November 9 has been the date of several important events in German history. The term Schicksalstag (Destiny day) has been occasionally used by historians and journalists since shortly after World War II, but its current widespread use started with the events of 1989 when virtually all German media picked up the term.
There are five major events in German history that are connected to November 9:
- 1848: After being arrested in the Vienna revolts, liberal leader Robert Blum is executed. The execution is often seen as a symbolic event for the ultimate failure of the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states.
- 1918: Monarchy in Germany ends when Kaiser Wilhelm II is dethroned in the November Revolution. Philipp Scheidemann proclaims the Weimar Republic from a window of the Reichstag. Two hours later Karl Liebknecht proclaims a "Free Socialist Republic" from a balcony of the Berliner Stadtschloss. Der 9. November (The Ninth of November) is the title of a novel by Bernhard Kellermann published in Germany that told the story of the German insurrection of 1918.
- 1923: The Beer Hall Putsch (8–9 November) marks the emergence of the Nazi Party as an important player on Germany's political landscape.
- 1938: In the Kristallnacht, (9–10 November) synagogues and Jewish property are burned and destroyed on a large scale. More than 1,300 Jews are killed.
- 1989: The fall of the Berlin Wall ends German separation and starts a series of events that ultimately lead to the German reunification and the Fall of Communism in eastern Europe. November 9 was considered as the date for German Unity Day, but as it was also the anniversary of Kristallnacht, this date was considered inappropriate as a national holiday. The date of the formal reunification of Germany, 3 October 1990, therefore, was chosen as the date for the holiday instead.
- The establishment of the SS in 1925 is sometimes mentioned as having taken place on 9 November as well.
Famous quotes containing the words november, german and/or history:
“In that November off Tehuantepec,
The slopping of the sea grew still one night
And in the morning summer hued the deck
And made one think of rosy chocolate
And gilt umbrellas.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)