Stamp Commemorating Kristallnacht (1988)

To commemorate Kristallnacht ("The Night of Broken Glass”), which had occurred on November 9-10, 1938, the West German Postal Service issued the stamp pictured here. It depicts the burning synagogue in Baden-Baden, and features a Jewish proverb: “Remembrance is the secret of redemption.” On November 10, 1988, the Bundestag held an official memorial service to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Nazi pogrom. The service ended in an uproar. Numerous members of parliament felt that the speech delivered by Bundestag President Phillip Jenninger was trivializing, and they left as a result. Jenninger's speech was also criticized in the public discourse, although less for its content than its rhetorical and stylistic shortcomings, which had led to misinterpretations. Jenninger eventually resigned from his office as a result of the scandal.

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Courtesy of the German Information Center