The ‘action’ began the following evening after news of vom Rath’s death. In every city and town and most villages in the Reich, parties of SA, SS and Hitler Youth in plain clothes, already briefed on their targets, went on a rampage of arson and destruction of synagogues, Jewish shops, businesses and homes, rounding up Jews and humiliating, beating and in several cases killing them. Wolff knew nothing of the start of this, according to his account, nor did Heydrich, according to his widow’s account.
