’s leaders would remember that fact and strongly act upon it. 

Source: http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2025/07/reminders-of-kristallnacht-in-germany.html