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Hitler Named Chancellor of Germany
On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. The supposed one thousand year Reich had started. -
Dachau opened
The Concentration Camp at Dachau was opened 22 March 1933, with the arrival of about 200 prisoners from Stadelheim Prison in Munich and the Landsberg fortress (where Hitler had written Mein Kampf during his imprisonment). -
Hitler named Fuhrer
Reich Chancellor Hitler planned to use President Hindenburg's death as an opportunity to seize total power in Germany by elevating himself to the position of Führer, or absolute leader, of the German nation and its people. On August 2, 1934, at 9 a.m., the long awaited death of 87 year old Hindenburg finally occurred. -
US signs Neutrality Acts
Neutrality Act, law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Aug., 1935. It was designed to keep the United States out of a possible European war by banning shipment of war materiel to belligerents at the discretion of the President and by forbidding U.S. citizens from traveling on belligerent vessels except at their own risk. -
Germany passes the Nuremberg Laws
The two Nuremberg Laws were unanimously passed by the Reichstag on 15 September 1935. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour prohibited marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans, and forbade the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households. -
Germany invades the Rhineland
On 7 March 1936 German troops marched into the Rhineland. This action was directly against the Treaty of Versailles which had laid out the terms which the defeated Germany had accepted. -
Hitler and Mussolini join forces
The pact was initially drafted as a tripartite military alliance between Japan, Italy and Germany. While Japan wanted the focus of the pact to be aimed at the Soviet Union, Italy and Germany wanted it aimed at Britain and France. Due to this disagreement, the pact was signed without Japan and became an agreement between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, signed on 22 May 1939 by foreign ministers Galeazzo Ciano of Italy and Joachim von Ribbentrop of Germany. -
Nazi/Soviet Non-Aggression Pact
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Treaty
Signed August 23, 1939
Location Moscow, Soviet Union
Signatories Soviet Union Nazi Germany
Languages German and Russian -
Germany invades Poland
The German-Soviet Pact of August 1939, which stated that Poland was to be partitioned between the two powers, enabled Germany to attack Poland without the fear of Soviet intervention. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. The Polish army was defeated within weeks of the invasion. -
Pogrom in Germany begins
A pogrom is a violent riot aimed at massacre or persecution of an ethnic or religious group, particularly one aimed at Jews. The first pogrom in Nazi Germany was Kristallnacht, often called Pogromnacht, in which at least 91 Jews were killed, a further 30,000 arrested and incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps, over 1,000 synagogues burned, and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged. During World War II, the Nazis also encouraged pogroms by local populations, especially. -
Germany invades France
Beginning on 10 May 1940, German forces defeated Allied forces in a series of mobile operations, eventually leading to the conquest of France, Belgium and the Netherlands and the end of land operations on what had been the Western Front. The German plan for the invasion of France consisted of two main operations. -
Lend- Lease Act passed
Passed on March 11, 1941, this act set up a system that would allow the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States." -
Germany attacks Soviet Union
Under the codename Operation "Barbarossa," Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in the largest German military operation of World War II. -
Germans surrender at Stalingrad
Feb. 2, 1943. Nazi Forces Surrender at Stalingrad. Georgii Zelma/German Federal ArchiveA Soviet soldier waving his country's flag over the central plaza of Stalingrad in January 1943. -
D-Day
On the morning of June 6, 1944, Allied forces staged an enormous assault on German positions on the beaches of Normandy, France. The invasion is often known by the famous nickname “D-Day,” yet few people know the origin of the term or what, if anything, the “D” stood for. Most argue it was merely a redundancy that also meant “day,” but others have proposed everything from “departure” to “decision” to “doomsday.” -
Liberation of Paris
The Liberation of Paris (also known as the Battle for Paris) was a military action that took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the German garrison surrendered the French capital on 25 August 1944. -
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. -
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. -
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference was a meeting of British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt early in February 1945 as World War II was winding down. -
Roosevelt Dies
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the President of the United States from 1933 to 1945. -
Dachau Liberated
On April 29, 1945, the U.S. Seventh Army's 45th Infantry Division liberates Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany's Nazi regime. -
Hitler commits Suicide
Adolf Hitler killed himself by gunshot on 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin. His wife Eva (née Braun) committed suicide with him by taking cyanide. -
The Last of the Allied Troops Leave Germany
The last of the aliied troops leave Germany after they deem everything to be done and well.
