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NSDAP founded
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Spartacist uprising
Led by Rosa Luxemburg -
Weimar Republic established
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Treaty of Versailles effective
Reduced German army to 100,000.Soliders felt they had been "stabbed in the back" by the "November criminals" (Jews, Communists etc.). Very unpopular. Influenced Hitlers ideas
Jewish signatories -
Kapp Putsch
Freikorps attempt to overthrown government, fail, but shows anti semitic feelings -
Walther Rathenau assassinated
Killed by two right wing nationalists -
Hyper inflation + collapse of the currency
Leads to growth in antisemitic feeling -
33,000 Zionists in Germany
Shows that some Jews were unassimilated -
Munich Putsch
Organised by Hitler -
"Golden Years" of Weimar Republic begin, prosperity + stability
Hjalmar Schacht stabilises economy with the rentenmark -
Period: to
Hitler's role in attracting voters
Good public speaker, controversial + charismatic. Face of Nazi propaganda. Watered down anti semitism, appeared safe + reassuring not scaring away middle class. Influential backing. -
Barmat scandal
Jewish brothers found guilting of accessing loans from the Prussian bank -
Mein Kampf published
Shows rough outline of Hitler's ideology and hatred of Jews -
Inter-marriage of Jews all time high
Evidence of assimilation -
Centralverein membership peaks at 72,000
Shows how some Jews felt unsafe, but membership drops after this -
NSDAP get 5% of the 1928 election vote
Small gain for NSDAP shows growth of anti-semitic feelings -
Membership of German Zionist federation drops to 17,000 from 33,000 in 1923
Jews feel safer in Germany, no need to return to Palestine -
NSDAP get 18% of the vote
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Great depression hits Germany
Middle class and working class hit hard, growth in anti semitic feeling, need for work and food -
Nazis get 43.9% of the vote
Nazis make gains. Propaganda exploits fears of working class, promise "work and bread", people ignore anti-semitism.Propaganda targeted specific groups -
Reichstag fire carried out by SA
Allowed actions to be taken against Communists (blamed for the fire). Remove political rivals -
Dachau concentration camp established
Political prisoners such as Communists and Socialists taken first -
Enabling Act
Gave powers to Hitler -
Revolution from Below/Action from below
SA and Nazi mobs beating up individual Jews, burned down synagogues. -
Law against overcrowding of schools
Limited Jewish enrollment -
The Jewish Boycott
Response to American calls for boycott of German goods. SA stood in front of buisnesses. Failure, people still went into Jewish shops, called off after a day. -
The Law of the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service
Aryanism as a prerequisite for holding civil service positions. Automatically excluded Jews. President Hindernburg opposed, Jews that served or had relations that served Germany during war excluded from law -
Banning of Jewish doctors
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Burning of the books
Jewish, Communist etc. books destroyed -
Law for the Prevention of Herditarily Diseased Offspring + Undesirables
Sterilisation of those with mental illness, physical deformities and chronic alcoholics. Step towards Volksgemeinschaft.
Asocials (beggars, prostitutes, eccentrics, workshy) sent to camps.
10-15,000 homosexuals arrested and sent to camps.
Religious sects (Jehovah's Witnesses) rejected to join army, sent to camps.
Gypsies, violence grew in late 30's as more gypsies came under German control. (500,000 killed) -
37,000 Jews leave Germany
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Control of Gestapo given to Himmler
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Night of the Long Knives
Purge of SA leadership by Nazis -
Hjalmar Schacht becomes Economy minister
Anti-Jewish actions decrease -
Nuremburg Laws (The Reich Citizenship Law)
-Distinguished citizens and subjects
-Germans full political rights,non-Germans subjects protection, but no political rights (lost right to vote)
-Vagueness of the law allowed Jewish rights to be stripped away -
Nuremburg Laws (Law for Protection of German Blood and German Honour)
-Prohibited marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Germans
-Forbade Jews from displaying national flag
-Jews couldn't employ German females (u-45) as domestic
servants -
First Supplementary Decree on Reich Citizenship Law
Defined "Jewishness":
-Full Jew, 3 Jewish grandparents or 2 Jewish grandparents + married to a Jew
-Mischlinge 2nd Degree, Regarded as Aryan did not face much discrimination
-Mischlinge 1st Degree, Allowed to attend schools and military, but faced discrimination, barred from certain proffesions -
SS and regular police merge
SS control system of state security, little opposition -
Department of Jewish Affairs set up by Eichmann
Block wardens spying on Jews. Report "suspicious" behavior. Germans cut off contact with Jews. Fear of conc. camps -
SS take control of concentration camps
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Anschluss
-
Period: to
Aryanisation programme
14,000 Jewish buisnesses closed down, 6,000 dejewified.
