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1918-The Great War, later known as the
First World War, ends (November).
1919- The Treaty
of Versailles is
signed (JUNE)
Today, most historians agree that
the harsh Treaty of Versailles
helped create the conditions
responsible for Hitler’s rise to
power.
1919- The German Reich, known today as the
Weimar Republic, is established as the official
government in Germany (AUGUST).
1923- Adolf Hitler and his Storm
Troopers are arrested, for attempting
to overthrow the Reich. (NOVEMBER)
1924- Hitler is found guilty of treason.
From his jail
cell, he pens a propagandistic and political biography,
Mein Kampf. Hitler released from jail (December).
1925 – Adolf Hitler begins to rebuild
the Nazi Party (March).
1926—Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) is
officially formed
.
1933—Hitler is appointed chancellor.
(January)
1933—Reichstag building burns (February)
Today, it is hard to determine who set the fire—Communists or
Nazis—but it is agreed that Hitler used the event as a pretext to
eliminate political opposition and to frighten the German people into
casting their votes for the Nazi Party.
1933—Enabling Acts grant Hitler
dictatorial powers. (March).
1933—Nazis boycott Jewish stores
and businesses (April)
1933—Nazis burn un-German books
(May)
1933—The People’s Radio is unveiled
at the Tenth Radio Exhibition (August)
1934—President Hindenburg dies
and Hitler becomes Fuhrer (August)
1935—Hitler initiates mandatory
Reich Labor Service for young people
and begins to rearm Germany.
1935—Nuremberg Race Laws are passed,
Stripping Jews of all political and civil rights.
The Race Laws
identified a Jew as
anyone who had
three or four Jewish
grandparents
(September).
A teacher explains racial definitions
according to the Nuremberg Laws
•:
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•nuremberg laws
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1936—German troops reoccupy the
Rhineland (March).
1936—The Hitler Youth law makes
membership compulsory for all eligible
youth, ages 10-18 (December).
1936—Summer Olympic Games are
held in Berlin (August)
1938—Germany annexes Austria
(March)
and the Sudetenland (November).
1938—Kristallnacht
Nazis riot against Jews (November)
• Riots take place all over
Germany, killing 236
Jews; burning 1,300
synagogues; vandalizing
and destroying more
than 7,000 Jewish
shops, businesses,
schools, and private
homes; and arresting
more than 30,000 Jews,
many never to be seen
again.
• Two days later, the
Nazis ordered Jews to
pay one billion
Reichsmarks (about
$400 million dollars) as
punishment for a Nazi’s
officials death.
Legend: Cities where synagog
Nearly 200 synagogues were set afire on November 9, 1938, in an officially
orchestrated evening of widespread violence and vandalism of Jewish property. In
addition to the burning of synagogues, Jewish businesses and shops were severely
vandalized throughout Germany. Josef Goebbels, the propaganda minister under
Adolf Hitler, masterminded this Night of Broken Glass.
Destruction of
synagogues and
businesses during
Kristallnacht
1939—Hitler threatens Jews during
speech to Reichstag.
1939—March
• Germany annexes
Czechoslovakia.
• Hitler toughens
Hitler Youth law,
conscripting
remaining eligible
youth.
•
Hitler Youth
membership
now totals more
than seven
million boys and
girls.
1939—Hitler and Stalin create the
German-Soviet Nonagresssion Pact
(August)
1939—Hitler moves against Poland.
War begins.
• August 31—The SS dress
in Polish uniforms and
launch a fake attack on a
German radio station in
southwest Poland.
• The next day, Adolf Hitler
lies, claiming that Polish
soldiers fired upon
German soldiers, and he
orders the invasion of
Poland.
• England and
France declare war
on Germany
(September).
Poland falls September 1939
1939—The Extraordinary Radio Law is passed,
making the intentional listening to enemy propaganda
an offense punishable by death (September).
Following the attack on Poland, the
"Ordinance on Extraordinary Radio
Measures" prohibits Germans from
listening to and disseminating
information from foreign radio
stations. Listening to foreign radio
broadcasts becomes an offense
against national security punishable
with a prison term. In 1941, the
punishment becomes death. All radio
sets are to bear a sticker carrying a
brief warning against Feindhörer
("those who listen to the enemy"),
who were threatened with severe
punishments.
