Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany (1933-1945) was a fascist dictatorship that ruled Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. At its height in 1942 during World War II, it controlled most of Europe from the English Channel and the northern half of France to the gates of Moscow in Russia, while occupying many countries from Norway in the north to Italian Libya in the south. It was one of the largest land empires in history through its occupation of Europe, with Axis Powers allies increasing its power to include Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and all of the Balkans. Its downfall came in 1945 after Hitler killed himself as the Soviet Union took the capital of Berlin, and Germany was occupied, divided into capitalist and communist halves, and denazified.

History[]

Nazi control of in 1942, not counting its Axis allies — Nazi control of Europe in 1942, not counting its Axis allies

Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party were elected to power in 1933 following ten years of agitation against the Weimar Republic government, adhering to German nationalism and seeking to restore Germany to its former glory. These methods included making an economic recovery, retaking ethnically-German lands such as the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, West Prussia in Poland, and the French Army-occupied Rhineland and the Saar. Germany was embarrassed and limited by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I in 1919, and the country was forced to have an army under the size of 100,000 troops and no navy or air force. Hitler decided to renege on the agreement by forming the Wehrmacht, replacing the Reichswehr, and he rearmed the German military at an alarming rate. He also formed the Luftwaffe in 1935, giving Germany an air force, and the Kriegsmarine navy was also increased in size.

Hitler's Nazi Party was very popular, and it purged political enemies in the 1934 Night of the Long Knives to make Germany a unified powerhouse capable of taking on other European nations. Its forces liberated the Rhineland, with the people cheering, and it also reclaimed the Sudetenland from the Czechs. The Munich Agreement of 1936, masterminded by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of the United Kingdom, agreed that war would be averted if Germany halted further expansion. Despite agreeing to the treaty, Hitler sent the Condor Legion to help Nationalist Spain in the Spanish Civil War and proceeded to annex both Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938, forming a country that was growing into the former German Empire. In 1939, Germany decided to reclaim West Prussia from Poland, leading to the Invasion of Poland; the British Commonwealth and France, allies of Poland, intervened against Germany and started World War II.

Under Hitler, Nazi Germany took over much of Europe, with its military using its Blitzkrieg strategy to take over other countries with ease and in a short amount of time. Hitler acquired several groups of people in his country such as Poles, Russians, Jews, Romani, handicapped people, gays, and mentally-ill people, and in 1942 the Wanssee Conference was held to decide their fates. Initially planning to exile the Jews to Madagascar, Hitler instead decided to exterminate all undesirables in the country, leading to the Holocaust. The Einsatzgruppen invading the Soviet Union executed all Jews that it located, while the Germans went to Jewish households and forced the families into concentration camps for labor or to extermination camps for death. Able-bodied Jewish men and women were sent to concentration camps for work, while the elderly, the very young, and the weak were sent to be exterminated. The country also killed Slavs and the impaired, leaving 11,000,000 people dead.

Germany entered the war in an alliance called the "Axis Powers", with Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini and Japan under Hideki Tojo being the most-important members while other countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Manchukuo, and Spain being members of the alliance. The Soviets were a part of the alliance from the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 until the German betrayal of the Soviets in Operation Barbarossa in 1941, and the betrayal led to a war on two fronts for Germany. This would lead to its downfall in 1945, with the United Kingdom, France, United States, and their Allied powers coming from the West while the Soviets, Romanians, Bulgarians, and their Comintern allies pushed from the east. In April 1945, Germany was divided in two along the Elbe River, and Hitler killed himself as the Soviets were winning the Battle of Berlin. On 8 May 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allies, and Germany was divided into capitalist West Germany and communist East Germany, with Europe again being divided with the Iron Curtain. However, on both sides the country's former racist ideas were wiped out in Denazification, and most Nazism was eradicated.

