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Herschel Feibel Grynszpan (
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
: הערשל פײַבל גרינשפּאן;
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
: ''Hermann Grünspan''; 28 March 1921 – last rumoured to be alive 1945, declared dead 1960) was a
Polish-Jewish The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the l ...
expatriate born and raised in Weimar Germany who shot the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath on 7 November 1938 in Paris. The
Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
used this assassination as a pretext to launch ''
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 fro ...
'', the
antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Ant ...
pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
of 9–10 November 1938. Grynszpan was seized by the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
after the
Fall of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France during the Second World ...
and brought to
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
; his fate remains unknown. It is generally assumed that he did not survive
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, and he was
declared dead A presumption of death occurs when a person is thought to be dead by a group of people despite the absence of direct proof of the person's death, such as the finding of remains (e.g., a corpse or skeleton) attributable to that person. Such a pre ...
in 1960. A photograph of a man resembling Grynszpan was cited in 2016 as evidence to support the claim that he was still alive in
Bamberg Bamberg (, , ; East Franconian: ''Bambärch'') is a town in Upper Franconia, Germany, on the river Regnitz close to its confluence with the river Main. The town dates back to the 9th century, when its name was derived from the nearby ' castl ...
, Germany, on 3 July 1946.


Early years

Grynszpan was born on 28 March 1921 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 ...
, Germany. His parents, Zindel and Rivka, were
Polish Jews The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the l ...
who had emigrated in 1911 and settled in Hanover. Zindel opened a tailor's shop, from which he earned a modest living. Because of the German Citizenship Law of 1913, based on the principles of ''
jus sanguinis ( , , ; 'right of blood') is a principle of nationality law by which citizenship is determined or acquired by the nationality or ethnicity of one or both parents. Children at birth may be citizens of a particular state if either or both of th ...
'', Grynszpan was never a German citizen despite his German birth.Steinweis, Alan. "The Trials of Herschel Grynszpan: Anti-Jewish Policy and German Propaganda, 1938-1942" pages 471-488 from ''German Studies Review'', Volume 31, Issue #3, October 2008, pg. 472 The family became Polish citizens after the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
and retained that status during their years in Germany. Grynszpan was the youngest of six children, only three of whom survived childhood. His parents' first child was stillborn in 1912. Their second child, daughter Sophie Helena (born in 1914), died of
scarlet fever Scarlet fever, also known as Scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by '' Streptococcus pyogenes'' a Group A streptococcus (GAS). The infection is a type of Group A streptococcal infection (Group A strep). It most commonly affects chi ...
in 1928. A daughter (Esther, also known as "Berta") was born on 31 January 1916 (she was murdered by the Nazis in 1942 or 1943), and a son (Mordechai) on 29 August 1919. A fifth child, Salomone, was born in 1920 and died in 1931 in a road accident. The Grynszpan family was known as '' Ostjuden'' ("Eastern Jews") by the Germans and many West European Jews. The "Ostjuden" usually spoke
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
and tended to be more religiously observant, impoverished, less educated, and less assimilated than German Jews. Given the Ostjuden situation in Germany, Grynszpan (unlike German Jews, who tended to see themselves as Germans first and Jews second) grew up with an intense sense of Jewishness. He dropped out of school at age 14.Schmitteroth, Linda & Rosteck, Mary Kay ''People of the Holocaust'', U-X-L: Detroit (1998), pg. 198 Grynszpan was considered by his teachers to be intelligent, if rather lazy, a student who never seemed to try to excel at his studies. He later complained that his teachers disliked him because he was an Ostjude, and he was treated as an outcast both by his German teachers and fellow students. As a child and a teenager, Grynszpan was known for his violent temper and his tendency to respond to antisemitic insults with his fists and was frequently suspended from school for fighting.


