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Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany.
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Reichstag elections: The Nazis gain 44 percent of the vote.
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The Nazi government declares that Jews are debarred from working in the civil service and strips them of their equal rights.
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The Nazis burn thousands of anti-Nazi Jewish-authored and “degenerate” books.
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Forced sterilization of German citizens with congenital disabilities begins. Germany is proclaimed a one-party state.
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The German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact is signed.
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The Nuremberg Laws are enacted, defining who is a Jew according to racial theory, banning marriage between Jews and non-Jews, and making Jews second-class citizens.
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The German army enters the Rhineland violating the Treaty of Versailles.
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The Spanish Civil War begins.
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The Four-Year Plan (the economic plan to prepare Germany for war) is unveiled.
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Germany and Japan sign a military pact.
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Buchenwald (Germany) concentration camp is established.
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Nvember 7-10
The Kristallnacht Pogrom: Almost one hundred Jews are murdered and Jewish synagogues and Jewish businesses are burned and vandalized across Germany and Austria. -
Civil administration (Generalgouvernement) is established in Poland; Polish elite are persecuted and murdered; slave labor is imposed on Jews between the ages of 14–60.
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Hitler presents Mussolini with the Madagascar Plan, a plan to deport all Jews to the island near the shores of Eastern Africa.
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Commissar Order”: Prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht high command authorizes its soldiers to murder any “suspect” of opposition, mainly Jews and Communists, thereby making the German army involved in war crimes in the occupied territories.