November 9 has long been called Germany’s “day of destiny” because several decisive and contrasting events in German history happened on that date.
On November 9, 1918, Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed from a Reichstag balcony that the monarchy of Kaiser Wilhelm II had fallen and a republic had begun. Addressing workers and soldiers, he warned of the historical significance of the day and urged unity and duty as the new democracy took shape.
The young Weimar Republic faced violent challenges from left and right. On November 9, 1923, Adolf Hitler led the Nazis in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, marching to Munich’s Feldherrnhalle. The attempt to seize power collapsed, yet a decade later Hitler would become chancellor and lead Germany into World War II.
On November 9–10, 1938, Nazi forces and antisemitic mobs carried out the November pogroms, commonly called Kristallnacht or the “Night of Broken Glass.” Synagogues were torched, Jewish homes and businesses looted and smashed, and about 100 Jewish people were killed. These attacks were a violent precursor to the Holocaust, in which some six million Jews were murdered across Europe.
Half a century later, November 9, 1989, brought one of the most joyful moments in modern German history: the fall of the Berlin Wall. Border crossings in Berlin were opened, East and West Berliners gathered and celebrated, and the collapse of the Wall marked the beginning of the end for the German Democratic Republic and the reunification of Germany.
These events—revolution, failed coup, pogrom, and liberation—make November 9 a date that encapsulates some of the most dramatic turns in Germany’s 20th-century history.
