-
The Central Powers declare defeat and an armistice agreement is signed.
-
The Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of its colonies; severely limited the German military; forced Germany to concede 13% of its prewar territory, which included 10% of its population; and make enormous reparation payments to the Western Powers. The Treaty also contained the "War Guilt Clause," which held Germany solely responsible for starting World War I.
-
After Imperial Germany is defeated by the Western Powers, a new federal republic government is established centralized around a president, a chancellor, and the Reichstag (German Parliament).
-
As part of his intelligence gathering position within the German Army (Deutsches Heer), Hitler attends a meeting of the German Workers Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP). A month later, Hitler officially joins as member number 555.
-
The DAP changes its name to the National Socialist German Worker's Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP), also known as the Nazi Party. The Nazi Party sets out certain aims, such as national unity based on racial criteria, expansion of Germany's territory, and expulsion of Jews from Germany.
-
After being voted in as party chairman, Hitler named himself absolute Leader (Fuhrer) of the Nazi Party.
-
Membership continues to rise due to Hitler's charisma and passionate speeches, the unhappiness with the current government and Germany's economic problems. With the creation in 1921 of the Sturmabteilung (SA) known as the "storm troopers", appealed to many veterans and young men. The SA was a party created militia that was served as the violent wing of the party.
By November 1923, Hitler, along with Nazi leaders Ernst Rohm and Hermann Goering, the party grew to 55,000 members . -
Hitler leads the Nazis in a failed attempt to overthrow the local Bavarian government with the intent of marching on Berlin to depose the federal government. After the putsch fails, Hitler is arrested and the Nazi Party is banned by the German government.
-
Hitler is convicted of treason and sentenced to five years imprisonment, of which he only serves nine months. While serving his sentence, he dictates the first volume of his now famous autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle).
-
Volume one is an autobiographical account of his life. The first run of 10,000 copies quickly sells out but sales decline soon after.
-
A paramilitary group known as the Protection Squadron (Schutzstaffel-SS) is established to serve as Hitler's personal bodyguards. By 1939, the SS will evolve into the elite guard of the Nazi Reich and be charged with carrying out the "Final Solution."
-
-
Volume Two of Mein Kampf explicitly outlines Hitler's race-based nationalist agenda. He expounds that the only way to secure Germany's survival is through military conquest and the seizure of Lebensraum ("living space") in the East, which would be built upon the slave labor and extermination of "inferior" races living in Poland, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Baltic States.
-
-
The Nazi Party secures just 2.6% of the national vote.
-
-
The American Stock Market crashes, sending a rippling effect throughout economies around the world. Germany, in particular, is hit devastatingly hard due to the previous inflation experienced as a result of reparations.
-
The Nazi Party secures 18.3% of the national vote.
-
The Nazi Party receives 37.3% of the national vote.
-
Created by Hermann Goring by combining various police agencies into one organization. This organization had the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings.
-
Summer
-
-
After the Reichstag is deliberately burnt down, President Hindenburg, at Hitler's urging, issues Article 48, the Decree for the Protection of People and the Reich (Reichstag Fire Decree). This suspends all individual rights as well as gives the central government the authority to overthrow state and local governments. It provided Hitler and the Nazi party with the legally putting anyone that disagreed with the Nazis in prison.
-
Dachau Concentration Camp (Konzentrationslager -- KL) is founded outside the town of Dachau (Germany) to incarcerate political opponents. Dachau is the only camp to remain active throughout the entire Nazi period (1933-1945).
-
The Nazi leadership declares a national boycott on all Jewish businesses and medical and legal practices. The one day national boycott was relatively unsuccessful and ignored by many individual Germans; however, the boycott marked the beginning of anti-Jewish measures enacted by the regime.
-
Jews and political opponents are excluded from all civil service positions.
-
Jewish enrollment in public schools and universities is severely restricted. Educators are encouraged to teach students love for Hitler, obedience to state authority, militarism, racism, and antisemitism.
-
University students burn books written by Jews and political enemies as well as any other books deemed "un-German."
-
This new law mandates the forced sterilization of certain individuals with physical and mental disabilities. It provides a basis for the eventual involuntary sterilization of people with physical and mental disabilities, Roma/Sinti (Gypsies), “asocials,” and Afro-Germans.
