-
Reichstag Fire Decree
after parliament was burned down due to arson, President Hindenburg issued the Decree for the Protection of People. The Reich decree was a crucial step in establishing the Nazi dictatorship. Germany became a police state in which citizens enjoyed -
German Annexation of Austria
On March 11–13, 1938, German troops invade Austria and incorporate Austria into the German Reich in what is known as the Anschluss. -
Auschwitz Camp Established
The Auschwitz concentration camp complex was the largest of its kind established by the Nazi regime. It included three main camps, all of which deployed incarcerated prisoners at forced labor. One of them also functioned for an extended period as a killing center. The camps were located approximately 37 miles west of Krakow, near the prewar German-Polish border in Upper Silesia, an area that Nazi Germany annexed in 1939 after invading and conquering Poland. -
Hidden History: Establishment of the Kovno Ghetto
Across Nazi-occupied territory, many Jews engaged in quieter forms of resistance—acts of spiritual and intellectual defiance. Between July and August 15, 1941, the Germans concentrated the remaining Jews of Kovno, Lithuania, in a ghetto. People confined to ghettos in Kovno and elsewhere created clandestine archives to record their hopes and fears. These secret collections included diaries, artwork, photographs, and meticulous daily chronicles of life in these urban prisons. -
German Forces Launch Offensive
After a successful advance in the summer of 1942, German forces reached Stalingrad in late 1942. The battle proved a turning point in the war. Soviet forces halted the German advance at Stalingrad and launched a counteroffensive against the Germans in mid-November 1942. -
Letter to Commandant of Flossenbürg Camp
In 1994, the Museum acquired the unique collection of Josef Kohout. More widely known as Heinz Heger, Kohout was the subject of The Men with the Pink Triangle, the first published account of a gay survivor of the Nazi camps. -
German Surrnder
Soviet forces encircled Berlin, the German capital on April 25, 1945. That same day, Soviet forces linked up with their American counterparts attacking from the west in central Germany (Torgau). After heavy fighting, Soviet forces neared Adolf Hitler’s command bunker in central Berlin. On April 30, 1945, Hitler committed suicide. Within days, Berlin fell to the Soviets. German armed forces surrendered unconditionally in the west on May 7 and in the east on May 9, 1945.