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President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or fÜhrer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany.
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The Nazis claimed that German and foreign Jews were spreading “atrocity stories” to damage Germany's reputation. Nazi Storm Troopers stood menacingly in front of Jewish-owned department stores and retail establishments, and outside the offices of Jewish professionals, holding signs and shouting slogans such as "Don't Buy from Jews" and "The Jews Are Our Misfortune."
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At Hitler’s request, the German parliament (Reichstag) declares the killings legal after the fact, based on a false accusation that Röhm and his commanders had planned to overthrow the government. The assassinations of June 30–July 2, 1934, later became known as “the Röhm Affair” or the “the Night of the Long Knives.”
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The Nuremberg Race Laws did not identify a “Jew” as someone with particular religious convictions but instead as someone with three or four Jewish grandparents. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism or who had not done so for many years found themselves still subject to legal persecution under these laws. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity could be defined as Jews.
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The Olympic Games were a propaganda success for the Nazi government, as German officials made every effort to portray Germany as a respectable member of the international community.
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Eighteen black athletes represented the United States in the 1936 Olympics. African Americans dominated the popular track and field events. Many American journalists hailed the victories of Jesse Owens and other blacks as a blow to the Nazi myth of “Aryan” supremacy. Goebbels’s press censorship prevented German reporters from expressing their prejudices freely, but one leading Nazi newspaper demeaned the black athletes by referring to them as “auxiliaries.”
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SS authorities open the Buchenwald concentration camp for male prisoners in east-central Germany.
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Josef Goebbels, Reich propaganda minister, and Julius Streicher, editor of the antisemitic newspaper, Der Stürmer (The Attacker) open the antisemitic exhibition Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) at the library of the German Museum in Munich, Germany,
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On March 11–13, 1938, German troops invade Austria and incorporate Austria into the German Reich in what is known as the Anschluss.
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On November 12, 1938, the German government issues the Decree on the Elimination of the Jews from Economic Life (Verordnung zur Ausschaltung der Juden aus dem deutschen Wirtschaftsleben). The decree bars Jews from operating retail stores, sales agencies, and from carrying on a trade. The law also forbids Jews from selling goods or services at an establishment of any kind.
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In desperation, thousands of Jewish parents send their unaccompanied children abroad, hoping they would find refuge from Nazi persecution.
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Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe.
