Anti-Semitic mobs, led by SA paramilitaries, went on rampages throughout Nazi Germany. Synagogues like this one in the eastern city of Chemnitz and other Jewish-owned property were destroyed, and Jews were subject to public humiliation and arrested. According to official records, at least 91 Jews were killed — though the real death toll was likely much higher.

The street violence against German Jews is known by a variety of names. Berliners called it Kristallnacht, from which the English "Night of Broken Glass" is derived. It recalls the shards of shattered glass from the windows of synagogues, homes and Jewish-owned businesses. Nowadays, in German, it's also common to speak of the "pogrom night" or the "November pogroms."

The event that provided the excuse for the violence was the murder of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew. Vom Rath was shot at close range at the German Embassy in Paris on November 7, and died days later. Grynszpan wasn't executed for the crime; no one knows whether he survived the Third Reich or died in a concentration camp.

After vom Rath's death, Adolf Hitler gave Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels permission to launch the pogrom. Violence had already broken out in some places, and Goebbels gave a speech indicating the Nazis would not quash any "spontaneous" protests against the Jews. The SS were instructed to allow "only such measures as do not entail any danger to German lives and property."

No — that was just the official Nazi party line, but no one believed it. Constant references to "operations" and "measures" in Nazi documents clearly indicate the violence was planned ahead of time. It's unclear what ordinary Germans thought of the mayhem. There is evidence of popular disapproval, but the fact that the couple in the left of this picture appear to be laughing also speaks volumes.

In line with their racist ideology, the Nazis wanted to intimidate Jews into voluntarily leaving Germany. To this end, Jews were often paraded through the streets and humiliated, as seen in this image. Their persecutors were also motivated by economic interests. Jews fleeing the Third Reich were charged extortionate "emigration levies," and their property was often confiscated.

After the widespread violence German Jews were under no illusions about Nazi intentions, and those who could left the country. But such naked aggression played badly in the foreign press and offended many Germans' desire for order. Later, further anti-Jewish measures took more bureaucratic forms, such as the requirement that Jews wear a visible yellow Star of David stitched to their clothing.

After the pogroms, the Nazi leadership instituted a whole raft of anti-Jewish measures, including a levy to help pay for the damage of November 9-10, 1938. The second-most powerful man in the Third Reich at the time, Hermann Göring, famously remarked: "I would not want to be a Jew in Germany."

In 1938, the beginning of what became known as the Holocaust was still two years away. But there is an obvious line of continuity from the pogrom to the mass murder of European Jews, in which the Nazi leadership would continue to develop and intensify their anti-Semitic hatred. In the words of one contemporary historian, the pogrom was a "prelude to genocide."

A huge field of stelae in the center of the German capital was designed by New York architect Peter Eisenmann. The almost 3,000 stone blocks commemorate the six million Jewish people from all over Europe who were murdered by the Nazis.

Designed by German artist Gunther Demnig, these brass plates are very small — only 10 by 10 centimeters (3.9 x 3.9 inches). They mark the homes and offices from which people were deported by the Nazis. Around 10,000 of them have been placed across Berlin.

Several high-ranking Nazi officials met in this villa on the Wannsee Lake in January 1942 to discuss the systematic murder of European Jews, which they termed the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Today the house is a memorial that informs visitors about the unimaginable dimension of the genocide that was decided here.

White roses on track 17 at Grunewald station remember the more than 50,000 Berlin Jews who were sent to their deaths from here. 186 steel plates show the date, destination and number of deportees. The first train went to the Litzmannstadt ghetto (Lodz, Poland) on October 18, 1941; the last train to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on January 5, 1945.

Today, the Hackesche Höfe in Berlin Mitte are mentioned in every travel guide. They are a backyard labyrinth in which many Jewish people lived and worked — for example in the brush factory of the German entrepreneur Otto Weidt. During the Nazi era he employed many blind and deaf Jews and saved them from deportation and death. The workshop of the blind is now a museum.

The heart of Berlin's fashion metropolis once beat here. A memorial sign made of high mirrors recalls the Jewish fashion designers and stylists who made clothes for the whole of Europe at Hausvogteiplatz. The National Socialists expropriated the Jewish owners. Berlin's fashion center was irretrievably destroyed during the Second World War.

Before the Holocaust, 173,000 Jews lived in Berlin; in 1945 there were only 9,000. The monument "Der verlassene Raum" (The Deserted Room) is located in the middle of the Koppenplatz residential area in Berlin's Mitte district. It is a reminder of the Jewish citizens who were taken from their homes without warning and never returned.

Architect Daniel Libeskind chose a dramatic design: viewed from above, the building looks like a broken Star of David. The Jewish Museum is one of the most visited museums in Berlin, offering an overview of the turbulent centuries of German Jewish history.

There are still eight remaining Jewish cemeteries in Berlin, the largest of them in the Weissensee district. With over 115,000 graves, it is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. Many persecuted Jews hid in the complex premises during the Nazi era. On May 11, 1945, only three days after the end of the Second World War, the first postwar Jewish funeral service was held here.

When the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse was first consecrated in 1866 it was considered the largest and most magnificent synagogue in Germany. One of Berlin's 13 synagogues to survive the Kristallnacht pogroms, it later burned down due to Allied bombs. It was reconstructed and opened again in 1995. Since then, the 50-meter-high golden dome once again dominates Berlin's cityscape.