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The Treaty of Versailles was the major peace treaty that ended WWI and forced Germany to pay immense reparations to the allies.
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The former general secretary of the Bolshevik party, Stalin was able to consolidate power and after Lenin died quickly took control of the communist government, assassinating his opponent Trotsky in the process
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Italian politician, journalist and leader of the National Fascist Party who took control of the Italian government and became on eof Nazi Germany's biggest allies
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The first and central step of Stalin's 5 year plans was the rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union
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On this day in 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or fÜhrer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germay.
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The first concentration camp opened in Germany to hold political prisoners
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The Nuremberg Laws were anti-Jewish statutes enacted by Germany on September 15, 1935, marking a major step in clarifying racial policy and removing Jewish influences from Aryan society.
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This was civil war fought between the Republicans who were loyal to the democratic Spanish Republic and the rebel group the Nationalists
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Germany brought Austria into their empire before the start of WWII
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The Sudetenland was the multiple areas of native German speakers that found themselves in the nation of Czechoslovakia after WWI
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Kristallnacht was a series of deadly attacks against Jews throughout Germany and Austria, named Kristallnacht because of the multitude of broken glass scattered through the streets
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Germany and the Soviet Union surprised the pre-WWII world by signing a nonaggression pact
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The German-Soviet pact decided that Poland was to be divided between the Soviets and Germany so Hitler was able to invade wihtout fear of Soviet intervention
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Germany invades the Nordic countries as a preemptive strike against a planned Franco-British occupation of Norway
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Auschwitz, the first and most significant of the Nazi "death camps" is opened in southern Poland
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Code named Operation "Barbarossa", Nazi Germany invades the U.S.S.R. in order to quickly dispatch them, although that plan ultimately failed
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Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory. The bombing killed more than 2,300 Americans.
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Germany and it's allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad, which was the eastern boundary of Europe and Russia
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Part of the African front of the war.
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The Allies' Normandy landings as part of a counterinvasion of German controlled France was the bloodiest single day battle of WWII
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Part of German offensive campaign into France and Belgium, bloodiest battle of the war.
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Jewish prisoners are finally released by approaching Soviet troops
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The meeting of the heads of government of the United States, United Kingdom and the Soviet Union
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Geramny officially surrenders to the allies, bringing and end to European conflict.
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The prosecution of German war criminals