Kristallnacht: Did the press allow itself to be taken in by Nazi propaganda?

This lesson starts by creating tension between what students have read in preparation for the lesson and a contemporary newspaper. With students clearly aware of the obvious contradiction, they then have to set about working out: firstly, what Goebbels was really up to on Kritsallnacht; and why a YouTube video is at odds with the texts regarding the number of Jews who were killed on that night. The purpose behind the activity is not only to encourage students to focus on the important issue of provenance but also to get them to think carefully about the nature of evidence available to a historian and how they must seek out possible counterbalancing sources.