THE German anti-Jewish pogrom of the Reichskristallnacht on 9-10 November 1938 has obscured the events linked with the tragic expulsion of Polish Jews from the territory of the Third Reich on 28 and 29 October. The expulsion of 15,000-17,000 Jewish citizens of the Polish state was closely linked with the intensification of Nazi racist politics throughout 1938 (and in previous years), and was characterized by a violent increase in the wave of anti-Jewish terror in Austria (incorporated into the Reich in March 1938), attacks on Jewish homes, the deportation of German Jews to concentration camps (from Breslau on 25 June), the public identification of Jewish firms in July, and the vigorous promotion of emigration policies. Other events reinforced the terror; they included a decision to expel Jews with criminal records from the Reich and those who were Polish citizens (20 September), an order concerning the passports of German Jews (the ‘J’ Note of 5 October), and the increasingly rigorous enforcement of anti-Jewish directives in the economic life of the Reich. These are only some examples of the process of removing Jews from German socio-economic life. The action to expel Polish Jews ordered on 26 October 1938 by Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the security service, augured future ‘violent solutions', and indeed the ‘final solution’ to the Jewish question in the Reich.

The Polish decree of 6 October 1938, which demanded the submission of foreign passports for checking (by 29 October), constituted the pretext for Heydrich to issue a decree on 26 October for the immediate explusion from Germany of Jewish citizens of the Polish state. In vain did a Polish aidemémoire of 27 October assure Berlin that the Polish authorities did not intend any mass action as a result of this decree. The ‘Polish wave’ of explusions against the background of Nazi anti-Jewish policies deserves some attention. Nazi Germany had no intention of coming to terms with the fact that the Austrian Anschluss of March 1938 increased the number of Jews in the Reich by 200,000 at a single stroke. A confidential circular from the Berlin Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued to German missions abroad informed them that 1938, ‘a year of destiny', had not only seen the realization of the ‘Great German idea', it had also brought closer ‘the solution of the Jewish question', for anti-Jewish policies constituted both a condition and a consequence of the events of 1938.