November 9 in Church History
The Night of Broken Glass
November 9 in church history: Kristallnacht in 1938, the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica.
On the night of November 9, 1938, the Nazi state turned its fury on Germany’s Jews. Synagogues were burned, shop windows smashed, homes invaded, and tens of thousands of men sent to camps. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was away from Berlin and hurried back. He is reported to have said some years earlier that only those who cry out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chant.
Most German church leaders said nothing in public. Kristallnacht has remained a test case in Christian conscience, and in Germany it is now a day of remembrance.
The same date in 1989 brought the fall of the Berlin Wall. Prayer meetings in East German churches, especially in Leipzig, had been a center of the movement that led to it.
On this day
- 1620The Mayflower’s passengers sight Cape Cod
- 1740George Whitefield preaches twice in his new Philadelphia hall
- 1938Kristallnacht: Nazi mobs attack Jewish homes, shops and synagogues
- 1989The Berlin Wall opens, with East German churches among the protest’s centers
Feast days
Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome
Also kept today: Theodore
November calendar
Sources. standard reference works; David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints; Rusten and Rusten, The One Year Christian History; Robert J. Morgan, On This Day.
Last updated November 2, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.