Paris

Grynszpan attended a state primary school until 1935 (when he was 14) and later said that he left school because Jewish students were already facing discrimination. He was an intelligent, sensitive and easily-provoked youth whose few close friends found him too touchy. Grynszpan was an active member of the Jewish youth sports club, Bar-Kochba Hanover. When he left school, his parents decided that there was no future for him in Germany and tried to arrange for his emigration to the British Mandate of Palestine. With financial assistance from Hanover's Jewish community, Grynszpan was sent to a
yeshiva A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy a ...
(rabbinical seminary) in
Frankfurt 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 it ...
and studied
Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and the
Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
; he was, by all accounts, more religious than his parents. After eleven months, he left the yeshiva, returned to Hanover and applied to emigrate to Palestine. The local Palestine emigration office told Grynszpan that he was too young and would have to wait a year. He and his parents decided that he should go to
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. Si ...
and live with his uncle and aunt, Abraham and Chawa Grynszpan, instead. Grynszpan obtained a Polish passport and German residence permit and received permission to leave Germany for Belgium, where another uncle (Wolf Grynszpan) lived. He did not intend to remain in Belgium and entered France illegally in September 1936. (Grynszpan could not enter France legally because he had no financial support; Jews were not permitted to take money from Germany.) In Paris, he lived in a small
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
-speaking enclave of Polish
Orthodox Jews Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Jewish theology, Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Or ...
. Grynszpan met few people outside it, learning only a few words of French in two years. He initially lived a carefree, bohemian life as a "poet of the streets", spending his days aimlessly wandering and reciting Yiddish poems to himself. Grynszpan's two greatest interests, other than exploring Paris, were spending time in coffeehouses and going to the cinema.Schwab, Gerald ''The Day the Holocaust Began'', New York: Praeger, 1990, pp. 57-58. He spent this period unsuccessfully trying to become a legal resident of France, because he could not work nor study legally. Grynszpan's German re-entry permit expired in April 1937 and his Polish passport expired in January 1938, leaving him without papers. The
Paris Police Prefecture The police prefecture (french: préfecture de police) is the unit of the French Ministry of the Interior that provides police, emergency services, and various administrative services to the population of the city of Paris and the surrounding t ...
ruled in July 1937 that he had no basis for remaining in France, and he was ordered to leave the following month. Grynszpan had no desire to return to Germany. In March 1938, Poland passed a law depriving Polish citizens who had lived continuously abroad for more than five years of their citizenship.''Commentary by Jerzy Tomaszewski''
Grynszpan became a stateless person as a result, and continued to live illegally in Paris. Lonely and living in poverty on the margins of French life as an illegal immigrant, with no real skills, he grew increasingly desperate and angry as his situation worsened. Grynszpan was afraid to accept a job because of his illegal-immigrant status and depended for support on his uncle Abraham, who was also extremely poor. His refusal to work caused tension with his uncle and aunt, who frequently told him that he was a drain on their finances and had to take a job despite the risk of deportation. Beginning in October 1938 Grynszpan was in hiding from the French police who sought to deport him, a stressful situation. The few who knew him in Paris described him as a shy, emotional teenager who often wept when he discussed the plight of Jews around the world, especially his beloved family in Germany. Grynszpan came from a close-knit, loving family, and often spoke about his love for his family and how much he missed them.


From exile to assassin

The position of Grynszpan's family in Hanover was becoming increasingly precarious; his father's business was failing, and both of his siblings lost their jobs. German authorities announced in August 1938, in response to a Polish decree stripping Polish Jews living abroad of citizenship, that all residence permits for foreigners were being cancelled and would have to be renewed. On 26 October, a few days before the decree was to come into force, the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
was ordered to arrest and deport all Polish Jews in Germany. The Grynszpan family was among the estimated 12,000 Polish Jews arrested, stripped of their property, and herded aboard trains headed for Poland. At the trial of
Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
'' Zbąszyń (Bentschen in German). Poland refused to admit them at first, since the Sanation regime had no intention of accepting those whom it had just stripped of Polish citizenship.Longerich, Peter ''The Holocaust'', Oxford: Oxford University Press (2010), pp. 109-110 The "Polish operation" (German: ''die Polenaktion'') ended on 29 October, when the Polish government threatened to begin expelling German nationals from Poland. The Grynszpans and thousands of other Polish-Jewish deportees stranded at the border were fed by the
Polish Red Cross Polish Red Cross ( pl, Polski Czerwony Krzyż, abbr. PCK) is the Polish member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Its 19th-century roots may be found in the Russian and Austrian Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonw ...
. Conditions for the refugees, trapped in the open on the German-Polish frontier, were extremely poor; according to a British woman who worked with the
Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...
, "I found thousands crowded together in pigsties. The old, the sick and children herded together in the most inhumane conditions ... some actually tried to escape ''back'' to Germany and were shot".Gilbert, Martin ''The Holocaust The Jewish Tragedy'', New York: HarperCollins (1987), pg. 68. On 3 November, Grynszpan received a postcard from his sister in Zbąszyn dated 31 October recounting what had happened and (in a line which was crossed out) apparently pleading for help. On 6 November 1938, Grynszpan asked his uncle Abraham to send money to his family. Abraham said he had little to spare and was incurring financial costs and legal risks by harbouring his nephew, an
illegal immigrant Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwa ...
and unemployed youth. After an argument, Grynszpan walked out of his uncle's house with about 300 francs (an average day's wage in Paris at the time) and spent the night in a cheap hotel. On the morning of 7 November, he wrote a farewell
postcard A postcard or post card is a piece of thick paper or thin cardboard, typically rectangular, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. Non-rectangular shapes may also be used but are rare. There are novelty exceptions, such as woo ...
to his parents and put it in his pocket. Grynszpan went to a gun shop in the Rue du Faubourg St Martin, where he bought a 6.35mm
revolver A revolver (also called a wheel gun) is a repeating firearm, repeating handgun that has at least one gun barrel, barrel and uses a revolving cylinder (firearms), cylinder containing multiple chamber (firearms), chambers (each holding a single ...
and a box of 25 bullets for 235 francs. He caught the metro to the Solférino station and walked to the German embassy at 78 Rue de Lille. It is generally believed that Grynszpan wanted to assassinate Johannes von Welczeck, the German ambassador to France. As he entered the embassy Grynszpan walked past von Welczeck, who was leaving for his daily morning walk. At 9:45 am, Grynszpan identified himself as a German resident at the reception desk and asked to see an embassy official; he did not ask for anyone by name. He claimed to be a spy with important intelligence which he had to give to the most senior diplomat available, preferably the ambassador. Unaware that he had just walked past von Welczeck, Grynszpan asked if he could see "His Excellency, the ambassador" to hand over the "most important document" he claimed to have. The clerk on duty asked Ernst vom Rath, the junior of the two embassy officials available, to see him. When Grynszpan entered Rath's office, Rath asked to see the "most important document". Grynszpan pulled out his gun, and shot him five times in the abdomen. According to the French police account, he shouted right before pulling out his gun: ''"You're a filthy boche! In the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews, here is the document!"'' Grynszpan made no attempt to resist or escape, and identified himself truthfully to the French police. He confessed to shooting Rath (who was in critical condition in a hospital), and repeated that his motive was to avenge the persecuted Jews. In his pocket was the postcard to his parents; it 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. Hermann is German name.


