-
Hitler moves to Vienna. His impoverishment and residence in homeless shelters began the following year after he had squandered a generous inheritance. Hitler lives in Vienna until May 1913.
-
Hitler is partially blinded in a mustard gas attack near Ypres in Belgium. News of the November 11, 1918, armistice reaches him as he is convalescing in a military hospital. World War I has a profound impact on Hitler and many other Germans. The impact of the conflict and its divisive peace has repercussions for decades to come, giving rise to a second world war and genocide committed under its cover.
-
Hitler moved to Munich, Germany, in May, and in the following year, he enlisted in the German army to fight in World War I.
-
Adolf Hitler (front row, far left) served on the western front in World War I and during the course of the war was twice decorated for service, wounded, and temporarily blinded in a mustard gas attack. He used his veteran status in later election campaigns. -
Hitler attends an early meeting of the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei-DAP), which would later become the Nazi Party under his leadership.
-
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party led a coalition group in an attempt to overthrow the government of Bavaria and initiate a “national revolution.” This so-called Beer Hall Putsch fails. Hitler and others are arrested for treason.
-
Hitler is convicted of high treason and sentenced to five years imprisonment, although he served only one year. While in prison, he writes Mein Kampf (My Struggle). This infamous memoir proves significant in promoting key components of Nazism and its racial ideology. Published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, it would sell one million copies in 1933, Hitler's first year in office.
-
Hitler establishes the SS (Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons). During the Nazi regime, the SS will become responsible not only for the German police force and the concentration camp system, but also for security, identification of ethnicity, settlement and population policy, and intelligence.
-
The Nazi Party comes to power with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor.
-
Hitler loses a run-off election for the German presidency to the elderly incumbent, General Paul von Hindenburg.
-
On Hitler’s order, Nazi leaders eliminate the leadership of the SA and kill other political enemies. The murderous purge cements an agreement between the Nazi regime and the German army that consolidates Nazi power and enables Hitler to proclaim himself Führer (leader) of Germany and to claim absolute power.
-
The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. The Holocaust was an evolving process that took place throughout Europe between 1933 and 1945.
-
Following the burning of the German parliament building, the Reichstag, by unknown arsonists, the German parliament passes the Law for Rectification of the Distress of Nation and Reich, commonly known as the Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz). This law allows Hitler, as Chancellor, to initiate and sign legislation into law without obtaining parliamentary consent.
-
Members of the Storm Troopers (SA), with boycott signs, block the entrance to a Jewish-owned shop. One of the signs exhorts: "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!" Berlin, Germany. -
Chart with the title "Die Nürnberger Gesetze" [Nuremberg Race Laws]. In the fall of 1935, German Jews lost their citizenship according to the definitions posed in these new regulations. Only "full" Germans were entitled to the full protection of the law. This chart was used to aid Germans in understanding the laws.
-
Hitler opens the Berlin Olympics. 1936 represents a rare instance in which one nation, Germany, hosted both the winter and summer Olympic Games. Nazi Germany uses the 1936 Olympics for propaganda purposes. The Nazis promote an image of a new, strong, and united Germany while masking the regime’s targeting of Jews and Roma (Gypsies) as well as Germany’s growing militarism.
-
Hitler meets with the leaders of Britain, France, and Italy at a conference in Munich, Germany, on September 29–30, 1938, in which they agree to the German annexation of the Sudetenland in exchange for a pledge of peace from Germany. Six months later, Hitler moves against the Czechoslovak state.
-
German troops march into Austria. Native son Adolf Hitler crosses the Austro-German border at midday at his hometown, Braunau on the Inn. On the following day, the annexation of Austria to the German Reich is announced. On March 15, Hitler enters the Austrian capital Vienna before a cheering crowd of 200,000.
-
In late 1941, the Nazi regime began building specially designed, stationary killing centers in German-occupied Poland. In English, killing centers are sometimes called “extermination camps” or “death camps.” Nazi Germany operated five killing centers: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. They built these killing centers for the sole purpose of efficiently murdering Jews on a mass scale.
-
The Nazi German regime perpetrated mass shootings of civilians on a scale never seen before. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, German units began to carry out mass shootings of local Jews. At first, these units targeted Jewish men of military age. But by August 1941, they had started massacring entire Jewish communities. These massacres were often conducted in broad daylight and in full view and earshot of local residents.
-
The Nazi “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” (“Endlösung der Judenfrage”) was the deliberate and systematic mass murder of European Jews. It was the last stage of the Holocaust and took place from 1941 to 1945. Though many Jews were killed before the "Final Solution" began, the vast majority of Jewish victims were murdered during this period. -
A smaller number of Jews survived inside German-controlled Europe. They often did so with the help of rescuers. Rescue efforts ranged from the isolated actions of individuals to organized networks, both small and large. Throughout Europe, some non-Jews took grave risks to help their Jewish neighbors, friends, and strangers survive. For example, they found hiding places for Jews, procured false papers that offered protective Christian identities, or provided them with food and supplies.
-
Slowly, the Allied Powers began pushing Germany back towards prewar boundaries. From 1942 to 1943, Nazi Germany suffered battle and territory losses in the Soviet Union and North Africa. With the Soviets on the offensive, German troops were pushed westward, gradually losing control of the Eastern Front. In July 1943, the Allied Powers landed in Italy, pushing German forces north. Rome was liberated in June 1944. -
While the Holocaust ended with the war, the legacy of terror and genocide did not. By the end of World War II, six million Jews and millions of others were dead. Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators had devastated or completely destroyed thousands of Jewish communities across Europe.