The Holocaust Prior to 1933

1920

Nazi Party Platform Drafted

1921

Occupation of the Ruhr by France results is general strike until Fall of 1923

1923

Hyperinflation; German economy collapses failed beer hall Putsch. Hitler imprisoned, writes Mein Kampf

1929

Beginning worldwide economic crisis. Collapse of Great Coalition in German government

The Holocaust 1933-1945

January 30

Hitler is appointed Reich Chancellor of Germany by Hindenburg

January 30

Sterilization (of inferiors) Laws enacted; implemented three weeks later

February 27

Reichstag fire

February 28

Leading communists arrested. Constitutional rights "temporarily" suspended (until 1945)

March 20

Dachau concentration camp established

April 1

General boycott of all Jewish businesses for one day  

April 7

Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service enacted. All Jews removed from civil service Jews denied admission to the bar

April 24

First SA and police raid on the Magdeburg branch office of Jehovah's Witnesses; literature confiscated

April 26

Gestapo formed

May 2

Trade unions dissolved

June 25

Declaration of Facts is sent to Hitler, explaining the politically neutral position of the Witnesses and insisting on their right to teach the Bible to the German people. Two million copies are distributed. Some witnesses are arrested and sentenced to terms in labor and concentration camps.

June 28

Second raid and closure of Watch Tower office in Magdeburg

July 14

Law for the Prevention of Progeny of Hereditary Disease mandates the sterilization of patients with hereditary diseases e.g. feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, schizophrenia. Some 300,000 to 400,000 people are sterilized under this law

July 20

Concordat signed with the Roman Catholic Church

August

At the opening ceremony for the state medical academy in Munich , Walter Schultze, Bavarian Commissioner of Health, declares sterilization insufficient and argues for euthanasia. He adds, "This policy has already been initiated in our concentration camps."

November 24

Nazis pass a Law against Habitual and Dangerous Criminals, which allows beggars, the homeless, alcoholics and the unemployed to be sent to concentration camps.

The Holocaust 1934

June 30

The blood purge/The Night of the Long Knives

August 2

Hindenburg dies. Hitler becomes Head of State and Commander-in-Chief

Beginning 1934

Mental hospitals encouraged to neglect patients - funding and inspections either made perfunctory or suspended.
181 Genetic Health Courts and Appellate Health Courts to decide cases concerning sterilization established

The Holocaust 1935

March 11

Nazi race hygienists and civil servants plan the sterilization of the "Rhineland Bastards"

May 21

Jews removed from military

Summer

Juden Verboten (No Jews) signs increase in businesses and elsewhere

July 26

Justice Minister Frick orders marriages between Aryans and non-Aryans be stopped

September 15

First of Nuremburg Laws (Anti-Semitic) passed

September

Hitler expresses intention to eliminate the "incurably ill" at Nuremberg Party rally to Dr. Gerhard Wagner

October 18

Addendum to the sterilization law forbids marriages between "hereditary ill" and "healthy" people. In addition, forces the abortion of children of the "hereditary ill" up to the sixth month of pregnancy.

The Holocaust 1936

Sachsenhausen concentration camp established

March 7

German army marches into the Rhineland

May 10

Burning of books written by Jews

June

Central Office to "Combat the Gypsy Nuisance" opened in Munich

July 12

German Roma and Sinti (Gypsies) are arrested and deported to Dachau

August

Nazis set up an Office for combating homosexuality and abortions (by healthy women).

August 1

Olympic games in Berlin opened.
Anti-Semitic signs temporarily removed

October 25

Hitler and Mussolini form Rome-Berlin Axis

November 25

Military pact signed between Germany and Japan

The Holocaust 1937

Spring

Sterilization of the "Rhineland Bastards" begins

April 22

Gestapo order directs that all of Jehovah's Witnesses released from prisons are to be taken directly to concentration camps

July 16

Concentration camp Buchenwald opens

The Holocaust 1938

Neuengamme and Mauthausen concentration camps established

March 13

Anschluss: The annexation of Austria

April 26

Decree on the Reporting of Jewish Assets

June 15

Arrest of all "previously convicted Jews"

July 6

Evian Conference: Results in no international intervention on behalf of Jews

July 23

Announcement that Jews will need identity cards beginning in 1939

July 25

Jewish doctors will only be allowed to treat Jewish patients

August 17

Jews required to insert "Sara" or " Israel " as middle name

September 29

Munich Agreement: Britian and France accept German annexation of    Sudetenland

September 30

Jewish physicians lose their licenses

October 6

Passports of Jews marked with a "J"

October 26

Approximately 17,000 Polish Jews expelled from Germany

November 7

Herschel Grynspan assassinates Nazi Embassy worker in Paris in response to parents deportation from Germany to Poland

November 9

Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass)

November 12

26,000 Jews arrested and sent to concentration camps

November 15

Expulsion of Jewish children from German schools

December 13

Compulsory expropriation of all Jewish businesses and industries

Late 1938/Early1939

First German government sanctioned/authorized "Mercy Killing" of deformed infant named Knauer

The Holocaust 1939

Ravensbruck concentration camp established

January 30

Hitler predicts that Jews will be "exterminated" in the event of another war

March 15

Occupation of Czechoslovakia

May

The S.S. St. Louis, a ship crowded with 930 Jewish refugees, is turned away by Cuba , the United States and other countries and returns to Europe .