Timeline[]

1933[]

30 January 1933 - Nazi leader Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg.
1 February 1933 - Hitler gives his "Proclamation to the German People" in Berlin.
15 February 1933 - The right-wing parties DNVP and Stahlhelm establish the Kampffront Schwarz-Weiss-Rot coalition to participate in the March elections and build a coalition with the Nazis. Heinrich Mann and Kaethe Kollwitz step down from their positions within the Prussian Academy of Arts under pressure from the Nazis.
27 February 1933 - The Reichstag fire; Germany's parliament building, the Reichstag, is set on fire under controversial circumstances, with the Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe being arrested for the crime.
28 February 1933 - The Reichstag Fire Decree
1 March 1933 - Hundreds are arrested as the Nazis round up their political opponents
5 March 1933 - The Nazi Party wins 43.9% of the vote in the March 1933 federal election. The SPD comes in second with 18.3%, followed by the KPD with 12.3%, the German Center Party with 11.9%, the DNVP with 8.3%, the Bavarian People's Party with 2.7%, and the German People's Party with 1.10%.
8 March 1933 - The Nazis occupy the Bavarian Landtag and expel deputies.
12 March 1933 - Hindenburg bans the black-red-gold flag of the Republic and orders the black-white-red Imperial flag and the Nazi flag to fly side by side.
15 March 1933 - Hitler proclaims the Third Reich.
20 March 1933 - Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed, opening on 22 March.
21 March 1933 - Jewish organizations announce an economic boycott of German goods.
23 March 1933 - The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act, allowing Hitler to pass laws by decree, and making Hitler dictator of Germany.
26 March 1933 - Air minister Hermann Goering denies that Germany's Jews are in danger.
1 April 1933 - Julius Streicher organizes a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany.
7 April 1933 - All "non-Aryans" are forced to retire from the legal profession and civil service.
21 April 1933 - Germany outlaws shechita, the Jewish ritual slaughter of animals.
26 April 1933 - The Gestapo in established in Prussia, eventually becoming Germany's secret police force.
27 April 1933 - Der Stahlhelm joins the Nazi Party.
10 May 1933 - Nazi book burnings are staged publicly throughout Germany.
26 May 1933 - The Nazi Party legalizes eugenic sterilization.
2 June 1933 - Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick is given command of the "Expert Committee on Questions of Population and Racial Policy".
21 June 1933 - All non-Nazi political parties are forbidden.
25 June 1933 - Protests against the Nazi Party's persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses are staged in Berlin.
14 July 1933 - The forming of new political parties is forbidden, and the sterilization of people with alleged genetic disorders is mandated.
20 July 1933 - Nazi Germany signs the Reichskonkordat with the Vatican City, requiring German bishops to take an oath of loyalty to the Governor of President of the German Reich, clergy to abstain from working in and for political parties, and restricting the Church's influence to purely religious activities.
23 August 1933 - The Nazis revoke the citizenship of 33 German intellectuals, including the Jewish authors Heinrich Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger, Ernst Toller, and Kurt Tucholsky. Four more lists of names will be purged as well.
25 August 1933 - Germany allows 60,000 of its Jews to emigrate to Mandatory Palestine under the "Haavara Agreement".
30 August-3 September 1933 - The 5th Nazi Party Congress is held in Nuremberg and called the "Rally of Victory".
16 October 1933 - Germany officially announces its intention to leave the League of Nations.
12 November 1933 - Parliamentary elections are held, in which the Nazis win 92.1% of the vote and all 661 seats in the Reichstag in an election with 95.3% turnout.

1934[]

10 January 1934 - Marinus van der Lubbe is executed for allegedly burning down the Reichstag.
26 January 1933 - Germany signs a 10-year non-aggression pact with the Second Polish Republic.
20 March 1933 - All of Germany's police forces come under the command of Heinrich Himmler.
29-31 May 1933 - The German Evangelical Church issues the Barmen Declaration, which rejects the Nazi "German Christian" movement.
30 June 1933 - The Nazis purge their Sturmabteilung (SA) paramilitary and its leaders, including Ernst Rohm, in order to prevent a threatened "second revolution" by the party's left-wing and to win the support of the military. The SA camp Oranienburg becomes a national camp, taken over by the SS.
10 July 1933 - German social democrat and author Erich Muhsam is killed in Oranienburg.
2 August 1933 - Hindenburg dies, and Hitler declares himself Fuehrer of Germany, merging the offices of President and Chancellor.
19 August 1933 - 89.9% of German voters retroactively endorse Hitler's assumption of the powers of head of state, making him absolute dictator.
5-10 September 1934 - The 6th Nazi Party Congress is held in Nuremberg, attended by 700,000 Nazi Party supporters. The Triumph of the Will film immortalizes this rally.

