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March 13 Presidential election under Weimar Republic in Germany gives 30.1 percent of the vote to Adolf Hitler, head of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party, i.e., Nazis). The incumbent president, Field Marshall Hindenburg, receives 49.6 percent.
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April 10 Since a majority (more than 50 percent) was required by German law for the election of a president, a rerun presidential election was held in which incumbent president Hindenburg wins with 53 percent of the vote. Adolf Hitler increases his popular vote to 36.8 percent.
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January 28 German Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher resigns.
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February 2 Political demonstrations are banned within Germany.
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January 1 The Nazis remove Jewish holidays from the official German calendar.
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Early 1934 Youth members are turned loose throughout Germany to intimidate members of Catholic youth groups.
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February 10 Prohibition of gatherings urging Jews to remain in Germany.
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March 1 Germany retakes the Saarland.
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February 4 Wilhelm Gustloff, leader of the Nazi Party in Switzerland, is assasinated by David Frankfurter, a Swiss Jewish student, in protest of the persecution of German Jews.
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February 10 The German Gestapo is placed above the law.
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January 1937 Start of the Aryanization of the economy — Jewish owners forced, without legal basis, to sell their businesses, in most cases considerably below the value of their goods.
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January 26 Jews prohibited from working in any office in Germany.
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January 21 Minority rights abrogated by Romania; many Jews have their citizenship revoked.
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February 4 Hitler names himself supreme commander of the Wehrmacht. Hitler’s Cabinet meets for the final time.
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January 1 Jews are eliminated from the German economy; their capital is seized, though some Jews continue to work under Germans.
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January 17 Decree pertaining to the expiration of permits for Jewish dentists, veterinarians, and pharmacists.
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January 6 Shivering Jews in Warsaw, Poland, are forced to burn Jewish books for fuel.
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January 12 The Gestapo and SS men shoot and kill 300 inmates of a Polish insane asylum at Hordyszcze.
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January 9 Adolf Hitler officially abandons Seelöwe (Sea Lion), the German plan for an invasion of England.
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January 1941 Denied fuel, Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto are freezing to death.
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January 5 The Jewish ghetto at Kharkov, Ukraine, is liquidated.
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January 1942 Mass killings of Jews using Zyklon B begin at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The bodies are buried in mass graves in a nearby meadow. Nearly all of the remaining Jews in Odessa, Ukraine, are deported to concentration camps. A special medical commission visits the Gross-Rosen concentration camp to select human subjects for medical experimentation. In France, Joseph Darnand establishes the Milice Française (French Militia), a Fascist paramilitary organization.
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January 29 Germans order all Gypsies arrested and sent to concentration camps.
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February 2 German Sixth Army surrenders at Stalingrad. (This marks the turning point in the war).
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January 22 Hitler is startled when Anglo-American forces land in Anzio. Hitler accuses Abwehr of incompetence and fires Canaris. Hires Colonel Alexander Hansen who is also part of the conspiracy.
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March Captain Breitenbuch volunteers to assassinate Hitler. He does not get his chance due to a change of rules of who is allowed to attend briefings.
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January 15 SS camp officials report that there are almost 54,000 prisoners in the Ravensbrück camp, including nearly 8,000 men. Beginning in 1944, forced labor by concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important to Germany's armaments production. Ravensbrück grew into an administrative center for more than 40 subcamps located near armaments factories across east-central Germany. Tens of thousands of prisoners work long hours under intolerable conditions. Many are worked to death.
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January 17 Soviet troops liberate Warsaw, few Jews remain.
