Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
in reference to the pogrom of Nov. 9-10, 1938, in Germany and Austria; from German, literally "crystal night;" often translated as "Night of Broken Glass."
Wikipedia
Kristallnacht (; ) or Reichskristallnacht [], also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, Reichspogromnacht [] or simply Pogromnacht , and Novemberpogrome , was a pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany on the 9–10 November 1938, carried out by SA paramilitary forces and German civilians. German authorities looked on without intervening. The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues had their windows smashed.
Estimates of the number of fatalities caused by the pogrom have varied. Early reporting estimated that 91 Jewish people were murdered during the attacks. Modern analysis of German scholarly sources by historians such as Richard J. Evans puts the number much higher. When deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included, the death toll climbs into the hundreds. Additionally, 30,000 were arrested and incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps.
Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned (95 in Vienna alone) and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged. Martin Gilbert writes that no event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening, and the accounts from the foreign journalists working in Germany sent shock waves around the world. The Times wrote at the time: "No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenseless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday."
The pretext for the attacks was the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew living in Paris. Kristallnacht was followed by additional economic and political persecution of Jews, and is viewed by historians as part of Nazi Germany's broader racial policy, and the beginning of the Final Solution and The Holocaust.
Kristallnacht is an album by John Zorn first released in 1993 on the Japanese Eva label and subsequently in 1995 on Zorn's own Tzadik Records label.
Usage examples of "kristallnacht".
Though many foreign governments--and even some executives within the Nazi party--objected to the atrocities committed on Kristallnacht, no one did anything to stop them or to ensure that they weren't repeated and in much worse degree.