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Adolf Hitler was Born
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party commonly known as the Nazi Party. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and served as head of state as Führer und Reichskanzler from 1934 to 1945.
He was a decorated veteran of World War I. -
World War I
The First World War begins.
This conflict involved all of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (centred around the Triple Entente) and the Central Powers. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history.More than 9 million combatants were killed, due largely to great technological advances in firepower without corresponding ones in mobility. -
Ends World War I
No other war had changed the map of Europe so dramatically — four empires disappeared: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and the Russian.After the war, the Paris Peace Conference imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war. Building on Wilson's 14th point, the Treaty of Versailles also brought into being the League of Nations on 28 June 1919. -
Adolf Hitler becomes 24th Chancellor of Germany
Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, a point which historians agree marks the beginning of the Third Reich. Upon taking office Hitler immediately began accumulating power and changing the nature of the Chancellory.After only two months in office, and following the burning of the Reichstag building, the Reichstag body passed the Enabling Act which gave the Chancellor full legislative powers for a period of four years.The Chancellor could introduce any law without Parliament's permis -
Concentration and labor camps
From the beginning of the Third Reich concentration camps were founded, initially as places to hold political prisoners, and later for those considered to be "asocial". Though the death rate in the concentration camps was high with a mortality rate of 50%, they were not designed as, or meant to be, killing centres. By 1942, six large extermination camps had been established in Nazi-occupied Poland, which differed from the concentration camps in that their sole purpose was to kill the people -
Hitler becomes Führer of Germany
The Reichspräsident was the German head of state under the Weimar constitution, which was officially in force from 1919 to 1945. In English he is usually simply referred to as the President of Germany. The German title Reichspräsident literally means "President of the Reich", the term Reich referring to the federal nation state established in 1871. -
Kristallnacht
The Jewish minor Herschel Grünspan assassinated Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris. This incident was used by the Nazis to initiate the transition from legal repression to large-scale outright violence against Jewish Germans. What the Nazis claimed to be spontaneous "public outrage" was mass pogroms conducted by the Nazi party and SA members and affiliates throughout Nazi Germany (then consisting of Germany proper, Austria and Sudetenland). -
Hitler starts Worl War II
The war is generally accepted to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and Slovakia, and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Germany set out to establish a large empire in Europe. During 1939 to early 1941, in a series of successful military campaigns and political treaties, Germany conquered or politically subdued most of continental Europe apart from the Soviet Union. -
Herr Hitler dies
He committed suicide by gunshot and cyanide poisoning. For many decades, a lack of public information as to the whereabouts of Hitler's remains, confused reports stemming from the "dual method" of suicide and other circumstances surrounding the event stirred rumours that Hitler may have survived the end of World War II. -
World War II Ends
Estimates for the total casualties of the war vary, because many deaths went unrecorded. Most suggest that some 60 million people died in the war, including about 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians.
