It happened. In his speech that is generally considered one of the events leading to the 'Crystal Night', Joachim von Ribbentrop referenced the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, an undersecretary to the German ambassador in Paris by Hershel Grünspan, a 17-years old German national living in France. The latter planned to kill German ambassador, Count Johannes von Welczek, but not knowing what the official looks like, he shot and mortally wounded vom Rath thinking he shoots the head of German embassy. Undersecretary died two days later, on 9th November 1938.

Grünspan was motivated by the revenge for the fate of his family, that has been forcibly deported along 17.000 German Jews. In October 1938, German authorities annulled the residency permit of all temporary residents of Germany (largely foreign nationals), forcing them to re-apply, with a rather obvious suggestion that Jews won't really get one, what was part of a general policy to remove Jews from the territory of Germany. In this case, the main target of the action were Polish Jews that emigrated to that country. It is worth noting, that in March 1938, Polish authorities introduced a law depriving of Polish citizenship anyone who did not live in the territory of Poland for the last five years, allowing anyone to re-apply only until the end of October of that year. Germans used this to round up and deport the Polish Jews to Poland shortly before that time to pressure Polish side to accept all the exiles. And this actually happened on 26th October 1938. Polish Jews were promptly rounded up and deported to the border city of Neu Bentschen (now Zbąszynek, Poland), where they had to be transferred to the Polish side. Polish authorities, completely unprepared for over 17.000 people arriving almost at once and fearing German provocation (to at least some extent exacerbated by anti-Semitic notions) did not allow exiles entry, effectively stranding the entire group of the border. Among them was the family of Hershel Grünspan who decided to emigrate to Palestine in 1936 although he eventually started to live with his relatives in Paris. The exiles were eventually accepted back in Germany after the Polish authorities threatened with a retaliatory expulsion of German nationals, although large part of them ended up in concentration camps.

On 3rd November 1938, Hershel's sister-in-law wrote a postcard to their relatives in Paris, detailing their situation and asking for help in emigration process. After learning of his family's situation, Hershel decided to take revenge and after leaving a mote to his family, he went to assassinate German ambassador, what ended with the murder of vom Rath. After shooting, Grünspan surrendered to the police, explaining his motives as a revenge. This action, much like the murder of Wilhelm Gustloff, NSDAP activist in Switzerland, committed by David Frankfurter in February 1936, was presented by German authorities as the 'attack on Germany by the international Jewry' and used as the pretext for strengthening already draconian anti-Semitic laws.