Aftermath

Despite the best efforts of French and German doctors (including
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
's personal physician, Karl Brandt), the 29-year-old Rath died on 9 November. On 17 November, he received a much-publicized state funeral in
Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in ...
which was attended by 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 ...
. In his eulogy, Ribbentrop called the shooting as an attack by Jews on the German people: "We understand the challenge, and we accept it". Rath's assassination was used to justify antisemitic
pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian ...
s in Germany. Rath died on the fifteenth anniversary of the 1923
Beer Hall Putsch The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,Dan Moorhouse, ed schoolshistory.org.uk, accessed 2008-05-31.Known in German as the or was a failed coup d'état by Nazi Party ( or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff and othe ...
, the greatest holiday of the Nazi calendar. That evening, Propaganda Minister
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 ...
after consulting with Hitlermade an inflammatory speech at the
Bürgerbräukeller The Bürgerbräukeller (; "citizen brew cellar") was a large beer hall in Munich, Germany. Opened in 1885, it was one of the largest beer halls of the Bürgerliches Brauhaus. After Bürgerliches merged with Löwenbräu in 1921, the hall was tran ...
beer hall in
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...
(where the putsch had been organised) to an audience of veteran Nazis from throughout Germany. It would not be surprising, Goebbels said, if the German people were so outraged by the assassination of a German diplomat by a Jew that they took the law into their own hands and attacked Jewish businesses, community centres and
synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of wor ...
s. Such "spontaneous outbursts" should not be openly organised by the
Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
or the SA, but should not be opposed or prevented either. That Rath's death was a pretext was indicated by Goebbels' diary entry for that day: "In the afternoon the death of the German diplomat vom Rath is announced. That's good ... I go to the Party reception in the old Rathaus. Terrific activity. I brief Hitler on the affair. He decides: allow the demonstrations to go on. Withdraw the police. The Jews should feel the people's fury. That's right. I issue appropriate instructions to the police and party. Then I give a brief speech on the subject to the Party's leadership. Thunderous applause. Everyone dashed to the telephone. Now the people will act". Within hours, Nazis began a pogrom against Jewish communities throughout Germany which became known as ''
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 fro ...
'' (Night of Broken Glass) and lasted all night and into the following day. More than 90 Jews were killed; over 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps (where over a thousand died before the remainder were released, several months later), and thousands of Jewish shops, homes, offices and more than 200 synagogues were smashed or burned. More than one billion
Reichsmark The (; sign: ℛℳ; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until 20 June 1948 in West Germany, where it was replaced with the , and until 23 June 1948 in East Germany, where it was replaced by the East German mark. The Reich ...
in property damage (about US$400 million at the time, or $6.7 billion in 2015 dollars) was reported. Although Jews were able to file insurance claims for their property losses,
Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
(in charge of German economic planning) ruled that the claims would not be paid. ''Kristallnacht'' shocked the world, and helped end the climate of support for the
appeasement Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the UK governme ...
of Hitler in Britain, France and the United States. It also triggered a new wave of Jewish emigration from Germany. Grynszpan was distraught when he learned that his action was used by the Nazis to justify further violent assaults on German Jews, although his family (having been deported to the Polish border) was safe from that particular manifestation of Nazi antisemitism. The Nazi government had been planning violence against the Jews for some time, and was waiting for a suitable pretext.