1935[]

13 January 1935 - 90.3% of voters in the Saarland vote to rejoin Germany.
15 February 1935 - German scientists discover Prontosil, the first broadly effective antibacterial drug.
1 March 1935 - Germany retakes the Saarland from League of Nations control.
11 March 1935 - Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe, is created by Hermann Goering.
16 March 1935 - Hitler announces German rearmament in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
22 March 1935 - The first television program is broadcast from the Funkturm in Berlin.
28 April 1935 - Hitler orders 12 submarines.
21 May 1935 - Jews are banned from serving in the German armed forces.
18 June 1935 - The United Kingdom agrees to a German navy equal to 35% of the Royal Navy's tonnage.
10-16 September 1935 - The 7th Nazi Party Congress is held in Nuremberg, and is called the "Rally of Freedom" in reference to Germany's "liberation" from the Treaty of Versailles.
15 September 1935 - The Nuremberg Laws take effect, forbidding marriages and extramarital intercourse between Germans and Jews, and declares that only those of German blood are eligible for Reich citizenship.
1 October 1935 - "Aryans" are subjected to general compulsory military service.
12 December 1935 - Heinrich Himmler founds the Lebensborn program, providing welfare to unmarried mouthers, encouraging anonymous births by unmarried women at their maternity homes, incentivizing the birth of "racially pure" and "healthy" Aryans, and endorsing abortion for disabled and non-Germanic children.

1936[]

7 March 1936 - In violation of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany reoccupies the Rhineland.
29 March 1936 - The Nazis win all 741 seats in the enlarged Reichstag, winning 98.8% of the popular vote in an election with 99% turnout.
26 June 1936 - The Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first functional helicopter, is flown.
1 August 1936 - The 1936 Summer Olympics open in Berlin at the end of the first ever Olympic torch relay, becoming the first televised sporting event. In preparation for the Olympics, the Nazi Party tones down its anti-Semitic rhetoric and allows for African-American jazz music to play in clubs, portraying a facade of tolerance in Germany. The first German volunteers on the nationalist side of the Spanish Civil War leave for Spain.
8-14 September 1936 - The 8th Nazi Party Congress is held and aclled the "Rally of Honor" in reference to the remilitarization of the Rhineland.
26 November 1936 - Germany and Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact.

1937[]

10 March 1937 - Pope Pius XI publishes the Mit brennender Sorge encyclical, condemning Nazi Germany's "pantheistic confusion", "neopaganism", "the so-called myth of race and blood", the idolizing of the state, and the Nazis' attacks against the Jewish Old Testament.
6 May 1937 - The Hindenburg disaster in Lakehurst, Ocean County, New Jersey kills 13 passengers, 22 crew, and one member of the ground crew.
7 May 1937 - The German Condor Legion arrives in Spain to assist Francisco Franco's forces.
28 May 1937 - Volkswagen, the state-owned carmaker, is formed to produce the new "people's car".
6-13 September 1937 - The 9th Nazi Party Congress is held and titled the "Rally of Labor" to highlight the Nazis' reduction of unemployment.
13 October 1937 - Germany guarantees the inviolability and integrity of Belgium as long as Belgium abstains from military action against Germany.
5 November 1937 - In a secret meeting at the Reich Chancellery, Hitler announces his plans for acquiring lebensraum ("living space") for the German people.

1938[]