Emigration pushed -
Annexation of Sudetenland
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Kristallnacht
Coordinated attacks by SA controlled by State. Jewish buisnesses and houses destroyed, some civillians joined in the violence -
German invasion of Poland
-
Period: to
Aktion T4 (officially)
-Euthanasia programme instigated by father's letter sent to Hitler about his disabled son.
-Children suffering from mental illness/physical deformities sent to hospitals- starved to death or lethal injection (5000 killed).
-Bohler and Brant extended euthanasia to adults.
-Doctors encouraged to process as many patients as possible.
-Killings with experimental carbon monoxide gas took place.
-Halted in August after Count Von Galen's sermon.
-Continued unoffically. -
General Government established/ Ghettoisation
-Ghettos such as Warsaw and Lodz established here
-Millions of Jews deported here and sent to ghettos
-Ghettos were constructed by the Jews
-Starvation and disease led to 550,000 dying (Volksgemeinschaft)
-Created Lebensraum
-Issues arose due to overcrowding, only temporary fix -
Period: to
Deportation of Jews and Poles from Prussia and Warthegau
SS attempt to deport 1m people to General Governent.
Need for Lebensraum -
General Government Decree
-All Jews + Jewesses in General Gov. older than ten, must wear 10cm star of david on right arm.
-Must obtain armlet themselves
-Infractions punished with imprisonment, a fine or both -
Lodz Ghetto established
-
Denmark and Norway invaded
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France, Hol, Bel, Lux invaded
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Madagascar Plan
Proposed solution to "Jewish Problem" after rapid conquest of France.
Jews would be shipped to Madagascar where they would die "natural wastage"
Idea scrapped after Britain not defeated, attentions turned east. -
Operation Barbarossa
Large military push into western Soviet territory
Einsatzgruppen carry out mass killings of Communist Officials, Commissars, Intelligentsia and Partizans in newly occupied territory, 1.3m killed 1941-43.
"Ethnic Cleansing"
Regular Army officers disapprove of actions -
Himmler witnesses special actions
-Brain lands on Himmler.
-Realises inefficiency of Einsatzagruppen and psychological effect.
-Development of Final Solution death camps begins. -
Count Von Galen's sermon
Mass protest against Euthanasia programme.
Copies of sermon widely distributed
Nazis halt programme offically -
Final Solution decision made
-
Bielski brothers resistance
-Permanent community of 1,200 partisans.
-Performed acts of sabotage and provided refuge for Jews. -
Chelmno death camp established
First killing centre established. About 145,000 died there -
Attitudes towards Jews
Attitudes in the West
-Vichy France, antisemitic legislation similar to Third Reich
-Denmark, Holland, Norway, Belgium all influence by pro-Nazi elements.
Attitudes in Germany
-War radicalised Nazi policies
-Removal and isolation of Jews from society
-Hostillity and silence from citizens
-Influence of Propaganda
Attitudes in the East
-Mass killings
-Anti semitic measures passed to please Hitler
-Ion Antonescu encouraging violence against Jews -
Period: to
Operation Bernhard
-High quality forgeries of £5 notes made using Jewish labour.
-Idea was to destabilise British economy.
-Never carried out, workers stalled production -
Wannsee Conference
Administrative roles of Final Solution determined -
Belzec becomes a death camp
-Originally a labour camp
-500,000 Jews killed + thousands of gypsies -
Sobibor opens as a death camp
-250,000 died there, mostly Jews and Soviet POW.
-Jewish revolt, 800 escape, camp closes soon after -
Reinhard Heydrich assassinated
-
Roundup of Jews from Vichy France
-
No fresh milk for Jews
:( -
Treblinka begins operations
-Constructed with the purpose of mass killing.
-Almost 1m murdered -
German gypsies deported to Auschwitz
-
Period: to
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
-
Mass killings end at Belzec
-
Concentration of killings at Auschwitz
-Became hub of death camp system,
-Massive complex of buildings, Auschwitz 2 large death camp and Auschwitz 3 huge industrial complex using Jewish slave labour -
Mass killings end at Sobibor
-
End of mass killings at Treblinka
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Mass deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz
-
Allied landings at Normandy
-
Start of death marches
Around 250,000 die during these marches -
Jewish prisoners blow up Crematorium 4 at Auschwitz
-
Destruction and evacuation of Auschwitz
-
Auschwitz liberated
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Liberation of Bergen-Belsen
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Sachsenhausen liberated
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Hitler's suicide
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German surrender