August 18

Directive sent ordering Euthanasia program for deformed/retarded children

August 23

Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact

September 1

German invasion of Poland
WWII begins

September 3

Britain and France declare war on Germany

September

Mental patients first shot to make room for soldiers throughout Greater Reich

September 1 October 1939 

"Fuhrer Decree - medical killing became official policy
An estimated 275,000 people become victims of "euthanasia"

October 1939

Children's Specialty Institution (euthanasia center) at Gorden established

October 1939

T4 Project for adult "euthanasia" established

October 15

First gassing of Polish mental patients at Posen

October 1939 - 1941

Over 30 Children's Specialty Institutions/Therapeutic Convalescent Institutions (adult euthanasia centers) were established and operated

October 12

First deportations to Poland of Austrian and Moravian Jews

November 23

All Jews in Poland mandated to wear Judenstern (Jewish Star of David)

The Holocaust 1940

Early 1940

Gas first used as killing method as part of T4 project

April 9

Germans invade Denmark and Norway

April 30

Lodz ( Poland ) ghetto sealed off

May 10

Germans invade France , Holland , and Belgium

May - June

Gas vans first used to kill mental patients

June 22

France surrenders to Germany

September 27

Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis formed

November 15

Warsaw ( Poland ) ghetto sealed off

The Holocaust 1941  

June 22

Germans attack Soviet Union
Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) follow the German army and commit mass slaughter throughout Eastern Europe . By the spring of 1943, these special killing units kill more than one million Jews and tens of thousands of others.

July 8

Jews in Baltic States forced to wear the Star of David

July 31

Heydrich appointed by Goering to carry out the "Final Solution"

August

Due to public protests led by Catholic Bishop Count von Galen, the killing of mental patients is temporarily stopped - continues in less centralized manner

September

Explosives tried as method of mass killing on mental patients

September 15

Wearing of Jewish Star mandated throughout the Greater Reich

September 23

First gassing experiments at Auschwitz

September 28-29

Over 33,000 Jews are massacred during a two-day period at Babi Yar near the Ukranian capital, Kiev

October 10

Theresienstadt ( Czechoslovakia ) ghetto established

October 14

Deportation of German Jews begins

October 23

Massacre in Odessa - 34,000 Jews dead

October 28

Massacre in Kiev - 34,000 Jews dead

November 6

Massacre in Rovno - 15,000 Jews dead

December 7

Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

December 8

U.S. enters WWII

December 8

Chelmno ( Poland ) extermination site opens

Beginning in December

Some 5000 Austrian Roma and Sinti (Gypsies) killed at Chelmmno in mobile gassing vans. Estimates for the total numbers of deaths of Roma and Sinti range from 200,000 to 300,000

December 8

Massacre in Riga - 27,000 Jews dead

December 12

The ship "Struma" leaves Romania for Palestine carrying 769 Jews but is later denied permission by British authorities to allow the passengers to disembark. In Feb. 1942, it sails back into the Black Sea where it is intercepted by a Soviet submarine and sunk as an "enemy target."

December 22

Massacre in Vilna - 32,000 Jews dead

The Holocaust 1942

January 15

First group of Lodz Ghetto residents transported to Chelmno

January 20

Wannsee Conference on Nazi "Final Solution"

January 21

Unified resistance organization formed in Vilna Ghetto

January/February

First experiments on prisoners in low pressure chambers in Dachau

March 16

Belzec death camp opened

May 1

Sorbibor death camp opened

June 1

Treblinka death camp opened
French and Dutch Jews must wear the Star of David

June 23

Auschwitz opens as death camp and work center

June 30/July 2

The New York Times reports via the London Daily Telegraph that over 1,000,000 Jews have already been killed by Nazis.

July 22

300,000 Jews deported to Treblinka from Warsaw Ghetto

July 28

Resistance organization formed in Warsaw Ghetto

August 15

Cold shock experiments on prisoners begin at Dachau

October 17

Allied pledge to punish Germans for genocide

December 16

Himmler orders the "final solution of the Gypsy question"

The Holocaust 1943

January 18

Jews of Warsaw Ghetto revolt against deportations

February 2

German Army surrenders at Stalingrad

April 19

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins; fighting lasts for weeks

May 16

Warsaw Ghetto liquidated

May 30

Josef Mengele becomes camp doctor at Auschwitz

June 11

Himmler orders the liquidation of all Polish Jewish ghettos

Summer

Hundreds of Jewish Partisans escape Vilna Ghetto to continue resistance

August 2

Revolt at Treblinka Death Camp

August 16

Revolt at Bialystok Ghetto

September 23

Vilna Ghetto liquidated

October 14

Revolt at Sorbibor Death Camp

October 20

U.N. War Crime Commission established

November 3

Erntefest (Harvest Festival) operation launched to kill all remaining Jews in the central and southern region of Poland , call the Generalgouvernement. About 40,000 Jews are shot to death on this one day.

The Holocaust 1944

March 19

Germany occupies Hungary

May 15 - June 8

476,000 Jews deported to Auschwitz from Hungary to be murdered by gassing

Summer

Death marches and camp evacuations inside the Reich begin

June 6

D-Day

July 20

Attempted assassination of Hitler

July 24

Maidanek death camp liberated

October 7

Prisoner revolt at Auschwitz resulting in destruction of Crematoruim 4 and damage to Crematorium 2 & 3

October 23

Paris liberated

November 24

Himmler orders destruction of Auschwitz crematoria

The Holocaust 1945

January 17

Soviets liberate Warsaw

January 26

Soviets liberate Auschwitz

February 4-11

Yalta Conference in the Crimea

April

American troops liberate Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps

April 15

British troops liberate Bergen-Belsen death camp

April 20 - May 3

Twelve-day death march from Sachsenhausen. Some 26,000 prisoners began the march of 200 kilometers. Barely more than 15,000 survive and are liberated by Allied forces

April 30

Hitler commits suicide and enters into eternal punishment

November 22

Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal commences