27 January 1938 - Two weeks after marrying Eva Gruhn, German War Minister Werner von Blomberg resigns following the revelation that his new wife had previously posed for pornographic photos.
4 February 1938 - Hitler abolishes the War Ministry and creates the OKW, the High Command of the Armed Forces, which gives him direct control of the German military. Hitler sacks political and military leaders considered unsympathetic to his philosophy or policies. Werner von Fritsch resigns as commander-in-chief of the German Army following accusations of homosexuality and is replaced by Walther von Brauchitsch, while Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath is replaced by Joachim von Ribbentrop.
12 February 1938 - Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg of Austria meets Hitler at thet Berchtesgaden and is forced to yield to German demands for greater Nazi participation in the Austrian government.
3 March 1938 - British Ambassador Nevile Henderson proposes that Germany lead an international consortium in Africa in exchange for a German promise never to resort to war to change her frontiers; Hitler rejects the British offer.
12 March 1938 - German troops occupy Austria in the Anschluss, declaring Austria's annexation a day later.
5 May 1938 - General Ludwig Beck, Chief of the Heer General Staff, declares to Hitler his opposition to his plans for a war with Czechoslovakia over the Sudetenland, arguing that Germany is ill-prepared for a world war.
23 May 1938 - Hitler orders the Foreign Office to assure the Czechoslovaks that he has no demands on their territory, tricking the world into mistakenly believing that the crisis is averted.
28 May 1938 - Hitler announces, at the Reich Chancellery, his intent to destroy Czechoslovakia by military force, and orders the immediate mobilization of 96 Wehrmacht divisions.
10 August 1938 - Hitler holds a secret summit with his leading generals and wins the majority of his senior officers over to his point of view about an invasion of Czechoslovakia.
11 August 1938 - The Nuremberg synagogue is destroyed by the Nazis.
18 August 1938 - Ludwig Beck resigns as Chief of the Army General Staff in protest against Hitler's decision to attack Czechoslovakia.
5-12 September 1938 - The 10th Nazi Party Congress is held and named the "Rally of Greater Germany" in reference to the annexation of Austria.
10 September 1938 - Hermann Goerging, in a speech at Nuremberg, calls the Czechs a "miserable pygmy race" who are "harassing the human race."
15 September 1938 - British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arrives in the Berchtesgaden to begin negotiations with Hitler over the Sudetenland.
17 September 1938 - Chamberlain returns to London to confer with his cabinet.
22 September 1938 - Chamberlain arrives in Godesberg for another round of talks with Hitler. Hitler demands that Germany be allowed to occupy all German Sudeten territories by 1 October. Chamberlain advises the Czechoslovaks to mobilize.
24 September 1938 - Hitler and Chamberlain conclude their talks on the Sudetenland. Chamberlain agrees to Hitler's demands, but Czechoslovakia, the British government, and the French government reject the terms, and the French Army partly mobilizes.
26 September 1938 - In a vitriolic speech at Berlin's Sportpalast, Hitler implies war with Czechoslovakia will begin at any time.
28 September 1938 - Hitler invites Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, French premier Edouard Daladier, and Chamberlain to one last conference in Munich to avoid war.
29 September 1938 - German politician Carl Friedrich Goerdeler informs former British military attache Graham Christie that the mobilization of the Royal Navy has badly damaged the popularity of the Nazi regime, as the German public realizes that an invasion of Czechoslovakia is likely to cause a world war. That same day, the Munich Agreement results in the Allies agreeing to German demands regarding the annexation of the Sudetenland.
30 September 1938 - Chamberlain returns to Britain and declares "Peace for our time."
1 October 1938 - German troops march into the Sudetenland, and Poland forces the Czechs to allow the Polish annexation of Zaolzie.
16 October 1938 - Germany expels 12,000 Polish Jews living in Germany; Poland accepts 4,000 refugees but refuses the remaining 8,000, who are forced to live in the no man's land on the German-Polish border.
24 October 1938 - German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop warns Polish ambassador Jozef Lipski that the Free City of Danzig must return to Germany, that the Germans must be given extraterritorial rights in the Polish Corridor, and that Poland must sign the Anti-Comintern Pact.
28 October 1938 - Germany arrests and deports 17,000 Polish Jews.
7 November 1938 - German diplomat Ernst vom Rath is assassinated by Jewish refugee Herschel Grynszpan in Paris.
9 November 1938 - In retaliation for Vom Rath's assassination, Nazi activists and sympathizers loot and burn 7,500 Jewish businesses and 267 synagogues, kill 91 Jews, and arrest 25,000 Jewish men in Kristallnacht.
12 November 1938 - Hitler fines the Jewish community 1 billion marks for the death of Ernst vom Rath.
17 December 1938 - German scientist Otto Hahn discovers the nuclear fission of heavy elements.

1939[]