Legal defence

Rath's death and the horror of ''Kristallnacht'' brought Grynszpan international notoriety. Enjoying his celebrity status, he was frequently interviewed in his prison cell and wrote letters to celebrities around the world.
Dorothy Thompson Dorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and was one of the few women news commentators on radio ...
, the American journalist, made an impassioned 14 November broadcast to an estimated five million listeners in defence of Grynszpan and noted that the Nazis had made heroes of the assassins of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss and German-Jewish Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau: Liberal and left-wing newspapers and commentators in a number of countries echoed Thompson's sentiments. Deploring Rath's assassination, they said that Grynszpan had been driven to his act by the Nazi persecution of German Jews in general and his family in particular. Jewish organizations were horrified by Grynszpan's action, which they condemned more severely than most non-Jewish liberals (while echoing the plea of extenuating circumstances and condemning the subsequent attacks on all German Jews in response to the act of an isolated individual). The
World Jewish Congress The World Jewish Congress (WJC) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress' main purpose is to act as ...
"deplored the fatal shooting of an official of the German Embassy by a young Polish Jew of seventeen", but "protested energetically against the violent attacks in the German press against the whole of Judaism because of this act" and "reprisals taken against the German Jews". In France, the Alliance Israélite Universelle "rejected all forms of violence, regardless of author or victim" but "indignantly protested against the barbarous treatment inflicted on an entire innocent population." Several appeals were launched to raise money for Grynszpan's defence. In the United States, Thompson launched an appeal which raised more than $40,000 in a few weeks; she asked Jews not to donate to the fund, so the Nazis could not attribute Grynszpan's defence to a Jewish conspiracy. Jewish organizations also raised money. In the immediate aftermath of Rath's assassination, two Parisian Jewish lawyers (Szwarc and Vésinne-Larue) were retained by the Grynszpan family. When the case became internationally known, the family sought a well-known lawyer and retained Isidore Franckel (28 November 1893 – 16 February 1965) (one of Paris's leading advocates and president of the central committee of
Hatzohar Hatzohar (, an acronym for ''HaTzionim HaRevizionistim'' (), lit. ''The Revisionist Zionists''), officially Brit HaTzionim HaRevizionistim (, lit. ''Union of Revisionist Zionists'') was a Revisionist Zionist organization and political party in Ma ...
, the Union of Revisionist Zionists). Thompson would later intercede with President Roosevelt to help Franckel and his family (wife and two sons) to flee France to the United States in 1942. Franckel wanted a well-known non-Jewish lawyer as co-counsel and engaged Vincent de Moro-Giafferi (a flamboyant
Corsica Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...
n, leading anti-fascist activist and former education minister in Édouard Herriot's
Radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics * Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe an ...
government), with Yiddish-speaking lawyer Serge Weill-Goudchaux as his associate. Legal fees and expenses were paid from Thompson's fund for Grynszpan's defence. Until Franckel and Moro-Giafferi took over his defence, it was accepted that Grynszpan went to the Embassy in a rage and shot the first German he saw as a political act to avenge the persecution of his family and all German Jews. His statements after his arrest supported this view; he told the Paris police, "Being a Jew is not a crime. I am not a dog. I have a right to live and the Jewish people have a right to exist on this earth. Wherever I have been, I have been chased like an animal." Franckel and Moro-Giafferi said that if Grynszpan was allowed to claim that he had shot vom Rath with such a motive, he would certainly be convicted and possibly executed (despite his being a minor); French law took a severe view of political assassination. If the crime could be shown to have a non-political motive, he might be acquitted or receive a lesser sentence; French law traditionally took a lenient view of
crimes of passion A crime of passion (French: ''crime passionnel''), in popular usage, refers to a violent crime, especially homicide, in which the perpetrator commits the act against someone because of sudden strong impulse such as anger rather than as a premed ...
. Moro-Gaifferi's legal strategy depoliticized Grynszpan's actions. Grynszpan was enraged by his lawyer's proposed ''crime passionel'' defense, insisting that he was not homosexual and had killed Rath as an act of political protest against the German government's antisemitic policies. The shy, socially-awkward Grynszpan confided to Moro-Giafferi that he had never had a girlfriend and was still a virgin, asking his lawyer to arrange a sexual encounter with a beautiful French girl in case he was sentenced to death. Grynszpan considered himself a hero who stood up to the Nazis, and believed that when his case went to trial his (preferred) "Jewish avenger" defense would acquit him. The outcome of the
Schwartzbard trial The Schwartzbard trial was a sensational 1927 French murder trial in which Sholom Schwartzbard was accused of murdering the Ukrainian immigrant and head of the Ukrainian government-in-exile Symon Petliura. While the defendant fully admitted to ki ...
in 1927, when Sholom Schwartzbard was acquitted for assassinating
Symon Petliura Symon Vasylyovych Petliura ( uk, Си́мон Васи́льович Петлю́ра; – May 25, 1926) was a Ukrainian politician and journalist. He became the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Army and the President of the Ukrainian Peop ...
in 1926 on the grounds that he was avenging pogroms by Ukrainian forces, was a major factor in Grynszpan's seeking the "Jewish avenger" defense (to Moro-Giafferi's chagrin).


Sexuality

Grynszpan was theorized to have been acquainted with Rath before the shooting. According to this theory, Rath was
homosexual Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...
and had met Grynszpan in Le Boeuf sur le Toit (a Paris bar). It is unclear whether Grynszpan himself was alleged to be homosexual or simply using his youth and appearance to win an influential friend. According to the theory, Rath had promised to use his influence to legalize Grynszpan's French residency. When Rath reneged on his promise, Grynszpan went to the embassy and shot him. According to a 2001 article in ''
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 ...
'', historian Hans-Jürgen Döscher planned to publish an updated edition of his ''Reichskristallnacht'' which indicated that Grynszpan and Rath had had a sexual relationship. Döscher quoted the diaries of French author
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 symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism ...
, who wrote that Rath "had an exceptionally intimate relationship with the little Jew, his murderer": "The idea that such a highly thought-of representative of the
Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
sinned twice according to the laws of his country is rather amusing." However, Swiss-Canadian writer Corinne Chaponnière wrote in a 2015 essay that the quotation was incorrectly attributed to Gide. No firm evidence exists that Rath and Grynszpan had met before the shooting. German embassy officials were certain that Grynszpan had not asked for Rath by name, and saw Rath only because he happened to be on duty at the time. In 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 prisoner ...
in 1941, Grynszpan told fellow inmates that he intended to falsely claim at his trial that he had had a homosexual relationship with Rath. Canadian historian
Michael Marrus Michael Robert Marrus (1941–2022) was a Canadian historian of the Holocaust, modern European and Jewish history and international humanitarian law. He is the author of eight books on the Holocaust and related subjects. Overview Marrus (1941–2 ...
wrote, Further evidence is presented by Gerald Schwab in the form of a letter sent to Rath's brother in 1964 by Erich Wollenberg, a
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
exile from Nazi Germany who claimed to be an associate of Moro-Giafferi: On the eve of the 75th anniversary of ''Kristallnacht'', in November 2013, Dutch author Sidney Smeets published a book based on previously-inaccessible archival sources. The book, ''De wanhoopsdaad: hoe een zeventienjarige jongen de Kristallnacht ontketende'' (''An Act of Desperation''), delves into the court files of German journalist Michael Soltikow's defamation trials during the 1950s and 1960s. Soltikow was sued by Rath's surviving brother in 1952 for libeling his brother, and the evidence Soltikow presented to support his claims of a homosexual relationship between Rath and Grynszpan did not hold up in a court of law. All witnesses, even those quoted to the contrary by Soltikow, denied knowledge of the alleged relationship under oath. According to Smeets, Döscher's theory is untenable since it is based almost entirely on Soltikow's allegations; Grynszpan and Rath did not know each other, and there is no evidence that either was homosexual. However, the claim of homosexuality damaged Grynszpan's reputation.


