Ernst Eduard vom Rath (3 June 1909 – 9 November 1938) was a member of the
German nobility
The German nobility (german: deutscher Adel) and royalty were status groups of the medieval society in Central Europe, which enjoyed certain privileges relative to other people under the laws and customs in the German-speaking area, until the begi ...
, a
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
member, and
German Foreign Office
, logo = DEgov-AA-Logo en.svg
, logo_width = 260 px
, image = Auswaertiges Amt Berlin Eingang.jpg
, picture_width = 300px
, image_caption = Entrance to the Foreign Office building
, headquarters = Werderscher Mark ...
diplomat
A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...
. He is mainly remembered for his
assassination
Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in 1938 by a Polish
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
teenager,
Herschel Grynszpan
Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (Yiddish: הערשל פײַבל גרינשפּאן; German: ''Hermann Grünspan''; 28 March 1921 – last rumoured to be alive 1945, declared dead 1960) was a Polish-Jewish expatriate born and raised in Weimar Germany w ...
, which provided a pretext for ''
Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...
'', "The Night of Broken Glass".
Early life and career
Vom Rath was born in
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
to an
aristocratic family
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteris ...
, the son of a high-ranking public official, Gustav vom Rath. He attended a school in
Breslau, and then studied law at
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
,
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
and
Königsberg
Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named ...
, until 1932, when he joined the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
and became a career diplomat. In April 1933 he became a member of the
SA, the party's
paramilitary
A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...
unit.
In 1935, after a posting in
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
, he was posted to the
German embassy in Paris. Regarding the "Jewish Question", Rath expressed regret that the German Jews had to suffer but argued that the anti-Semitic laws were "necessary" to allow the ''
Volksgemeinschaft
''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community",Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", ...
'' to flourish.
Assassination and motives
![Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1988-078-08, Herschel Feibel Grynszpan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1988-078-08%2C_Herschel_Feibel_Grynszpan.jpg)
On the morning of 7 November 1938, Polish-German Jew
Herschel Grynszpan
Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (Yiddish: הערשל פײַבל גרינשפּאן; German: ''Hermann Grünspan''; 28 March 1921 – last rumoured to be alive 1945, declared dead 1960) was a Polish-Jewish expatriate born and raised in Weimar Germany w ...
, 17, went to the German embassy in Paris and asked to speak with an embassy official. After he had learned of the deportation of his parents from Germany to the Polish frontier, Grynszpan shot Ernst vom Rath, the third secretary of the German embassy in Paris. He shot the 29-year-old vom Rath five times, mortally wounding him with bullets to the spleen, stomach and pancreas.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
himself sent his two best doctors, personal physician
Karl Brandt
Karl Brandt (8 January 1904 – 2 June 1948) was a German physician and ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) officer in Nazi Germany. Trained in surgery, Brandt joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and became Adolf Hitler's escort doctor in August 1934. A member of ...
and surgeon Georg Magnus, to Paris to try to save vom Rath's life. Hitler promoted vom Rath, who had been a junior officer at the embassy, to the rank of Legal Consul, First Class (''Gesandtschaftsrat I. Klasse'') hours before vom Rath's death on 9 November at 17:30 (5:30 p.m.). ''
Kristallnacht
() or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...
'' was launched within hours.
Why Grynszpan, who had fled from Germany to France in 1936, chose vom Rath is not known with certainty, although he was upset over the news that his family was being deported from Germany back to Poland. As far as it can be established, Grynszpan and Rath did not know each other. Most accounts of the shooting state that Grynszpan did not ask for vom Rath by name but only asked to speak to a member of the diplomatic staff. The records were falsified in 1942, and the Germans spread propaganda that Grynszpan's intention was to kill the Nazi ambassador, Count
Johannes von Welczeck
Johannes Bernhard Graf von Welczeck (2 September 1878 – 11 October 1972) was a Nazi German diplomat who served as the last German ambassador to France before World War II.
Aristocrat
Welczeck was born into an aristocratic family in Laband (mod ...
.
Grynszpan, who was immediately arrested and confessed, insisted his motives were to avenge the Jewish people for the actions already taken by the Germans. He had a postcard on him written to his parents that read, "With God's help. My dear parents, I could not do otherwise, may God forgive me, the heart bleeds when I hear of your tragedy and that of the 12,000 Jews. I must protest so that the whole world hears my protest, and that I will do. Forgive me."
Aftermath
Vom Rath was given a state funeral on 17 November in Düsseldorf, with Hitler and Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945.
Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's not ...
among those in attendance. Germany used the incident to publicize that the Jews had "fired the first shot" in a war on Germany; in his funeral oration, Ribbentrop declared, "We understand the challenge, and we accept it."
![Grab Ernst Eduard vom Rath](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Grab_Ernst_Eduard_vom_Rath.jpg)
American journalist
Dorothy Thompson reported widely on the case and raised funds for Grynszpan's defence in his French trial, which never took place.