23 January 1939 - Abwehr Admiral Wilhelm Canaris leaks misinformation to the effect that Germany plans to invade the Netherlands in February to use Dutch airfields to launch a strategic bombing offensive against Britain, resulting in a war scare.
27 January 1939 - Hitler orders a 5-year naval expansion program to provide for a huge German fleet capable of crushing the Royal Navy by 1944.
30 January 1939 - Hitler gives a speech before the Reichstag calling for an "export battle" to increase German foreign exchange holdings, and warns that, if "Jewish financiers" start a war against Germany, the result would be "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."
22 March 1939 - Germany annexes Memelland from Lithuania.
25 March 1939 - German troops occupy the rest of Bohemia and Moravia, while Carpatho-Ukraine breaks away from the defunct nation of Czechoslovakia.
3 April 1939 - Hitler orders the German military to start planning for the invasion of Poland.
28 April 1939 - Hitler renounces the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German-Polish non-aggression pact.
22 May 1939 - Germany and Italy sign the "Pact of Steel", creating the Axis Powers.
6 July 1939 - The last remaining Jewish enterprises in Germany are closed by the Nazis.
23 August 1939 - The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is signed with the Soviet Union, dividing Eastern Europe between the two powers: the USSR will acquire Finland, the Baltics, eastern Poland, and Moldova, while Germany will acquire Lithuania and western Poland.
26 August 1939 - The Kriegsmarine orders all German-flagged merchant ships to return to German ports in anticipation of war with Poland.
1 September 1939 - The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein bombards the Polish port of Danzig (Gdansk), firing the first shots of World War II. At the same time, German regulars invade Poland.
2 September 1939 - Germany annexes Danzig.
3 September 1939 - The United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, and Australia declare war on Germany.
4 September 1939 - Nepal declares war on Germany.
6 September 1939 - South Africa declares war on Germany.
10 September 1939 - Canada declares war on Germany.
28 September 1939 - Nazi Germany and the USSR agree on a division of Poland, and Warsaw surrenders.
October 1939 - Germany begins Aktion T4, the euthanization of disabled and mentally-ill people.
8 October 1939 - Germany annexes Western Poland.

1940[]

4 January 1940 - Most of Germany's war industries come under the control of Goerging.
10 January 1940 - A German plane carrying secret plans for the invasion of Western Europe makes a forced landing in Belgium, leading to the mobilization of defense forces in the Low Countries.
18 March 1940 - Hitler and Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to an alliance against France and Britain.
9 April 1940 - Germany invades Denmark and Norway.
20 April 1940 - hitler orders the formation of a new SS regiment of Norwegians, Danes, and Germans.
10 May 1940 - Germany invades the Low Countries.
17 May 1940 - Brussels falls to Germany.
20 May 1940 - The Auschwitz concentration camp opens in occupied Poland; from May 1940 to January 1945, 1.1 million people are killed there.
3 June 1940 - Nazi leader Franz Rademacher proposes to deport Europe's Jewish population to the island of Madagascar.
10 June 1940 - Norway surrenders to Germany.
14 June 1940 - Paris falls to Germany.
21 June 1940 - Vichy France signs an armistice with Germany.
30 June 1940 - German forces occupy the Channel Islands.
14 July 1940 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill proclaims Britain's intention to fight alone against Germany whatever the outcome.
19 July 1940 - Germany promotes 12 generals to Field Marshal and makes a peace appeal to Britain.
8 August 1940 - Wilhelm Keitel signs a directive calling for the mobilization of forces in preparation for the invasion of the USSR.
30 August 1940 - Germany compels Romania to cede half of Transylvania to Hungary.
27 September 1940 - Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact.
16 November 1940 - In retaliation for the German destruction of Coventry two days earlier, the RAF begins to bomb Hamburg, killing 50,000 Hamburgers throughout the war.

1941[]

6 April 1941 - Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
12 April 1941 - German troops enter Bulgaria.
27 April 1941 - German troops enter Athens.
12 May 1941 - Konrad Zuse introduces the Z3, the world's first fully automatic computer.
14 June 1941 - All German and Italian assets in the United States are frozen.
16 June 1941 - America closes all German and Italian consulates in the country.
22 June 1941 - Germany launches Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR.
4 July 1941- Germany carries out the mass murder of Polish scientists and writers in Lwow.
7 July 1941 - Germany captures Estonia.
31 July 1941 - Nazi official Hermann Goering orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to submit to him a general plan for the desired "Final Solution" of the Jewish question, starting the Holocaust.
18 August 1941 - Hitler temporarily halts the euthanasia program and transfers graduates of the T-4 euthanasia program to concentration camps to continue in their trade.
23 August 1941 - Action T-4 is ended, having killed 100,000 people.
6 September 1941 - All Jews over the age of six are forced to wear the Star of David.
1 October 1941 - The Majdanek extermination camp opens in Lublin, killing over 200,000 people from October 1941 to July 1944.
27 November 1941 - The Germans get as close to Moscow as they ever will.
6 December 1941 - The Soviets begin their counterattack at the Battle of Moscow.
8 December 1941 - The Chelmno extermination camp opens, killing 153,000+ people from December 1941 to April 1943 and from June 1944 to January 1945.
11 December 1941 - Germany declares war on the United States four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
19 December 1941 - Hitler assumes supreme command over the German army.

