The build-up to the war.
1918 – WW1 ends. Creation of Weimar Republic.
1919 – Treaty of Versailles.
1920 – Nazi party formed.
1921 – Hitler becomes leader – ‘fuhrer’ – of the Nazi party.
1923 – Munich Putsch – an attempted seize at power by the Nazis.
1924 – Hitler imprisoned. Writes Mein Kampf.
1927 – First Nuremburg Rally.
1933 – Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. All political parties – except Nazi party – banned in Germany.
1935 – Significant army expansion by Germany.
1936 – Germany allies with Italy. Spanish Civil War begins (right-wing forces aided by Germany).
1938 – Munich Agreement between Germany, and France and Britain.
March 1939 – Germany invades Czechoslovakia (against terms of Munich Agreement). Britain and France vow to protect Poland in event of invasion.
August 1939 – Soviet Union and Russia agree to split Poland between them.
September 1939 – Germany invades Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany.
The war.
1940
Denmark, Norway, and Belgium invaded and occupied by Germany.
January – Food rationing begins in Britain.
May – Churchill takes over from Chamberlain as Prime Minister of Britain; Evacuation of Dunkirk begins.
June – Mussolini declares war on France; Paris falls to Germany; France surrenders.
August – Battle of Britain begins. The Blitz terrorises Britain.
October – Hitler abandons plans to invade Britain.
1941
February – Fighting begins in Northern Africa between Germany and the Allies.
April – Greece invaded and occupied by Germany.
May – Blitz ends.
June – Germany begins Operation Barbarossa: the attempted invasion of Russia.
September – Siege of Leningrad (now St Petersburg) began; Nazis capture Kiev.
October – Germany attacks Moscow.
December – Moscow fights back at Germany; Japan attacks Pearl Harbour; Britain and USA declare war on Japan; Germany declares war on USA.
1942
January – Japan attacks Philippines.
February – Japan attacks Northern Australia.
June – Siege of Sebastopol.
August – Germany attacks Stalingrad.
October – Battle of El Alamein begins.
November – Russians fight back in Stalingrad.
1943
Spring – Constant fighting for power in Russian cities.
May – Germany surrenders Northern Africa to Allies.
July – Rome suffers Allied bombing; Mussolini arrested.
August – Italy seeks armistice with Allies; Germany sends troops to Italy to prevent this.
September – USA and Britain invade Italy.
November – German troops leave Kiev.
1944
January – Siege of Leningrad ends.
May – Sebastopol reclaimed by Russia.
June – Allied troops enter Rome; D-Day landings in Normandy.
July – An assassination plot by Claus von Stauffenberg comes closest of any attempts to killing Hitler. He survives.
August – German troops leave Paris.
September – Brussells liberated by Allies.
December – Battle of the Bulge begins.
1945
January – Battle of the Bulge ends; Germany begins what will ultimately be the final retreat; Russia liberates Budapest and Warsaw.
February-March – Battle of Iwo Jima.
March – Last bomb lands in Britain.
April – F. D. Roosevelt dies; Russian troops enter Vienna; British and American troops enter Germany; Mussolini executed; Hitler commits suicide.
May – Berlin surrenders to Russia; Germany surrenders; V-E Day.
August – Atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
September – Japan surrenders; V-J Day.
November – Nuremburg trials begin.
Relevant dates in the Holocaust:
1933
January – Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
March – Dachau concentration camp built; Enabling Act grants Hitler power of a dictator.
April – Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses; Gestapo is created.
From September 1933 onwards – Jews prohibited from holding a gradually increasing list of local offices and positions.
1935
May – Jews banned from serving in the German military.
June – Forced abortions made legal for women carrying babies with ‘defects’.
September – Nuremburg Race Laws passed.
1936
August – Summer Olympics in Berlin. Anti-Semitism is hidden from international audience.
1938
Early months – A series of further restrictions and limitations placed upon Jewish lives/businesses.
November – Kristellnacht. Nazi troops murder Jews across Germany and destroy their homes and businesses; Jewish pupils expelled from non-Jewish schools.
1939
April – Jews moved to Jewish houses.
September – Quote from Nazi newspaper, Der Stürmer, published by Julius Streicher – “The Jewish people ought to be exterminated root and branch. Then the plague of pests would have disappeared in Poland at one stroke.”
November – Polish Jews forced to wear yellow stars.
1940
January – Auschwitz built.
February – German Jews deported to Poland.
April – Lodz Ghetto in Poland established – 230,000 Jews are placed inside, isolated from the rest of the world.
July – Nazis consider plan to deport all Jews to Madagascar.
November – Ghettos established in Warsaw and Krakow.
1941
Hans Frank, Gauleiter of Poland, states, “I ask nothing of the Jews except that they should disappear.”
March – German Jews forced into labour.
June – Nazis invade Russia (inheriting some 3 million Jews).
July – Majdanek concentration camp (near Lublin, Poland) becomes operational.
September – German Jews forced to wear yellow stars.
1942
January – Auschwitz-Birkenau begins using gas to exterminate Jews en masse.
March – Jews from occupied territories sent to Auschwitz.
June – Yellow stars enforced in occupied German territories; Auschwitz expands to accommodate mass imports of Jews.
July – Jews from the Warsaw ghetto sent to Treblinka camp.
December – German Jews sent to Auschwitz.
1943
January – Gypsies arrested and sent to concentration camps.
March – Krakow ghetto is exterminated.
August – A revolt in Treblinka sees the ‘offenders’ hunted and massacred by the Nazis; Treblinka ceases exterminations, having killed approx. 870,000 Jews.
October – 7,220 Danish Jews are shipped to safety by the Danish Underground.
1944
April – Three men escape from Auschwitz and return safely to Czechoslovakia. They are able to send out warnings regarding the true nature of the ‘work’ camps.
July – Russian troops liberate Majdanek camp. Approx. 360,000 Jews had died there.
August – Anne Frank and those living with her are captured and sent to Auschwitz; the last ghetto in Poland – Lodz – is liquidated.
October – Gas chambers in Auschwitz are used for the final time.
1945
January – Death marches out of the camps begin as Allied troops close in on German territories; Russia liberates Auschwitz – approx. 2 million people had been killed there, 1.5 million of which were Jews.
March – Anne Frank dies in Bergen-Belsen.
April – British troops liberate Bergen-Belsen.
May – Germany surrenders; camps liberated en masse by Allied troops.
1946
October – Hans Frank states, “A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased.”
Website used for reference:
http://www.historyonthenet.com/Chronology/timelinenazigermany.htm
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/1945_world_war_two.htm
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/
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