World War II Timeline Project

  • concentration camps

    The Nazis set up the first concentration camp at Dachau.
  • Reichstag

    The Reichstag building was burned down.
  • 92%

    The Nazi Party won 92% of the votes cast in an election.
  • Hitler

    President Hindenburg died. Hitler declared himself both Chancellor and President. The armed forces in response to the Night of the Long Knives swore an oath of loyalty to Hitler. Hjalmar Schacht was appointed Minister of Economics.
  • service

    A law introducing compulsory labor service was introduced.
  • Fascists

    Fascist Italy invades, conquers, and annexes Ethiopia.
  • Ani-Comintern

    Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, directed against the Soviet Union and the international Communist movement.
  • national back

    The national bank and the railway system were both put under the control of the state.
  • Germany

    Germany incorporates Austria in the Anschluss.
  • closure

    The start of the closure of all Jewish businesses occurred along with their compulsory sale to ‘Aryans’.
  • WWII

    WWII
    Germany invades Poland. France and Britain declare war on Germany. Germany conquered Poland and France. The Nazi's ran most of Europe.
  • 1939

    An estimated 158,000 British troops are now in France.
  • Period: to

    number of camps

    the number of camps exploded to more than 300
  • air war

    The air war known as the Battle of Britain ends in defeat for Nazi Germany.
  • SS

    the SS, along with doctors and officials of the T-4 Euthanasia Program, introduced the Action 14f13 programme meant for extermination of selected concentration camp prisoners.
  • Stalingrad

    Four million troops went to Russia. Within one month, over 2.5 million Russians had been killed, wounded or captured.
  • Jan Karski

    Jan Karski delivered a thorough eyewitness account to the government.
  • Battle of Midway

    The US destroyed hundreds of Japanese planes and regained control of the Pacific. The Japanese continued to fight even though the war in Europe was over.
  • 1943

    The Badoglio government surrenders unconditionally to the Allies. The Germans immediately seize control of Rome and northern Italy, establishing a puppet Fascist regime under Mussolini, who is freed from imprisonment by German commandos on September 12.
  • D-Day

    Dwight Eisenhower led US troops and Allied troops in an invasion of France. They got through France and Belgium and into Germany. On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered.
  • .

    The Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross movement carries out a coup d’état with German support to prevent the Hungarian government from pursuing negotiations for surrender to the Soviets.
  • Period: to

    Allies

    The camps were liberated by the Allied and Soviet forces between 1944 and 1945.
  • prisoners

    Sometimes the concentration camps were used to hold important prisoners, such as the generals involved in the attempted assassination of Hitler; U-boat Captain-turned-Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller; and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who was interned at Flossenbürg on February 7, 1945, until he was hanged on April 9, shortly before the war’s end.
  • bomb

    The United States drops an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
  • End

    Having agreed in principle to unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945, Japan formally surrenders, ending World War II.