Page 204 - Was Hitler a Riddle?

The American Diplomats 191

the Nazi cause. their remains were placed in “extravagant coffins; arranged
around a colossal, flaming urn on the Altermarkt for purposes of display,
and ultimately conveyed amid marching troops, flaring torches and funeral
music to the ‘ehrenhain,’” leipzig’s National socialist burial plot. For this
propagandistic ceremony the entire marketplace had been surrounded
“with wooden lattice work about ten yards high. this was covered with
white cloth to form the background for black swastikas at least five yards
high and broad. Flame-spurting urns and gigantic banners completed a
Wagnerian ensemble as to pomposity of stage-setting.” the only reassur-
ing aspect of the ritual was the indifference of many leipzig citizens, who
seemed to be distressed by the waste of materials and the expense, but for
“obvious reasons” no one openly protested. Many leipzigers were “much
more perturbed” the next morning, when they became aware “of the most
violent debacle the city had probably ever witnessed.”
the devastation had begun at 3 a.m. on November 10, and it consti-
tuted “a barrage of ferocity as had had no equal hitherto in Germany, or
very likely anywhere else in the world since savagery, if ever.” in addition
to the widespread destruction of Jewish property and the theft of valuables
of every kind, the Nazis manhandled human beings. “in one of the Jewish
sections an eighteen year old boy was hurled from a three story window
to land with both legs broken on a street littered with burning beds and
other household furniture and effects from his family’s and other apart-
ments.” the Nazi ruffians made special efforts to locate and seize valuables
in the homes and offices of affluent Jews. the “main streets of the city were
a positive litter of shattered plate glass.” the fury of the Nazis reached be-
yond Jewish businesses. three of the city’s synagogues “were fired simulta-
neously by incendiary bombs and all sacred objects and records desecrated
or destroyed, in most instances hurled through the windows and burned
in the streets. No attempts were made to quench the fires, function[aries]
of the fire brigade having been confined to . . . [pouring] water on adjoin-
ing buildings.” to add insult to injury, the Nazis pulled the owners of one
clothing store from their beds at six in the morning and imprisoned them
for allegedly having set fire to their own business.
Consul Buffum described in some detail what he dubbed a particularly
“ghoulish” form of violence in the Jewish cemetery. the Nazi marauders
torched the temple, as well as the building where the caretakers lived, and
then uprooted and desecrated tombstones and graves. ten corpses remained
“unburied” for an entire week because all the workers at the cemetery had
been arrested. elsewhere many male Jews were taken into custody and