Timeline of Key Events in Nazi Germany (1933-1945)

1933 Highlights

  • Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany.

  • Reichstag Building burns down.

  • Dachau concentration camp opens.

  • Enabling Act passed, granting Hitler unlimited power.

  • Boycott of Jewish businesses; Jews barred from civil service.

  • Limits on Jewish students in public schools.

  • Public book burnings; involuntary sterilization begins.

1934 Developments

  • Von Hindenburg dies; Hitler becomes President.

  • Hitler declares himself Führer of the German Reich.

  • Formation of Gestapo and political structure for concentration camps.

1935 Policies

  • Jehovah’s Witnesses banned; systematic persecution of gay men initiated.

  • Nuremberg Laws enacted, stripping Jews of citizenship, prohibiting marriages between Jews and non-Jews.

1936 Events

  • Jewish doctors barred from practice in German institutions.

  • Sachsenhausen concentration camp opens.

  • Berlin Olympics exclude non-Aryans from participation.

1937 Milestones

  • Buchenwald concentration camp opens.

  • Antisemitic exhibition “Der Ewige Jude” launched in Munich.

1938 Actions

  • Annexation of Austria; property registration for Jews mandated.

  • Munich Conference allows German occupation of western Czechoslovakia.

  • Kristallnacht: widespread violence against Jews and destruction of synagogues and businesses.

1939 Escalation

  • Hitler threatens end of European Jewry; U.S. maintains immigration restrictions.

  • Germany invades Czechoslovakia; WWII begins with invasion of Poland.

  • Euthanasia Program starts; Jews must wear identifying symbols.

1940 Developments

  • Establishment of Lodz Ghetto.

  • Germany invades multiple countries; Auschwitz camp established.

  • Axis Alliance formed among Germany, Italy, and Japan.

1941 Unfolding Events

  • Pogroms in Romania; invasion of the Soviet Union; mass shootings in Kyiv.

  • Establishment of Theresienstadt ghetto-camp and Chelmo killing center begins operation.

1942 Major Actions

  • Wannsee Conference plans the Final Solution.

  • Killing centers operational: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka II.

  • Jewish partisan resistance grows; Allied nations acknowledge mass murder happening.

1943 Resistance

  • German defeat at Stalingrad; Warsaw Ghetto uprising begins.

  • Allied rejection of rescue recommendations for Jews.

  • Uprisings at various killing centers and significant escapes.

1944 Key Events

  • War Refugee Board established by U.S.; deportation of Hungarian Jews.

  • D-Day—Allied invasion of Normandy; revolts in Auschwitz.

  • Destruction of gas chambers ordered to erase evidence of atrocities.

1945 Conclusion of War

  • Liberation of various ghettos and camps, including Auschwitz by Soviets.

  • Hitler commits suicide; Germany surrenders.

  • Nuremberg Trials begin; complexities in immigration for Holocaust survivors.