-
In order to garner support with the German army commanders, Hitler orders the violent purge of all top leadership of the paramilitary SA (Sturmabteilungen).
-
President von Hindenburg's death played a crucial role into the Hitler's dictatorship. Prior to his death, the cabinet had passed a law stating that upon Hidenburg's death, the powers of the president would be merged with those of chancellor. Upon the President's death, Hitler became head of state as well as head of government and was named Fuhrer and Chancellor. Hitler then eliminated the last legal way for him to be removed from office.
-
The Nuremberg Laws contained two key pieces of legislation. The Reich Citizenship Law stripped Jews of their German citizenship and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor outlawed marriages between Aryans and Jews. The laws outlined a definition of who was Jewish and who was Aryan based on factors. The Nuremberg Race Laws provided the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany.
-
Germany annexes Austria in what is known as the Anschluss.
-
Delegates from 32 countries and representatives from a multitude of aid agencies meet to discuss options for settling Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution as immigrants in the Americas, other areas of Europe, Asia, and Australia. The majority of countries, including the United States, are unwilling to lessen their strict immigration restrictions. The Dominican Republic was the only country to accept Jews.
-
The Executive Order on the Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names requires German Jews bearing first names of “non-Jewish” origin to adopt an additional name: “Israel” for men and “Sara” for women.
-
-
Reich Ministry of the Interior invalidates all German passports held by Jews. Jews must surrender their old passports, which will become valid only after the letter “J” has been stamped on them.
-
Kristallnacht ("night of broken glass") is a state sponsored pogrom in Greater Germany (Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland), which results in the destruction of hundreds of synagogues and thousands of Jewish owned businesses.
-
Beginning in August of 1939 children under the age of three who showed signs of mental or physical disability were murdered. Beginning in October 1939, authorities were encouraging parents to admit their handicapped children to clinics to essentially be murdered. Beginning in September handicapped adults were euthanized.
-
Ghettos were enclosed districts that isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish population. The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in German occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union. The first ghetto was established in Piotrkow Trybunalski Poland in October 1939. Other ghettos established were in the cities of Lodz, Warsaw, Krakow, and others. The majority of ghetto inhabitants died from disease, starvation, shooting, or deportation to killing centers.
-
-
-
-
Germany begin the invasion of the Low Countries (Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium), as well as France.
-
Auschwitz I served as a concentration camp for political prisoners.
Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was designed to be an extermination camp where most of the prisoners would be gassed upon arrival, while some would work until their death.
Auschwitz III was a labor education camp for non-Jewish prisoners who were perceived to have violated German imposed labor discipline. -
German authorities order the Warsaw ghetto to be sealed, confining more than 350,000 Jews in an area of about 1.3 square miles.
-
-
-
All Jews in the Reich are mandated to wear a badge which consists of a yellow Star of David with the word "Jew" inscribed inside the star in German or in the local language.
-
Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, tasks the SS with implementing what later becomes known as “Operation Reinhard,” the extermination of the Jews residing in the Generalgouvernement (occupied Poland).
-
-
-
Extermination camps were created where prisoners were destined to die. Upon arrival prisoners were killed.
-
Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), convenes the Wannsee Conference, he presents plans to coordinate a European-wide “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” to leaders of the German State and the Nazi Party. The "Final Solution" was the code name for the systematic annihilation of European Jews. While Jews were being murdered prior to this meeting, the Conference was where the "final solution" was revealed to non-Nazi leaders. No one present objected to the policy
-
The vast majority of Jews killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau are murdered between March 1943 and November 1944, when gassing of newly arrived transports ceased.
-
-
-
-
-
-
On the morning the Warsaw ghetto is to be liquidated, individuals and small groups of Jews take part in an armed uprising. Despite being vastly outgunned and outnumbered, they are able to off the liquidation for a month before finally being overrun.
-
-
September
-
October
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
March
-
At the Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia. Peter Van Pels, after surviving a death march from Auschwitz, dies in Austria at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, just days before it was liberated.
-
November
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
August 6 & 8
-
-
The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, begins a trial of 21 (of 24 indicted) major Nazi German leaders on charges of crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit each of these crimes. It is the first time that international tribunals are used as a postwar mechanism for bringing national leaders to justice
-
Summer
-
-
-