Paris to Berlin

From November 1938 to June 1940, Grynszpan was imprisoned in the Fresnes Prison in Paris while legal arguments continued over the conduct of his trial. His defence team attempted to delay the trial as long as possible on procedural grounds in the hope that the publicity surrounding the Rath murder would subside (making the trial less politicized), with no opposition from the prosecution. Goebbels sent Wolfgang Diewerge, a lawyer and journalist who had joined the NSDAP in 1930, to represent the German government in Paris. Friedrich Grimm (a prominent German lawyer and a professor of international law at the University of Münster) was also sent to Paris, ostensibly representing the Rath family, but was widely known to be an agent of Goebbels.Steinweis, Alan "The Trials of Herschel Grynszpan: Anti-Jewish Policy and German Propaganda, 1938-1942" pages 471-488 from ''German Studies Review'', Volume 31, Issue #3, October 2008 page 476 Grimm tried to argue that Grynszpan should be extradited to Germany (although he was not a German citizen), but the French government would not agree to this. Grimn and Diewerge knew each other well, working closely together in the 1934 Cairo Jew Trial, and their efforts in Paris in 1938-39 largely repeated their work in
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metr ...
. The Germans argued that Grynszpan had acted as the agent of a Jewish conspiracy, and their fruitless efforts to find evidence to support this further delayed the trial. Grimn and Diewerge, who were both antisemitic, were obsessed by the belief that Grynszpan had acted on behalf of unknown Jewis
''Hintermänner''
(supporters) who were also responsible for the assassination of
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 1936. ...
by
David Frankfurter David Frankfurter (9 July 1909 – 19 July 1982) was a Croatian Jew known for assassinating Wilhelm Gustloff, the Swiss branch leader of the Nazi Party, in February 1936 in Davos, Switzerland. He surrendered and confessed, and was sentenced to ...
in 1936. Their attempts to find the ''Hintermänner'' and link Grynszpan to Frankfurter slowed the case; neither man would accept the contentions of the Paris police that the ''Hintermänner'' did not exist and the killings of Rath and Gustloff were unrelated.Steinweis, Alan "The Trials of Herschel Grynszpan: Anti-Jewish Policy and German Propaganda, 1938-1942" pages 471-488 from ''German Studies Review'', Volume 31, Issue #3, October 2008 page 477 According to American historian Alan Steinweis, the lack of evidence for these ''Hintermänner'' did not lead Grimn and Diewerge to the conclusion that they did not exist; instead, they believed that the Jewish conspiracy against Germany was more insidious than they had realized (erasing all evidence of its existence). Moro-Giafferi changed tactics and demanded an immediate trial when war broke out, confident that anti-German sentiment and German inability to present evidence would result in Grynszpan's acquittal. The investigating judge had joined the army, however; the Ministry of Justice did not want the trial to proceed, and the Swiss lawyer engaged by the Germans employed a number of delaying tactics. The trial had not begun and Grynszpan was still in prison when the German army approached Paris in June 1940. French authorities evacuated the Parisian prisoners to the south in early June. Grynszpan was sent to
Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and
Bourges Bourges () is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre. It is the capital of the department of Cher, and also was the capital city of the former province of Berry. History The name of the commune derives either from the Bituriges, ...
. En route, the convoy was attacked by German aircraft. Some prisoners were killed, and others escaped in the confusion. One was apparently Grynszpan, since he was not among the survivors who arrived in Bourges. However, he had not escaped; he had been left behind. Instead of escaping, he walked to Bourges and surrendered to the police. Grynszpan was sent to make his own way to
Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and fr ...
, where he was incarcerated. He had no money, knew no one in the region, and spoke little French. The Nazis were on Grynszpan's trail; Grimm, now an official in the German foreign ministry, and SS Sturmbannführer Karl Bömelburg arrived in Paris on 15 June with orders to find him. They followed him to Orléans and Bourges, where they learned that he had been sent to Toulouse (in
Vichy France Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its t ...
's unoccupied zone). France had surrendered on 22 June, and a term of the armistice gave the Germans the right to demand the surrender of all "Germans named by the German Government" to the occupation authorities. Although Grynszpan was not a German citizen, Germany was his last place of legal residence and the Vichy authorities did not object to Grimm's demand that he be handed over. Grynszpan was illegally
extradited Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdi ...
to Germany on 18 July 1940, and was interrogated by the Gestapo. He was delivered to Bömelburg (on the border of the occupied zone), driven to Paris, flown to Berlin and imprisoned at Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.


