Berlin - Germans must act against racism in general and anti-Semitism in particular, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday, a day before Germany marks a 1938 pogrom against Jewish residents.

Ceremonies were to be held Sunday to recall Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, when Nazis smashed up Jewish-owned shops, burned or ransacked synagogues and killed 91 people throughout Germany, according to the official toll.

The late November 9, 1938 pogrom, a precursor to the Holocaust, ultimately led to more than 1,300 deaths from injuries, by suicide or in concentration camps, official historians add.

Merkel, in a weekly video podcast, said Sunday would be a day of mourning for "the most terrible events in German history" as well as memories of more hopeful events on another November 9 - in 1989 - when the Berlin Wall parted.

The commemoration of 1938 "obliges Germans to act decisively against racism and particularly anti-Semitism, jointly and throughout society," Merkel said. (dpa)