4.02 World War II Timeline Project

  • 1.

    Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany
  • 3.

    Boycott of Jewish shops and businesses
  • 2.

    Dachau concentration camp opens
  • 4.

    Laws for Reestablishment of the Civil Service barred Jews from holding civil service, university, and state positions
  • 5.

    Gestapo established
  • 6.

    Public burning of books written by Jews, political dissidents, and others not approved by the state
  • 7.

    Law stripping East European Jewish immigrants of German citizenship
  • 8.

    Hitler proclaims himself Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Reich Chancellor). Armed forces must now swear allegiance to him
  • 9.

    Jews barred from serving in the German armed forces
  • 10.

    "Nuremberg Laws": anti-Jewish racial laws enacted; Jews no longer considered German citizens; Jews could not marry Aryans; nor could they fly the German flag
  • 11.

    Germany defines a "Jew": anyone with three Jewish grandparents; someone with two Jewish grandparents who identifies as a Jew
  • 15.

    Sachsenhausen concentration camp opens
  • 12.

    Jewish doctors were barred from practicing medicine in German institutions
  • 13.

    Germans march into the Rhineland, previously demilitarized by the Versailles Treaty
  • 14.

    Himmler appointed the Chief of German Police
  • 16.

    Hitler and Mussolini form Rome-Berlin Axis
  • 17.

    Buchenwald concentration camp opens
  • 18.

    Anschluss (incorporation of Austria): all antisemitic decrees immediately applied in Austria
  • 19.

    Mandatory registration of all property held by Jews inside the Reich
  • 20.

    Evian Conference held in Evian, France on the problem of Jewish refugees
  • 21.

    Adolf Eichmann establishes the Office of Jewish Emigration in Vienna to increase the pace of forced emigration
  • 22.

    Italy enacts sweeping antisemitic laws
  • 23.

    Munich Conference: Great Britain and France agree to the German occupation of the Sudetenland, previously western Czechoslovakia
  • 24.

    Following a request by Swiss authorities, Germans mark all Jewish passports with a large letter "J" to restrict Jews from immigrating to Switzerland
  • 25.

    17,000 Polish Jews living in Germany were expelled; Poles refused to admit them; 8,000 are stranded in the frontier village of Zbaszyn