Chronology of the Third Reich 1933–45

1933  National Socialist leader Adolf Hitler and former Chancellor von Papen agree on a coalition. President Hindenburg gives Hitler the Chancellorship. German parliament building burnt to the ground. Hitler is given emergency powers by presidential decree. Thousands put into camps by police and the SA (brownshirt stormtroopers). Dachau concentration camp opened. Enabling Law passed, giving special powers to the Chancellor (Hitler) for four years. Labour Unions dissolved. Law Against the Establishment of Parties makes Nazis the only legal party. All journalists registered and licensed to write. Hitler takes Germany out of the League of Nations. Speer meets Hitler for the first time.

1934  Night of the Long Knives. Hitler orders the killing of his enemies in the Nazi party. A law is issued legitimizing all the killings. Death of President Hindenburg. The office of President is abolished, Hitler supreme as Führer of the Third Reich.

1935  Treaty of Versailles disarmament clauses renounced by Hitler; universal conscription ordered. The first Nuremberg laws on Jews are announced in the official gazette. Further laws will be published each year. The Nazi swastika banner becomes the national flag. National Law of Citizenship: marriages between Aryans and Jews or Mischling (mixed race) forbidden.

1936  German troops re-enter the Rhineland. Spanish Civil War begins. Germany triumphs at the Olympic Games in Berlin, though medals won by black Americans, including four gold to Jesse Owens, cause embarrassment to the Nazis. Mussolini announces anti-Communist Axis with Germany.

1937  Speer’s German pavilion faces the Soviet pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair.

1938  Hitler marches into Austria, which ceases to exist. All laws of Germany, including racial laws are made to apply to Austria. All Jewish wealth to be registered. At a meeting in Munich, British PM, Neville Chamberlain agrees with Hitler, Mussolini, and Daladier that the Sudetenland should be annexed by Germany. In ‘Crystal Night’ pogrom throughout Germany more than 7,000 Jewish shops are looted, hundreds of synagogues burnt down, and 20,000 Jews arrested. All Jews are expelled from schools. Compulsory ‘Aryanization’ of all Jewish shops and firms.

1939  Germany occupies Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia) as ‘Protectorates’. Confiscation of all Jewish valuables. Soviet-German non-aggression pact. German armies invade Poland and annexe Danzig. Britain and France declare war on Germany. Soviet Union invades Poland. Jews in Germany forbidden to be outdoors after 8pm in winter and 9pm in summer. Little military activity on the Western Front. Period of the ‘Sitzkrieg’ or phoney war.

1940  First deportation of Jews from Germany. German invasion of Denmark and Norway. German invasion of Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. ‘Fall of France’ surrender signed at Compiègne. Hitler visits Paris. Battle of Britain.

1941  Germany occupies Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece. Rudolf Hess flies to Britain on an unofficial peace mission ‘Barbarossa’: German invasion of Russia. Hitler issues the ‘Commissar Order’, legalising the killing of non-military Russians; no soldier who kills anyone in the specified categories can be held responsible. Gypsies and Jews are quickly added to the list. Millions of civilians, non-Jews as well as Jews, are killed. Göring orders Heydrich, chief of SS security police, to submit a draft for the achievement of the ‘final solution to the Jewish problem’. 1.5 million Jews shot in the conquered Russian territories. Yellow star compulsory for Jews in Germany. General deportation of German Jews begins. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. Germany declares war on USA. German troops falter 50 kilometres from Moscow, where the temperature falls below –40ºc.

1942  ‘United Nations’ conference in Washington: Britain, USA and Soviet Russia agree on no separate peace with Germany. Wannsee Conference formalises the ‘Final Solution’ (the extermination of the Jewish people). Death of Fritz Todt in an air accident. Speer succeeds him as Minister for Armaments. Hitler appoints a Commissioner General to organize the mass deportation of slave workers from the east. Over 3.5 million put to work in the first year. Deportation of 300,000 Jews from Warsaw ghetto, mostly to Treblinka, one of the four extermination camps. Mass gassings begin at Auschwitz. German troops enter Stalingrad. Germany now at its peak of conquered territory. Russian counter-attack at Stalingrad.

1943  Final surrender of Germans in Stalingrad. Germans and Italians surrender in North Africa. Soviet victory at Kursk. Germany now unable to wage offensive war in Russia. Mussolini overthrown and imprisoned in Italy. Allies land on Italian mainland; Italy surrenders. Italy declares war on Germany.

1944  Allies capture Rome. ‘D-Day’ Anglo-American landings in Normandy, France. Graf Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg tries and fails to assassinate Hitler. Paris retaken by Allies. Russians enter Rumania and Yugoslavia. 400,000 Hungarian Jews killed at Auschwitz, bringing total of gassings there to 1.2 million. Russians enter Hungary. Ardennes offensive – the last major German offensive action.

1945  Russians liberate Auschwitz. British cross Rhine to the north. Vienna taken by Russians. Anglo-American forces drive east. British liberate Bergen-Belsen. Berlin entered by first Soviet forces. Hitler commits suicide. Admiral Dönitz becomes Head of State for the last seven days of the Third Reich.