November 9, the fateful day of the Germans
In several years on November 9, significant historical events happened in Germany, which shaped the future of the country. In detail, these are:
1848: Pro democracy revolutionist Robert Blum is executed in Vienna after being convicted for inflammatory speech. His death caused a radicalization of the pro-democracy movement, and he became a prominent identification figure for the early workers’ movement in Germany.
1918: Social Democrat politician Philipp Scheidemann proclaims the German Republic from a window of the Reichstag building in Berlin. A few hours later, Karl Liebknecht, leader of the communist movement, proclaims the Free Socialist Republic of Germany, meant to become a soviet state. During the following violent conflict, which took on civil war-like intensity in some places, the proponents of the pluralistic-democratic model prevail over the campaigners for a soviet republic.
1923: Adolf Hitler and former General Erich Ludendorff initiate the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in a failed attempt to topple the yound republic. National Socialism makes international headlines for the first time. Hitler uses the following trial to promote himself as the leading figure of the German ethno-nationalist movement. Despite being convicted for five years in prison, he is released after 9 months for good conduct. He writes his infamous book “Mein Kampf” while in prison. November 9 becomes a memorial day during the Third Reich.
1938: The Night of Broken Glass marks the height of the November pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany. More then 1400 synagogues are destroyed, alongside with several thousand shops and homes owned by Jews. Jewish cemeteries are also devastated. About 30,000 Jews are sent to concentration camps where hundreds are killed and thousands die due to the circumstances of incarceration.
1967: During the inaugurational celebrations of the headmaster of the university of Hamburg, students show a poster saying “Unter den Talaren der Muff von 1000 Jahren” (”Under the gowns there is the must of 1000 years”), referring to the self-designation of Nazi Germany as the “1000 year-long empire”. The sentence became the symbol of the the 1968 student revolts in West Germany.
1969: The extreme-left terror organization Tupamaros West-Berlin plants a bomb in the Jewish Community Hall of West Berlin, which does not explode, but would have cause a huge bloodbath among the participants of a memorial service to commemorate November 9, 1938.
1974: Holger Meins, member of the extreme-left terror organization Red Army Fraction (RAF) dies after 58 days of hunger strike, causing a further radicalization of the group and the recruitment of a second generation of RAF terrorists.
1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall: The opening of the border between the two halves of Berlin and subsequently the two German states demonstrates the success of the peaceful revolution in East Germany, which ultimately leads to the reunification of Germany. The first border crossings were opened when huge crowds gathered at the eastern side after an ill-informed spokesman of the new East-German government erroneously told the public that the borders were open “now, with immediate effect”. Unable to reach any superior for receiving orders, the responsible commander of the checkpoint at Bornholmer Straße took the lone decision to open the barriers, feeling unable to disperse the crowd without violence and fearing a stampede in which innocent people would be crushed to death.
November 9 was considered as the national holiday of reunited Germany, but this idea was skipped due to the horrible events connected to national socialism. In the end, the day when the reunification came into effect, October 3, 1990, became the national holiday of Germany.
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