Germany's Involvment in World War Two

By emilysnowball

  • Adolf Hilter becomes Chancellor of Germany

    Appointed the Chancellor of Germany

  • Auxiliary Police Sworn in

    Fourty thousand SA and SS men are sworn in as Hitlers SS and SA police

  • Reichstag Burning

    Sequence of Events Hitler and Goring arrive on the scene. Goring at once accuses the communists. The next day the ageing President signs a decree which allows the nazis to suspend freedom of speech which they use to ban virtually the entire opposition press. Communists are arrested wholesale though the party is not banned until after the elections so that the left vote will remain split.

  • Dachau Opens

    Nazis open Dachau concentration camp near Munich, to be followed by Buchenwald near Weimar in central Germany, Sachsenhausen near Berlin in northern Germany, and Ravensbrück for women.

  • Hitler gains dictorial power through the Enabling Act

    Rise to power
    After the elections of March 5, 1933, the Nazis began a systematic takeover of the state governments throughout Germany, ending a centuries old tradition of local political independence. Armed SA and SS thugs barged into local government offices using the state of emergency decree as a pretext to throw out legitimate office holders and replace them with Nazi Reich commissioners.

  • Nazi's begin boycotting Jewish shops and businesses

    Propaganda
    Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels incites the crowd in the Berlin Lustgarten to boycott Jewish-owned businesses as a response to the anti-German "atrocity propaganda" being spread abroad by "international Jewry."

  • Gestapo is created

    Gestapo is created by Hermann Göring in the German state of Prussia
  • Period: to

    Forced Sterilization

    Nazis pass law allowing for forced sterilization of those found by a Hereditary Health Court to have genetic defects in order to halt reproduction rates.

  • Nazi party declared the only party in Germany

  • Nazi party declared only party in Germany

    Nazis pass Law to strip Jewish immigrants from Poland of their German citizenship in addition to this declaration.

  • Germany leaves the League of Nations

  • Laws against "Dangerous Criminals"

    Nazis pass a Law against Habitual and Dangerous Criminals, which allows beggars, the homeless, alcoholics and the unemployed to be sent to concentration camps.

  • Jews denied right to health

    Jews not allowed national health insurance

  • Night of Long Knives

    Description of the Night of Long Knives
    The Night of Long Knives occurs as Hitler, Göring and Himmler conduct a purge of the SA (storm trooper) leadership.

  • President Hindenburg dies

  • German President von Hindenburg dies

    This allows for Hitler to be named the Fuerer and take complete control over Germany.
    Hitler proclaimed, "The German form of life is definitely determined for the next thousand years. The Age of Nerves of the nineteenth century has found its close with us. There will be no revolution in Germany for the next thousand years."

  • Adolf Hitler declares himself the Fuhrer of Germany

  • Nazis ban Jews from Military

    Nazis ban Jews from serving in the military.

  • Nuremberg Race Laws against Jews

    Nuremburg LawsThe Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 deprived German Jews of their rights of citizenship, giving them the status of "subjects" in Hitler's Reich. The laws also made it forbidden for Jews to marry or have sexual relations with Aryans or to employ young Aryan women as household help.

  • Nazis occupy the Rhineland

    In March 1936, Hitler took what for him was a huge gamble - he ordered that his troops should openly re-enter the Rhineland thus breaking the terms of Versailles once again. He did order his generals that the military should retreat out of the Rhineland if the French showed the slightest hint of making a military stand against him.

  • Heinrich Himmler

    Heinrich Himmler is appointed chief of the German Police. 'The Jewish race is to be exterminated,' says every party member. 'That's clear, it's part of our program, elimination of the Jews, extermination, right, we'll do it.'

  • Olympic Games

    Hitler and top Nazis seek to gain legitimacy through favorable public opinion from foreign visitors and thus temporarily refrain from actions against Jews.

  • Jews banned from jobs

    Jews are banned from many professional occupations including teaching Germans, and from being accountants or dentists. They are also denied tax reductions and child allowances.

  • The "Eternal Jew"

    The travelling exhibition promoted stereotypes of Jews and Nazi perceptions of their danger to the world. Officials shown above are gazing at a segment entitled, "Jewish dress was a warning against racial defilement." To the left is a segment entitled, "Usury and the fencing of goods were always their privilege."

  • Nazi troops enter Austria

    Nazi troops enter Austria, which has a population of 200,000 Jews, mainly living in Vienna. Hitler announces Anschluss with Austria.

  • Nazis destroy the synagogue in Nuremberg.

  • League of Nations conference

    At Evian, France, the U.S. convenes a League of Nations conference with delegates from 32 countries to consider helping Jews fleeing Hitler, but results in inaction as no country will accept them.

  • Indentity Cards in Effect

    Nazis order Jews over age 15 to apply for identity cards from the police, to be shown on demand to any police officer.

  • Name Change Requirements

    Nazis require Jewish women to add Sarah and men to add Israel to their names on all legal documents including passports.

  • Nazi troops occupy the Sudetenland.