Einsatzgruppen or Death Squads
Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death
squads that were responsible for mass killings,
typically by shooting. The units targeted Jews
in particular, but also significant numbers of
other population groups and political
categories; including Gypsies, and Soviet
political commissars and homosexuals, The
Einsatzgruppen operated throughout the
territory occupied by the German armed
forces in Poland and the Soviet Union.
The Einsatzgruppen carried out operations
ranging from the murder of a few people to
operations which lasted over two or more
days, such as the massacres at Babi Yar
(33,771 killed in two days) and Rumbula
(25,000 killed in two days). The
Einsatzgruppen were responsible for the
murders of approximately 2 million people,
and they were the first Nazi organizations to
commence mass killing of Jews as an
organized policy.
1939—The first deportation of Jews to
concentration camps in Poland (October).
1939—Deportation of Jews
to Poland Begins
.
Type:
JPG
1940—Nazis begin Battle of Britain
bombing campaign (July).
1940—German conquers Denmark, Norway,
France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the
Netherlands.
1941—Rudolf
Hess, the third highestranking Nazi, deserts and flies secretly to
England to negotiate a peace agreement (May)
1941—Greece and Yugoslavia fall to
Germans.
1941—Yugoslavia,
Greece, Bulgaria,
Italy, and Romania
join Nazis.
1941—Germany invades Soviet
Russia (June)
1941—German
Jews must wear
Jewish Star of
David (September).
1941 Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women, and children
begins on the outskirts of Kiev in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine. The German army took Kiev on
September 19, and special SS squads prepared to carry out Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s orders to
exterminate all Jews and Soviet officials found there. Beginning on September 29, more than 30,000
Jews were marched in small groups to the Babi Yar ravine to the north of the city, ordered to strip
naked, and then machine-gunned into the ravine. The massacre ended on September 30, and the dead
and wounded alike were covered over with dirt and rock.
1942—Nazis hold Wannesee Conference to
formalize plans for the “final solution of the Jewish
problem” (January).
On January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party
and German government officials gathered at a
villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss
and coordinate the implementation of what they
called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."
The”Final Solution” was the code name for the
systematic, deliberate, physical annihilation of the
European Jews. At some still undetermined time in
1941, Hitler authorized this European-wide
scheme for mass murder.
The men at the table did not deliberate whether
such a plan should be undertaken, but instead
discussed the implementation of a policy decision
that had already been made at the highest level of
the Nazi regime.
1942—Nazi Death Camps in Poland
Nazi death camps
were established and
operated until the end
of the war. Most were
built in Poland to be
close to the largest
numbers of intended
victims and to keep
the camps secret from
the German people.
More than 3 million people were killed in
the death camps between 1942 and 1945
1943—Germany suffers a major
defeat at Stalingrad (January).
1943—Allies carpet bomb Hamburg,
killing at least 43,000 (July).
Operation Gomorrah
was the codename for a series of air raids
conducted by the Royal Air Force on the city
of Hamburg beginning in the end of July 1943.
At the time this was the heaviest bombing
campaign of the war by the Allies.
Around the clock” bombing
This operation was devised by the British Air
Marshal Arthur Travers Harris and was a joint
effort between the RAF Bomber Command and
the United States Army Air Force (specifically
8th Air Force Bomber Command), who
combined to create an "around-the-clock"
bombing mission of 8 days and 4 nights--the
Americans conducting the daylight raids with
the British following with their raids at night.
Feuersturm
On the night of July 27th, shortly before
midnight, 739 aircraft attacked Hamburg. and
created a so-called "Feuersturm" (firestorm).
There were many casualties (40,000). Hamburg
was attacked again on the night of July 29,
this time by over 700 aircraft. The last
bombing raid of Operation Gomorrah was
August 3rd.
Operation Gomorrah caused at least 50,000
deaths and left over a million German civilians
homeless. Approximately 3,000 aircraft took
part in the raids, 9,000 tons of bombs dropped,
and 250,000 houses destroyed.
1944—Allied troops launch D-Day
invasion (June).
1945—Germany collapses as Allies
invade (February-April)
1945—Hitler
commits suicide in
his bunker but the
Nazis lie, telling the
German people that
he was killed at the
head of his troops,
defending Berlin.
(April)
1945—Germany surrenders
unconditionally
(May)