Legal manoeuvres in Germany

Grynszpan spent the rest of his life in German custody, at the
Moabit Moabit () is an inner city locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany. As of 2016, around 77,000 people lived in Moabit. First inhabited in 1685 and incorporated into Berlin in 1861, the former industrial and working-class neighbourhood ...
prison in Berlin and in concentration camps at
Sachsenhausen 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 ...
and Flossenbürg. At Sachsenhausen he was housed in the bunker reserved for special prisoners with Kurt Schuschnigg, the last pre-
Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germa ...
chancellor of Austria The chancellor of the Republic of Austria () is the head of government of the Republic of Austria. The position corresponds to that of Prime Minister in several other parliamentary democracies. Current officeholder is Karl Nehammer of the Aus ...
. Grynszpan received relatively mild treatment because Goebbels intended him to be the subject of a
show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so ...
proving the complicity of "international Jewry" in the Rath killing. Grimm and Wolfgang Diewerge (an official in Goebbels' ministry) were put in charge of trial preparations, using files seized from Moro-Giafferi's Paris offices; Moro-Giafferi had escaped to Switzerland. Goebbels found bringing Grynszpan to trial in Germany as difficult as it had been in France. Although the Nazis held unchallenged political power, the state bureaucracy retained its independence in many areas (and harboured the most effective networks of the German resistance). The Justice Ministry (still staffed by lawyers intent on upholding the letter of the law) argued that since Grynszpan was not a German citizen, he could not be tried in Germany for a murder he had committed outside Germany; a minor at the time, he could not face the
death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...
. Arguments dragged on through 1940 and into 1941. The solution was to charge Grynszpan with high
treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
, for which he could be tried and executed. Persuading everyone concerned of its legality took some time, and he was not
indicted An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of ...
until October 1941. The indictment stated that Grynszpan's objective in shooting Rath was to ''"prevent through force of threats the Führer and Reichschancellor from the conduct of their constitutional functions"'' at the behest of international Jewry. In November, Goebbels saw Hitler and obtained his approval for a show trial which would put "World Jewry in the dock". The trial was set for January 1942, with former French foreign minister
Georges Bonnet Georges-Étienne Bonnet (22/23 July 1889 – 18 June 1973) was a French politician who served as foreign minister in 1938 and 1939 and was a leading figure in the Radical Party. Early life Bonnet was born in Bassillac, Dordogne, the son of ...
scheduled to testify that "World Jewry" was responsible for dragging France into a war with Germany (its political objective). An American celebrity journalist,
Dorothy Thompson Dorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and was one of the few women news commentators on radio ...
, reported that: Expelled from Germany for her anti-Nazi reporting, Thompson viewed Grynszpan's deed into a heroic response to the Nazi persecution of Jews. She insisted that large donations to Grynszpan's legal defense come from non-Jews, so the Nazis could not smear her efforts. The trial did not begin in January 1942. The
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
had entered the war the previous month, as German armies suffered a major setback on the Eastern Front before battling the Red Army near Moscow. The
Riom Trial The Riom Trial (french: Procès de Riom; 19 February 1942 – 21 May 1943) was an attempt by the Vichy France regime, headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, to prove that the leaders of the French Third Republic (1870–1940) had been responsible for ...
of
Léon Blum André Léon Blum (; 9 April 1872 – 30 March 1950) was a French socialist politician and three-time Prime Minister. As a Jew, he was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century. He was a disciple of French Socialist le ...
and other French politicians was due to begin in February, and Goebbels did not want two show trials at once. There were also further legal difficulties; it was feared that Grynszpan would challenge the legality of his deportation from France, which the Justice Ministry officials felt had been "irregular". Most disturbing of all was the revelation that Grynszpan would claim that he had shot Rath because of a homosexual relationship. This was communicated to Grimm, Diewerge, and other officials by Justice Ministry state secretary Roland Freisler (later the head of the People's Court) on 22 January. Grynszpan, who had rejected the idea of using this defence when Moro-Giafferi suggested it in 1938, had apparently changed his mind. He told Heinrich Jagusch (one of his Gestapo interrogators) in mid-1941 that he intended using this defence but the Justice Ministry did not inform Goebbels, who was furious. He wrote in his diary: The Justice Ministry indicted Grynszpan under
Paragraph 175 Paragraph 175 (known formally a§175 StGB also known as Section 175 in English) was a provision of the German Criminal Code from 15 May 1871 to 10 March 1994. It made homosexual acts between males a crime, and in early revisions the provisio ...
, and the infuriated Goebbels said that the additional indictment implied that Grynszpan and Rath had had a homosexual relationship.Steinweis, Alan The Trials of Herschel Grynszpan: Anti-Jewish Policy and German Propaganda, 1938-1942 pages 471-488 from ''German Studies Review'', Volume 31, Issue #3, October 2008 page 483. Goebbels again saw Hitler in March, and assured him that the trial would begin in May (without warning him about the possibility of a crime-of-passion defence). In April, he was still grappling with the problem: Acting Justice Minister
Franz Schlegelberger Louis Rudolph Franz Schlegelberger (23 October 187614 December 1970) was State Secretary in the German Reich Ministry of Justice (RMJ) who served as Justice Minister during the Third Reich. He was the highest-ranking defendant at the Judges' Tr ...
wrote to Goebbels on 10 April demanding to know whether Hitler, when he had authorized the trial, had been aware that Grynszpan was planning to use a homosexual defence. What troubled the Justice Ministry was not the allegation that Rath had had a sexual relationship with Grynszpan; they knew it was false, and Grynszpan had said as much to some of his fellow inmates at Sachsenhausen. The problem was their belief that Rath was homosexual; Grynszpan had been given details of his personal life by Moro-Giafferi in Paris, and would reveal them in court. This would embarrass the Rath family and the Foreign Ministry; Rath's brother Gustav, a Wehrmacht officer, had been court-martialed for homosexuality. Gustav's homosexuality suggested, given the science and social paradigms of the time, the possibility that his brother may have been homosexual as well. Hitler soon learned about the problem; from whom is unclear, but it probably reached the ears of
Party Chancellery The Party Chancellery (german: Parteikanzlei), was the name of the head office for the German Nazi Party (NSDAP), designated as such on 12 May 1941. The office existed previously as the Staff of the Deputy Führer (''Stab des Stellvertreters des ...
head (and Hitler's private secretary)
Martin Bormann Martin Ludwig Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. He gained immense power by using his position as Adolf Hitler's private secretary to control the flow of information ...
. Bormann would have thought it his duty to inform Hitler that Goebbels had not told him the whole story about the Grynszpan case. The Riom Trial was called off on 4 April, after Blum and the other defendants had used it as a platform to attack the Vichy regime, which probably decided Hitler against another risky show trial. By the beginning of May 1942, it was clear that Hitler did not favour a trial. Although the matter was raised on and off for several months, without Hitler's approval there would be no progress. Grynszpan was moved in September to the prison at
Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebu ...
, and his fate after September 1942 is unknown. Since his trial was never called off (it was postponed indefinitely), he was probably intended to be kept alive in case circumstances changed and a trial became possible. According to
Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''