1942[]

20 January 1942 - The Wannsee Conference sees the Nazi Party decide that the "final solution to the Jewish problem" is deportation and extermination.
17 March 1942 - The Belzec extermination camp opens near Lublic; from March to December 1942, 434,508 people are killed there.
24 March 1942 - Germany begans deporting Slovakia's Jews to Auschwitz.
27 March 1942 - The first French Jews are deported to Auschwitz.
April 1942 - The Sobibor extermination camp opens in Poland, killing 160,000 people from April 1942 to October 1943.
21 May 1942 - Mexico declares war on Germany after the sinking of a Mexican tanker by a U-boat.
27 May 1942 - Reinhard Heydrich is fatally wounded by Czechoslovak Resistance fighters in Operation Anthropoid.
9-10 June 1942 - Nazis massacre the Czech villagers of Lidice in retaliation for Heydrich's assassination.
11 June 1942 - Germany plans to deport France, Belgium, and the Netherlands' Jews.
2 July 1942 - By then, 1 million Jews had already been exterminated.
14 July 1942 - The first Dutch Jews are deported to Auschwitz.
18 July 1942 - The Messerschmitt Me 262 jet is first test flown.
19 July 1942 - The last U-boats are withdrawn from the US Atlantic coast.
22 July 1942 - The Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto are deported to Treblinka.
August 1942 - The Croatian Jews are deported to Auschwitz.
22 August 1942 - Brazil declares war on Germany and Italy.
30 August 1942 - Germany annexes Luxembourg.
5 October 1942 - Himmler orders all Jewish concentration camp prisoners in Germany to be transferred to Auschwitz or Majdanek.
10 November 1942 - Germany occupies Vichy France following Admiral Francois Darlan's armistice with the Allies in North Africa.

1943[]

18 January 1943 - The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins.
29 January 1943 - Ernst Kaltenbrunner succeeds Heydrich as head of the SS Gestapo.
2 February 1943 - The German 6th Army surrenders at the end of the Battle of Stalingrad.
18 February 1943 - Joseph Goebbels declares a "total war" against the Allies. The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement and execute them four days later.
13 March 1943 - The Germans liquidate the Krakow Ghetto.
13 April 1943 - The Wehrmacht discoveres the site and victims of the Katyn massacre.
13 May 1943 - The German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.
15 May 1943 - The Comintern is dissolved in Moscow.
24 July-3 Augsut 1943 - The British, Americans, and Canadians bomb Hamburg in Operation Gomorrah, killing 42,600 civilians and injuring 37,000, while leveling much of the city.
24 August 1943 - Himmler becomes Interior Minister.
12 September 1943 - German paratroopers rescue Mussolini from imprisonment.
13 October 1943 - Italy sides with the Allies and declares war on Germany.
15 November 1943 - Himmler orders that Romani be put in concentration camps.

1944[]

20 January 1944 - The RAF drops 2,300 tons of bombs on Berlin.
27 January 1944 - The Siege of Leningrad is lifted.
20 February 1944 - The Allies begin the "Big Week", bombing German aircraft manufacturing centers.
19 March 1944 - German troops occupy Hungary.
12 May 1944 - The Soviets recapture the Crimea.
15 May 1944 - The Germans begin deporting Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz.
June 1944 - German V-2 rockets become the first man-made objects to enter space.
6 June 1944 - The Allies land in France on D-Day, beginning the Liberation of France.
13 June 1944 - Germany launches a V-1 attack on England.
22 June 1944 - The USSR begins Operation Bagration, driving the Germans from Eastern Europe.
7 July 1944 - Miklos Horthy halts the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.
20 July 1944 - Hitler survives an assassination attempt by Claus von Stauffenberg and the German Resistance.
24 July 1944 - Majdanek is the first concentration camp to be liberated by the Soviets.
1 August 1944 - The Warsaw Uprising begins.
2 August 1944 - Turkey severs diplomatic and economic ties with Germany.
4 August 1944 - The Nazis capture Anne Frank and her family in Amsterdam.
6 August 1944 - Germany liquidates the Lodz Ghetto and sends 60,000 Jews to Auschwitz.
19 August 1944 - The Liberation of Paris begins, and Paris is surrendered to the Allies on 25 August.
25 August 1944 - Hungary decides to continue the war together with Germany.
3 September 1944 - The Allies liberate Brussels.
4 September 1944 - Finland breaks off relations with Germany.
8 September 1944 - Germany begins V-2 attacks on London.
14 October 1944 - Erwin Rommel commits suicide rather than face execution for allegedly conspiring against Hitler.
18 October 1944 - Hitler orders the creation of the Volkssturm people's militia.
20 October 1944 - The Yugoslav Partisans and Red Army liberate Belgrade.
21 October 1944 - Aachen becomes the first German city to fall to the Allies.
25 October 1944 - The liberation of Norway begins with the Soviet capture of Kirkenes.
30 October 1944 - The last gassings taken place at Auschwitz.
25 November 1944 - Himmler orders the destruction of the Auschwitz crematories.
16 December 1944 - Germany begins its last major offensive in the West, the Battle of the Bulge.
31 December 1944 - Hungary declares war on Germany.

