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Schutzstaffel Organized
The Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. -
St. Louis Ship (with Jews)
During World War II, the Motorschiff St. Louis was a German ocean liner which carried more than 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in 1939 intending to escape anti-Semitic persecution. The refugees tried to disembark in Cuba but were denied permission to land. -
Hitler Claims Emergency Powers
The Enabling Act gave Hitler plenary powers and followed on the heels of the Reichstag Fire Decree, which had abolished most civil liberties and transferred state powers to the Reich government. The combined effect of the two laws was to transform Hitler's government into a legal dictatorship. -
Hitler becomes Chancellor
On January 30, 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or führer of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), as chancellor of Germany. -
Boycott of Jewish Business
The Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany was claimed to be a defensive reaction to the Jewish boycott of German goods, which had been initiated but quickly abandoned in March 1933. -
Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases
The German government passes the “Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases”, mandating the forced sterilization of certain individuals with physical and mental disabilities. -
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws were anti semitic and racist laws in Nazi Germany. They were enacted by the Reichstag at a special meeting convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. -
Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals
The German government passes a “Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals.” The new law allows courts to order the indefinite imprisonment of “habitual criminals” if they deem the person dangerous to society. It also provides for the castration of sex offenders. -
Nazi’s Occupy Rhineland
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler violates the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact by sending German military forces into the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone along the Rhine River in western Germany. -
Reichs Zentrale is created
The Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion was the central instrument of Nazi Germany for the fight against homosexuality in Nazi Germany and the fight against abortion. -
Einsatzgruppen starts
The Einsatzgruppen task forces, special action groups were units of the Security Police and SD that followed the German army as it invaded and occupied countries in Europe. -
Germany Invades Poland
On this day, German forces bombard Poland on land and from the air, as Adolf Hitler seeks to regain lost territory and ultimately rule Poland. World War II had begun. -
Madagascar Plan presented
The Madagascar Plan was a proposal by the Nazi German government to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar. -
Auschwitz Opens
The camps were opened over the course of nearly two years, 1940-1942. Auschwitz closed in January 1945 with its liberation by the Soviet army. More than 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz, including nearly one million Jews. -
Lodz Ghetto Opens
The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of German-occupied Europe after the Warsaw Ghetto. -
The Commissar Order
An order issued by the German High Command on 6 June 1941 before Operation Barbarossa. Its official name was Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars. -
Yellow Star for German Jews
Yellow badges also referred to as Jewish badges, are badges that Jews were ordered to wear in public during certain periods by the ruling Christians and Muslims, especially in Nazi Germany. The badges served to mark the wearer as a religious or ethnic outsider, and often served as a badge of shame. -
Babi Yar
The Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women, and children begins on the outskirts of Kiev in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine. Between 1941 and 1943, thousands more Jews, Soviet officials, and Russian prisoners of war were executed at the Babi Yar ravine in a similar manner. -
Last Gassing at Auschwitz
The last inmates gassed in Auschwitz I, were 300–400 members of the Auschwitz II Sonderkommando, who had been forced to dig up and burn the remains of that camp's mass graves, thought to hold 100,000 corpses. -
Wannsee Conference
The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior government officials of Nazi Germany and Schutzstaffel leaders, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee -
Himmler Orders Liquidation of ghettos
Heinrich Himmler issued an order to liquidate all ghettos and transfer remaining Jewish inhabitants to concentration camps. A few ghettos were re-designated as concentration camps and existed until 1944. -
Creation of the Zigeunerlager
The Sinti and Roma of Germany were systematically placed into municipal camps and subjected to forced labor in 1935. Gypsy camps, or Zigeunerlager, usually located on the outskirts of cities, were guarded by the SS and were centers for sterilization and forced labor. -
Himmler Orders Destruction of Auschwitz
As Soviet forces continue to approach, SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the destruction of the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria. During this SS attempt to destroy the evidence of mass killings, prisoners were forced to dismantle and dynamite the structures. -
Liberation of Auschwitz
The Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered. -
Dr Josef Mengele arrives at Auschwitz
SS physician Josef Mengele conducted inhumane medical experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz. He was the most prominent of a group of Nazi doctors who conducted experiments that often caused great harm or death to the prisoners. -
Hitler Commits Suicide
On this day in 1945, holed up in a bunker under his headquarters in Berlin, Adolf Hitler commits suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head. Soon after, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces, ending Hitler’s dreams of a “1,000-year” Reich. -
International Military Tribunal
The International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, begins a trial of 21 major Nazi German leaders on charges of crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit each of these crimes. -
Kristallnacht/The Night of Broken Glass
Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November Pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians throughout Nazi Germany. The German authorities looked on without intervening. -
Adolf Eichmann Captured
Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion announces that Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann has been captured and will stand trial in Israel. Eichmann was seized by Israeli agents in Argentina on May 11 and smuggled to Israel nine days later. -
Dr. Josef Mengele dies
Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who performed medical experiments at the Auschwitz death camps, dies of a stroke while swimming in Brazil