    British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Adolf Hitler in Berchtesgaden on 15 September and agreed to the cession of the Sudetenland. Three days later, French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier did the same. No Czechoslovak representative was invited to these discussions.

  • Kristallnacht

    A massive, coordinated attack on Jews throughout the German Reich on the night of November 9, 1938, into the next day, has come to be known as Kristallnacht or The Night of Broken Glass.
    The attack came after Herschel Grynszpan, a 17 year old Jew living in Paris, shot and killed a member of the German Embassy staff there in retaliation for the poor treatment his father and his family suffered at the hands of the Nazis in Germany.

  • German Schools

    Jewish pupils are expelled from all non-Jewish German schools.

  • "Jewish Question"

    Hermann Göring takes charge of resolving the "Jewish Question."

  • Czechosolvakia

    Nazi troops seize Czechoslovakia
    Jewish population of 350,000

  • SS St. Louis

    The St. Louis, a ship crowded with 930 Jewish refugees, is turned away by Cuba, the United States and other countries and returns to Europe.

  • Invasion of Poland

    Beginning of SS activity in Poland which leads to the beginning of World War Two

  • War is Declared

    Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany.

  • United States stance

    United States proclaims its neutrality

  • Battle of the Atlantic

    Canada declares war on Germany and the Battle of the Atlantic begins.

  • Soviet invasion of Poland

  • Soviets taken out of the League of Nations

    Soviets attack Finland, and then are removed from the League

  • Nazis invade Denmark and Norway

  • Further Nazi expansion

    Nazis invade France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands while Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister

  • Germany bombs Paris

  • Armistice signed between Germany and France

  • Battle of Britain begins

    Germany tries to cut off British supplies to gain an advantage in the war, and believes that if Britain is out then victory can be gained.

  • Axis Powers

    Tripartite Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan.

  • Germany invades Greece

  • Nazis invade Yugoslavia and Greece

  • Nazi SS-Einsatzgruppen begin mass murder.

    Photos of Executions

  • German attack on Soviet Union

    German soldiers battle the Russians after the start of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia.

  • Auschwitz becomes the center for the Final Solution

    "The Führer has ordered the Final Solution of the Jewish question. We, the SS, have to carry out this order...I have therefore chosen Auschwitz for this purpose."

  • Jews forced to wear yellow stars

    The policy of requiring Jews to wear the stars was also extended to occupied areas, including Jewish ghettos.

  • Gas Chambers

    First Gas Chambers are used for experimental uses

  • Hitler issues the night and fog decree

    "After lengthy consideration, it is the will of the Führer that the measures taken against those who are guilty of offenses against the Reich or against the occupation forces in occupied areas should be altered. The Führer is of the opinion that in such cases penal servitude or even a hard labor sentence for life will be regarded as a sign of weakness. An effective and lasting deterrent can be achieved only by the death penalty"

  • Hitler declares war on United States

  • German U-boats

    Germany stages a U-boat confrontation along US borders.

  • Wannasee Conference

    Wannasee Conference SS Leader Heydrich holds the Wannsee Conference to coordinate the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."

  • Gas Chambers are used regularly

  • Germany begins towards Stalingrad

  • Stalingrad

    Battle of Stalingrad begins:
    bitter siege that had been sustained in and around that Russian city from August of 1942 to February of 1943. The defeat of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad not only dealt a crippling blow to Hitler's campaign in the East but also marked the strategic turning point of the Second World War

  • First German defeat

    Marks the turning point in WW2 when Germany begins to lose major battles.

  • Germany withdraws from Africa

  • Germans save Fascism

    Germans rescue Mussolini and Fascism is re-established

  • Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany

  • D-day landings in Normandy

    Photos from D-Day Liberation of Europe begins when the Allies storm the beaches of Normandy and take over German occupied lands.

  • Liberation by the Allies

    Verdun, Dieppe, Artois, Rouen, Abbeville, Antwerp and Brussels liberated by Allies.

  • Auschwitz liberated by USSR

  • Adolf Hitler commits suicide after Germany's defeat

  • Unconditional surrender by Germany

  • Period: to

    Nazi War Crimes

    Nazi war generals, those who worked in death camps, etc were charged and hung on accounts of promoting hatred and sparking genocide.
    (Criminals have been charged up until the present day)

  • Auschwitz Kommandant Höss

    He testifies at Nuremberg, then is later tried in Warsaw, found guilty and hanged at Auschwitz, April 16, 1947, near Crematory I. "History will mark me as the greatest mass murderer of all time," Höss writes while in prison, along with his memoirs about Auschwitz.

  • Göring

    Göring commits suicide two hours before the scheduled execution of the first group of major Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg."A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased."

  • Adolf Eichmann is captured in Argentina by the Israeli secret service.

  • Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem for crimes against the Jewish people

    Found guilty and hanged at Ramleh on May 31, 1962. A fellow Nazi reported Eichmann once said "he would leap laughing into the grave because the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience would be for him a source of extraordinary satisfaction."