Fate and rumoured survival

One of Grynszpan's lawyers, Serge Weill-Goudchaux, said after World War II that Grynszpan had been executed in 1940; according to Fritz Dahms of the German foreign office, he died just before the end of the war. Unfounded rumours circulated after the war that he had survived and was living under another name in Paris. Several authorities believe that, according to evidence, Grynszpan died at
Sachsenhausen 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 ...
sometime in late 1942;Steinweis, Alan "The Trials of Herschel Grynszpan: Anti-Jewish Policy and German Propaganda, 1938–1942". pp. 471–488. from ''German Studies Review'', Volume 31, Issue #3, October 2008 page 484 the historical consensus is that he did not survive the war. However, a 1946 photo emerged in 2016 of a man resembling Grynszpan in Germany. In April 1952, German Nazi journalist Michael von Soltikow published two articles claiming that Grynszpan was living in Paris and repeated the theoretical 'gay lover' motive for Rath's murder. "Graf von Soltikow", as he liked to call himself (his real name was Walter Bennecke, and he was not an aristocrat), was a self-promoting former SS officer who had specialized in writing anti-Semitic tracts in Nazi Germany; after the war he engaged in sensationalist journalism, usually claiming that he was boldly revealing "secrets" which no one else dared to. Soltikow wrote that he was doing a service to "World Jewry" by "proving" that Grynszpan killed Rath as the result of a homosexual relationship gone sour, rather than as the product of a world Jewish conspiracy. The theory that Grynszpan was living in Paris and not being prosecuted for Rath's murder, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, would have been attractive to many Germans after the war. During the 1950s, thousands of Germans who had been involved in the Holocaust had not been prosecuted for their crimes and were allowed to live out their days in peace. German historian Wolfram Wette wrote in 2002 that in the 1950s, "the vast majority of the population retained the nationalistic attitudes that had been inculcated in them earlier. Not only did they not accept the verdict that war crimes had been committed, but they also expressed solidarity with those who had been convicted, protected them and demanded their release, preferably in the form of a general amnesty". That the Jew who had murdered a German was not prosecuted for his crime by the French, despite (supposedly) living openly in Paris, was used as argument for not prosecuting Germans who were involved in the murder of Jews during the '' Shoah''. Soltikow was sued for defamation by the Rath family. In 2013, Dutch historian Sidney Smeets called Solitkow a con man whose allegations about Grynszpan and Rath were lies. During his trial in Munich, Soltikow claimed that Grynszpan was present during the previous day's court proceedings as a spectator. When the judge said that if that were true Grynszpan would have to be arrested for Rath's murder, an angry Soltikow claimed that Grynszpan would never show his face again. In 1957 an article by German historian Helmut Heiber claimed that Grynszpan was sent to
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 prisoner ...
and survived the war; another article by Egon Larsen, published two years later, said that Grynszpan had changed his name, was living in Paris and was working as a garage mechanic. Heiber's article was unmasked as based entirely on rumours that Grynszpan was alive and well in Paris. Larsen's report was based on talks with people who claimed to have met people who knew that Grynszpan was living in Paris; despite their claims about his survival, no one had ever actually seen Grynszpan. The only person who claimed to have seen Grynszpan was Soltikow; everyone else claimed to have talked with other people who supposedly met Grynszpan. Heiber retracted his 1957 article in 1981, saying that he now believed that Grynszpan died during the war. French doctor Alain Cuenot, who made the most extensive search for Grynszpan during the late 1950s, reported that he found no evidence that Grynszpan was alive; Cuenot found no references to Grynszpan in German documents after 1942, which strongly suggested that he had died that year: "If Grynszpan had survived the years 1943, 1944 and 1945, it would seem quite unusual that documents would not have been added to those already gathered". Cuenot noted that due to poor living conditions at Sachsenhausen, epidemics regularly killed thousands of inmates; he speculated that Grynszpan may have died in an epidemic, and SS camp officers would have a vested interest in covering up his death because he was supposed to be kept alive to be tried. According to American historian Alan E. Steinweis, Grynszpan was executed by the SS in 1942 when it became clear that he