11/09/2009

Three November 9th´s




November 9th, 1918, Philp Scheidemann declares the first german republic.                                                                                                  November 9th 1938, HerschelGrynszpan had killed a german Embassy employee, thus initiating the Reichskristallnacht.                                                                                                                                                   November 9th 1989, in an press conference a GDR official annouced accidentally, that all frontiers to the west are open. This became the end of the iron curtain. Laters Pilgrim

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Truly a historic date. I wonder what future ppl will say about this day?

Love
D

Anonymous said...

You should be careful with the term "Reichskristallnacht", because it is definitely rassistic. "Reichspogromnacht" is said in Germany, nowadays. ;)


Propz

Pilgrim said...

Lu., oh? I´ve read in the german Videotxt, just this morning! :-)

Anonymous said...

Sadly, many people are oblivious of the fact that Reichskristallnacht is an euphemism for the broken glass that had been shattered in Jewish houses and synagoues in the Night of Broken Glass. It would be as if the English term for it was "Night of Glittering Glass" (I hope you understand the insinuation).

MartininBroda said...

I'm sorry to have contradict Lunario, "Reichskristallnacht" is indeed a term probably invented by the Nazis, but even serious sources use it today (usually with "..." of course), it's a matter of convictions not words. Could add some links if needed.

Anonymous said...

An historic day and a great day for Europe as the barriers between nations (both physical and metaphorical) were broken down.

I wish more people in the UK would realise that greater European integration is a good thing and can help retain our freedom, not take it away. We celebrate the fall of the wall, whilst at the same time we continue to try and cut ourselves off from our neighbours. Pure daft it is.

Anonymous said...

@Martin:
Yes, I think it's ok to use it when you put it in quotation marks 'cause then you show distance from it. You could also say "so-called Reichskristallnacht", but "Reichskristallnacht" alone is dismissive, IMO.

naturgesetz said...

If the empires had not been abolished, Hitler would not have been able to claim he was founding a third one. Democracy certainly accords with human dignity where you have an educated populace, but I'm inclined to believe that a constitutional monarchy can be a more stable regime than a pure democracy.

Where the nuances of the German language are not known, the term "Kristallnacht" does not carry any overtone of approval, and the word is used even by Jewish writers and speakers to refer to the events of the day. We use the German word, but we aren't familiar with the use of the prefix "Reichs" as part of the designation. If we translated it, I suppose "Imperial Night of Shattered Glass" would somehow sound less menacing than "Night of Shattered Glass."

The fall of the Berlin Wall was a momentous event which seemed to be the climax of the series of liberalizations in response to the public protest movements behind the Iron Curtain. As such it was a time of great joy and hope. Of course, it did not usher in a utopia, but it was an improvement as the cold war ended along with the oppression that had existed under the Communist regimes.

torchy! said...

i hadn't realised that Kristallnacht was on this date.

t!