1945[]

6 January 1945 - More than 80,000 Jews are freed by the Soviets in Budapest.
12 January 1945 - The USSR begins its Vistula-Oder Offensive against the Nazis in Poland.
14 January 1945 - The Soviets invade eastern Germany.
18 January 1945 - 66,000 Jewish prisoners are evacuated from Auschwitz by the Nazis.
20 January 1945 - The Soviets liberate Warsaw.
27 January 1945 - The Red Army liberates the Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps.
12 February 1945 - Cleves falles to the British and Canadians.
14 February 1945 - The British and Canadians reach the Rhine.
21 February 1942 - The last V-2 rocket is launched.
2 March 1945 - The Nazis unsuccessfully launch the first manned rocket, the Bachem Ba 349 Natter anti-aicraft weapon.
3 March 1945 - An experimental atomic test blats occurrs at the Nazis' Ohrdruf military testing area.
3 March 1945 - The Canadians capture Xanten in North Rhine-Westphalia.
7 March 1945 - The Americans cross the Rhine at Remagen.
19 March 1945 - Hitler orders that all industries, military installations, machine shops, transportation facilities, and communications facilities in Germany be destroyed.
4 April 1945 - The Americans liberate the Ohrdruf death camp.
6 April 1945 - Yugoslav Partisans liberate Sarajevo.
10 April 1945 - The Allies liberate Buchenwald.
15 April 1945 - The British liberate Bergen-Belsen.
22 April 1945 - Hitler offers Germany's surrender to the Western Allies and attempts to convince them to declare war on the USSR.
23 April 1945 - Russian troops reach Berlin.
25 April 1945 - Soviet and American troops link up at the Elbe River, cutting Germany in two.
26 April 1945 - A German panzer offensive briefly recaptures Bautzen.
27 April 1945 - The Western Allies flatly reject any German surrender offer other than an unconditional surrender on all fronts.
29 April 1945 - Hitler marries his longtime mistress Eva Braun in the Fuhrerbunker, and the Americans liberate Dachau.
30 April 1945 - Hitler and Bruan commit suicide, Karl Doenitz becomes President of Germany, and Goebbels becomes Chancellor.
1 May 1945 - Hamburg Radio announces Hitler's death, and Goebbels and his wife commit suicide. Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk becomes Chancellor.
2 May 1945 - Berlin falls to the Soviets, and the red flag is hoisted over the Reich chancellery.
3 May 1945 - Wernher von Braun surrenders to US forces.
4 May 1945 - The British liberate the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg. The North German army surrenders to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, and British and Canadian troops liberate the Netherlands.
5 May 1945 - Denmark and Amsterdam are liberated, Prague rises up against the Nazis, and the Americans liberate the Mauthausen concentration camp.
7 May 1945 - Germany unconditionally surrenders at France, ending Germany's participation in the war.
8 May 1945 - Germany surrenders to the Soviets in Berlin, and Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day) is celebrated.
9 May 1945 - Hermann Goering is captured by the Americans, the German commander in the Balkans Alexander Lohr surrenders in Slovenia, and the Channel Islands are liberated by the British.
16 May 1945 - The Alderney camps in the Channel Islands are liberated.
23 May 1945 - Donitz and Schwerin von Krosigk are arrested by the British at Flensburg.
23 May 1945 - Himmler commits suicide in British custody.
24 May 1945 - Field Marshal Robert Ritter von Greim, the last commander of the Luftwaffe, commits suicide.
29 May 1945 - German communists, led by Walther Ulbricht, arrive in Berlin.
5 June 1945 - The Allied Control Council is formed to govern occupied Germany.
1 July 1945 - Germany is divided between the Allied occupation forces.
10 October 1945 - Nazi Party banned.