Much to the fury of Grynszpan who wanted to use the "Jewish avenger" defense successfully used by
Sholem Schwarzbard
Samuel "Sholem" Schwarzbard (russian: Самуил Исаакович Шварцбурд, ''Samuil Isaakovich Shvartsburd'', yi, שלום שװאַרצבאָרד, french: Samuel 'Sholem' Schwarzbard; 18 August 1886 – 3 March 1938) was a Jewis ...
at his trial in 1927, Grynszpan's French lawyer
Vincent de Moro-Giafferi
Vincent de Moro-Giafferi (6 June 1878 in Paris – 15 February 1956 or 22 November 1956) was a French criminal attorney.
Moro-Giafferi was the youngest person ever appointed to the Paris bar at the age of 24. Also active in politics, he was made ...
wanted to use as the defense the allegation that Rath was a homosexual who had seduced Grynszpan, and that Grynszpan had killed Rath as a part of a lover's quarrel. Under French law, those convicted of murder for political reasons faced the death penalty, but who committed a ''crime passionnel'' were usually given a lesser sentence.
Grynszpan initially escaped from prison when France fell in 1940, but he was captured by the Nazis and taken back to Germany.
He was sent to the
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...
to face a trial there, one that
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
planned to turn into Nazi propaganda about an international Jewish conspiracy and to claim it as evidence that Jews had started World War II.
However, the allegations emerged that vom Rath was a homosexual, and Goebbels learned that Grynszpan was intending to use this claim in his defence at the trial by implying that vom Rath had seduced him. Grynszpan planned to claim that vom Rath was his pimp and he had been sent to be with various diplomats (although Grynszpan later stated this to be false in an encrypted letter sent from Sachsenhausen).
The homosexuality accusations threatened to humiliate the Nazis.
[Connolly, Kate (30 October 2001). "Did gay affair provide a catalyst for Kristallnacht?"]
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
Goebbels wrote that "Grynszpan has invented the insolent argument that he had a homosexual relationship with... vom Rath. That is, of course, a shameless lie; however, it is thought out very cleverly and would, if brought out in the course of a public trial, certainly become the main argument of enemy propaganda."
According to historian
Hans-Jürgen Döscher, Germany's foremost authority on Kristallnacht, vom Rath was homosexual and had met Grynszpan in
Le Boeuf sur le Toit, a popular haunt for gay men in 1938.
[ The French writer ]André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the Symbolism (arts), symbolist movement, to the advent o ...
, himself a homosexual, testified in his personal diaries that vom Rath was well known in the Parisian homosexual community. There were rumours that occasionally he was called "Madame Ambassador" and "Notre Dame de Paris." His brother, Gustav, was convicted of homosexual offences and there were allegations that vom Rath was treated for rectal gonorrhoea
Gonorrhea, colloquially known as the clap, is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by the bacterium ''Neisseria gonorrhoeae''. Infection may involve the genitals, mouth, or rectum. Infected men may experience pain or burning with ur ...
at the Berlin Institute of Radiology.
The trial was planned for 1942 but never took place, primarily because the Nazis (who also sent homosexuals to concentration camps) feared it would turn into a gay scandal.
Grynszpan's ultimate fate is unknown but he probably died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...
.[ The last documentation indicating he was alive, or thought to be alive, was a Foreign Ministry memorandum on 7 December 1942. In 1960, at the request of his parents in Israel, the lower district court in ]Hanover
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...
officially declared Grynszpan deceased, listing his date of death as 8 May 1945.
See also
* Wilhelm Gustloff
Wilhelm Gustloff (30 January 1895 – 4 February 1936) was the founder of the Swiss NSDAP/AO (the Nazi Party organisation for German citizens living outside Germany) at Davos. He remained its leader from 1932 until he was assassinated in 193 ...
, Nazi killed in 1936 by David Frankfurter
References
Further reading
* Armin Fuhrer: ''Herschel. Das Attentat des Herschel Grynszpan am 7. November 1938 und der Beginn des Holocaust'' (Herschel. The assassination by Herschel Grynszpan on 7 November 1938 and the beginning of the Holocaust). Berlin Story Verlag, Berlin 2013, . In German.
* Sidney Smeets: ''De wanhoopsdaad'' (An Act of Desperation). Balans, Amsterdam, 2013. .
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rath, Ernst vom
1909 births
1938 deaths
Assassinated German diplomats
Assassinated Nazis
Deaths by firearm in France
German people murdered abroad
Kristallnacht
People from Frankfurt
People from Hesse-Nassau
People murdered in Paris
Sturmabteilung personnel
20th-century German diplomats
Nazi Party politicians
LGBT people in the Nazi Party
1938 murders in France
1930s murders in Paris