January 30, 1933
President Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany.
April 1, 1933
Boycott of Jewish-owned shops and businesses in Germany.
April 7, 1933
Law for the Reestablishment of the Professional Civil Service.
July 14, 1933
Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases.
September 15, 1935
Nuremberg Race Laws.
March 16, 1935
Germany introduces military conscription.
March 7, 1936
German troops march unopposed into the Rhineland.
August 1, 1936
Summer Olympics begin in Berlin.
March 11-13, 1938
Germany incorporates Austria in the Anschluss (Union).
November 9/10, 1938
Kristallnacht (nationwide pogrom in Germany).
May 13, 1939
The St. Louis sails from Hamburg, Germany.
September 29, 1938
Munich Agreement. Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement, by which Czechoslovakia must surrender its border regions and defenses (the so-called Sudeten region) to Nazi Germany.
August 23, 1939
Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Agreement.
September 17, 1939
The Soviet Union occupies Poland from the east.
October 8, 1939
The Germans establish a ghetto in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland.
May 10, 1940
Germany attacks western Europe (France and the Low Countries).
July 10, 1940
Battle of Britain begins.
June 22, 1941
Germany invades the Soviet Union.
July 6, 1941
Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) shoot nearly 3,000 Jews at the Seventh Fort, one of the 19th-century fortifications surrounding Kovno.
August 3, 1941
Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Muenster denounces the “euthanasia” killing program in a public sermon.
September 29-30, 1941
Einsatzgruppen shoot about 34,000 Jews at Babi Yar, outside Kiev.
November 7, 1941
Einsatzgruppen round up 13,000 Jews from the Minsk ghetto and kill them in nearby Tuchinki (Tuchinka).
November 30, 1941
Einsatzgruppen shoot at least 11,000 Jews from the Riga ghetto in the Rumbula Forest.
December 6, 1941
Soviet winter counteroffensive.
December 7, 1941:
Japan bombs Pearl Harbor and the United States declares war the next day.
December 8, 1941
The first killing operations begin at Chelmno in occupied Poland.
December 11, 1941
Nazi Germany declares war on the United States.
January 20, 1942
Wannsee Conference held near Berlin, Germany.
June 28, 1942
Germany launches a new offensive towards the city of Stalingrad.
September 12, 1942
Germans complete the mass deportation of about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka.
November 23, 1942
Soviet troops counterattack at Stalingrad, trapping the German Sixth Army in the city.
April 19, 1943
Warsaw ghetto uprising begins.
July 5, 1943
Battle of Kursk.
October 1, 1943
Rescue of Jews in Denmark.
November 6, 1943
Soviet troops liberate Kiev.
March 19, 1944
German forces occupy Hungary.
May 15, 1944
Germans begin the mass deportation of about 440,000 Jews from Hungary.
June 6, 1944
D-Day: Allied forces invade Normandy, France.
June 22, 1944
The Soviets launch an offensive in eastern Belorussia (Belarus).
July 25, 1944
Anglo-American forces break out of Normandy.
August 1, 1944
Warsaw Polish uprising begins.
August 15, 1944
Allied forces land in southern France.
August 25, 1944
Liberation of Paris.
December 16, 1944
Battle of the Bulge.
January 12, 1945
Soviet winter offensive.
January 27, 1945
Soviet troops liberate the Auschwitz camp complex.
March 7, 1945
US troops cross the Rhine River at Remagen.
April 16, 1945
The Soviets launch their final offensive, encircling Berlin.
April 29, 1945
American forces liberate the Dachau concentration camp.
April 30, 1945
Adolf Hitler commits suicide.
May 7, 1945
Germany surrenders to the western Allies.
May 9, 1945
Germany surrenders to the Soviets.
Series: World War II
Critical Thinking Questions
- How can knowledge of the events in Germany and Europe before the Nazis came to power help citizens today respond to threats of genocide and mass atrocity in the world?
- While fighting against the Allied armies, how was the German army involved in the murder of the European Jews at the same time?
- What was the relationship between the progress of the war and the mass murder of Europe’s Jews?