learning from history

 

timeline of evil

1921

Hitler challenges Anton Drexler to become leader of the Nazi party.  After initial resistance, Drexler agrees and Hitler becomes the new leader of the party.

1923

Along with other right wing factions and General Ludendorff he attempts to overthrow the Bavarian government with an armed uprising.  The event became known as The Beer Hall Putsch.  Hitler and 2000 Nazis march through Munich to the Beer Hall, to take over a meeting chaired by three of the most important individuals in Bavarian politics.

The following day, the Nazis march in the streets, the police open fire.  Hitler escapes but is captured, tried for treason and serves 9 months in Landsberg prison.  It was during his imprisonment that he began dictating his thoughts to Rudolf Hess, which emerged in the book Mein Kampf (my struggle).  It is a mixture of autobiography, political ideology and an examination of the techniques of propaganda.

1925

Hitler re-founds the Nazi party.

September 1930

In the General Election, the Nazi Party increases its representatives in parliament from 14 to 107.  Hitler is now the leader of the second largest party in Germany.

1931

Hitler challenges Paul von Hindenburg for the presidency, but fails to win.

1932

Hitler becomes a German citizen--enabling him to stand in the Presidential election against Hindenburg.

Became the first person to electioneer by aircraft, the campaign (masterminded by Josef Goebbels) was entitled 'Hitler over Germany'.

January 1933

Hitler becomes chancellor of a coalition government, where the Nazis have a third of the seats in the Reichstag.

February 1933

The German Reichstag is destroyed by fire.  The plot and execution is almost certainly due to the Nazis but they point the finger at the communists and trigger a General Election.

March 1933

The Enabling Act passed--powers of legislation pass to Hitler's cabinet for four years, making him virtual dictator.

He proclaims the Nazi Party as the only political party permitted in Germany.  All other parties and trade unions are disbanded.  Individual German states lose any autonomous powers, while Nazi officials become state governors.

April 1933

Communist party banned.

May 1933

Socialists, trade unions, and strikes banned.

October 1933

Hitler withdraws from the League of Nations.  In the following months, he triples the size of the German Army and ignores the arms restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.

June 1934

Night of the Long Knives.  Hitler crushes all opposition within his own party.

July 1934

After the death of President Hindenburg, Hitler becomes "Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor" and abolishes the title of President.

1935

Hitler re-arms Germany with the aim of undoing the Treaty of Versailles and uniting all the German peoples.  Military conscription is introduced.

March 1938

The Austrian Chancellor, leader of the Austrian Nazi Party, invites the German army to occupy Austria and proclaim a union with Germany.

September 1938

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain meets Hitler in Germany.  Britain, France and Italy sign the Munich Agreement which gives the Sudetenland (the German-populated borderlands of Czechoslovakia), to Germany.

October 1938

German army occupies the Sudetenland.

November 1938

In what is historically referred to as Crystal Night (kristallnacht), 7,500 Jewish shops are destroyed and 400 synagogues are burnt.  The attack is portrayed as a spontaneous reaction to the death of a German diplomat by a Jewish refugee in Paris.  It is actually orchestrated by the Nazi party who also kill many Jews and send 20,000 to concentration camps.

Crystal Night is considered to be the beginning of the Final Solution and the Holocaust.  The mass killing represented by the Holocaust raises many questions concerning the development of European civilisation during the twentieth century.

1939

Peace treaty with Russia secured with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.  Hitler invades Poland on September 1st and after 3 weeks of lightning war or 'Blitzkrieg' the country is divided between Russia and Germany.  On September 3rd France, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand declared war on Germany.

1940

The Nazis occupy Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France.  Romania and Yugoslavia are invaded.

June 1941

Germany attacks Russia, ignoring the peace pact.  Operation Barbarossa, The German invasion of Russia, begins.

December 1941

Japanese Air Force attacks Pearl Harbour and war is declared on the U.S.

February 1943

Although commanded by Hitler to stand and fight, the Germans surrender in the battle of Stalingrad.  From this point in the war, Germany is continually retreating.

July 1944

Hitler survives an assassination attempt by Colonel Stauffenberg, who places a bomb in a briefcase under a table close to Hitler.  As a result, Hitler purges the army of all possible suspects.

January 1945

Soviet troops enter Nazi Germany.

22 April 1945

Hitler decides to stay in Berlin to the last.

26 April 1945

Berlin completely besieged by the Soviet Army Fronts of Marshals Koniev and Zhukov.

30 April 1945

Hitler commits suicide with his wife of two days, Eva Braun; their bodies are believed to have been cremated.

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[from open learn / history-the-arts website]

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