would not be tried for Rath's murder. Grynszpan was declared legally dead by the West German government in 1960 (with his date of death fixed as 8 May 1945) at the request of his parents, who said that they had heard nothing from him since the war. Since Grynszpan was extremely close to his parents and siblings (and was moved to assassinate Rath out of outrage at their treatment), it is unlikely that he would not contact his parents or his brother if he were alive after the war. During his two years in Paris (1936–1938), the lonely Grynszpan had written frequently to his family in Hanover about how much he missed them and how he wanted to see them again. The lack of communication with his family after 1945 would have been out of character. His parents, sending him to what they thought was safety in Paris while they and his siblings remained in Germany, survived the war. After their deportation to Poland they escaped in 1939 to the Soviet Union, where Grynszpan's sister Esther was murdered in 1942. After the war the remaining family members immigrated to the Palestine Mandate, which became
Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. Sendel Grynszpan was present at the 1952 Israeli premiere of '' A Child of Our Time'', Michael Tippett's
oratorio An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is ...
about Grynszpan. Grynszpan was widely shunned during his lifetime by Jewish communities around the world, who saw him as an irresponsible, immature teenager who (by recklessly killing a minor official like Rath) brought down the wrath of the Nazis in ''Kristallnacht''. Ron Roizen wrote that the frequent claims of Grynszpan's survival, despite all the evidence suggesting that he died sometime in late 1942, reflected the guilt of Jews who shunned Grynszpan during his lifetime; his "abandonment seems a little less problematic, too, once it is believed that the boy miraculously survived the war. Grynszpan alive permits us to avoid more easily the painful moral issues his case so profoundly symbolizes. Was Grynszpan's action that of a heroic martyr or a misguided pariah? Were the reactions to Grynszpan's action among those for whom it was carried out appropriate or inappropriate? Though nearly a half century has passed since Herschel Grynszpan's assassination of Ernst vom Rath, little or no progress has been made on these painful questions."


Purported 1946 photo

In December 2016, a photograph found among a group of uncatalogued photos in the archives of the Jewish Museum Vienna by chief archivist, Christa Prokisch
BBC History Magazine ''BBC History Magazine'' is a British publication devoted to both British and world history and aimed at all levels of knowledge and interest. The publication releases thirteen editions a year, one per month and a Christmas special edition, an ...
; November 2021 issue, pg. 10
led to speculation that Grynszpan could have survived the war. The photograph, taken at a
displaced persons camp A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peo ...
in
Bamberg Bamberg (, , ; East Franconian: ''Bambärch'') is a town in Upper Franconia, Germany, on the river Regnitz close to its confluence with the river Main. The town dates back to the 9th century, when its name was derived from the nearby ' castl ...
,
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...
on 3 July 1946, shows a man resembling Grynszpan participating in a demonstration by Holocaust survivors against British refusal to let them emigrate to the British mandate of Palestine. A facial recognition test indicated a 95% possibility, the highest possible score, that the man in the photo was Grynszpan.


See also

*
List of people who disappeared Lists of people who disappeared include those whose current whereabouts are unknown, or whose deaths are unsubstantiated. Many people who disappear are eventually declared dead ''in absentia''. Some of these people were possibly subjected to enfo ...
*
David Frankfurter David Frankfurter (9 July 1909 – 19 July 1982) was a Croatian Jew known for assassinating Wilhelm Gustloff, the Swiss branch leader of the Nazi Party, in February 1936 in Davos, Switzerland. He surrendered and confessed, and was sentenced to ...
, a Jew from Croatia, assassin of
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 1936. ...


Notes


Sources

* * * *


External links


''Hitler's Pawn: The Boy Assassin and the Holocaust''
by Stephen Koch {{DEFAULTSORT:Grynszpan, Herschel 1921 births 1940s missing person cases 20th-century Polish criminals Kristallnacht Missing person cases in Germany People declared dead in absentia People from Hanover People from the Province of Hanover Polish expatriates in Germany Polish expatriates in France 20th-century Polish Jews Sachsenhausen concentration camp prisoners Stateless people People convicted under Germany's Paragraph 175 Polish assassins