Myth arises that Germany was stabbed in the back by a conspiracy of specifically Jews, socialists, and republican politicians.
9 November
The Weimar Republic is proclaimed. The new democratic government grants Jews full legal and political equality
Antisemtism is a feature of this period of political unrest
The Nazi Party (NSDAP) is founded and publishes its 25-point program, which calls for the stripping of Jewish citizenship.
Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, a prominent Jewish industrialist and politician, is assassinated by right-wing extremists.
30 January
Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany.
22 March
Dachau concentration camp opens.
1 April
Boycott of Jewish shops and businesses.
7 April
Jewish people are barred from holding civil service, university, and state positions.
14 July
Naturalised Jewish immigrants stripped of their German citizenship.
2 August
Hitler proclaims himself Führer and Reich Chancellor. Armed forces must now swear allegiance to him.
May
Jewish people are barred from serving in the German armed forces.
September
The Nuremberg Laws are declared
7 March
Germany occupies the Rhineland demilitarised in the Treaty of Versailles.
August
Four Year Plan Memorandum sets the German economy on a war footing.
3 March
Austria is incorporated into the Third Reich.
26 April
Mandatory registration of all Jewish property over 5,000 Reichsmarks.
30 September
Munich Conference. Britain and France agree to German occupation of the Sudetenland.
5 October
Germans mark all Jewish passports with a letter ‘J’ at the request of the Swiss authorities.
27 October
17,000 Polish Jews living in Germany are expelled.
9-10 November
Kristallnacht a nation-wide anti-Jewish pogrom organised by the Nazis takes place throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.
12 November
Jewish Germans are forced to transfer businesses to Aryan owners.
15 November
Jewish pupils are expelled from German schools.
30 January
Hitler says ‘if war erupts it will mean the Vernichtung (extermination) of European Jews’.
15 March
Germany occupies Czechoslovakia, which is dismembered.
April
Law Concerning Jewish Tenants removes housing protections for Jews. It allows their concentration in exclusively ‘Jewish houses.’
23 August
Nazi-Soviet Pact signed.
1 September
Germany invades Poland.
10 May
Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France.
October
Mass deportations began with the expulsion of over 6,500 Jews from Baden and Saarpfalz in southwestern Germany to the Gurs internment camp in Vichy, France.
22 June
Germany invades the Soviet Union.
August
Massacres of Jews in territories occupied by German forces, The persecution of the Jews becomes genocidal.
1 September
Reinhard Heydrich decreed that all Jews within the Reich, aged six and older, had to wear a yellow Star of David.
15-17 September
Hitler orders the deportation of German Jews to ghettos in the east prompting the mass murder of those Jews already living in the ghettos.
October
Jewish emigration from Germany banned.
November
Theresienstadt (Terezín) ghetto established. Many German Jews are deported here.
7 December
Japan attacks Pearl Harbour.
11 December
Germany declares war on the USA.
20 January
Wannsee Conference.
1 March
Auschwitz II-Birkenau begins operation.
June
Mass transports begin moving German Jews directly to the Theresienstadt Ghetto.
July
Direct transports from the German Reich to the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor extermination camps commence. By late 1944, more than 70,000 Jews from the Greater German Reich are deported directly to Auschwitz
November
Allied victory in North Africa.
February
Germany surrenders at Stalingrad.
February–March
The Gestapo rounds up and deports the final remaining Jewish laborers working in German armaments factories, primarily targeting Berlin.
1 June
Berlin is officially declared Judenrein, free of Jews.
Summer
The massive Soviet offensive prompts SS chief Heinrich Himmler to order prisoners in all concentration camps and sub-camps be forcibly evacuated toward the interior of the Reich.
Winter
SS authorities increasingly evacuate concentration camp prisoners from both east and west on foot.
27 January
Auschwitz is liberated by the Red Army.
British Army liberates Bergen-Belsen.
29 April
Dachau is liberated by the American Army.
8 May
Germany surrenders. End of the Third Reich. Liberation of Theresienstadt.
May onwards
Germany becomes a hub for Jewish survivors.
October
The second group of the Boys leaves Germany.
The majority of Displaced Persons camps in Germany are closed.
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