Timeline of Events 1837-1932

Timeline

It is difficult for historians to know exactly where and when the 'holocaust' actually began.  Did it begin when Hitler became Chancellor in 1933?  Or was it with he authorised the T4 Euthanasia Programme?  Was it when armed hostilities began? Or was it when important German state departments colluded together after the Wannsee Conference?  The timeline below does not attempt to answer that question, but it gives the chronological events that led up to the mass murder of millions of men, women and children, whether they be Jew or not.  Over 10 million perished, a figure that should never be forgotten.

The timeline below also focuses on that killing frenzy that we now call the 'holocaust', but it also has other key dates, so as the reader may see how the European conflict evolved.  It must also be noted that the Nazis, along with some of their allies committed numerous atrocities, the timeline below highlights some of those atrocities. Not all atrocities are recorded within this timeline as these crimes were too numerous for this page to record, but hopefully, those ones mentioned, will give the reader a good overall view to the extent and barbarity of those atrocities committed.  Not all atrocities were committed out of a deep hatred towards the Jews or others, some participants simply joined in out of greed and opportunism, for there was rich pickings from the dead and dispossessed. 

(If an incorrect piece of data has been inserted into this timeline, please feel free to use the Guestbook to highlight the issue.  Once the new date has been verified, the timeline will be amended.  Thanks)

 

1837

7 June 1837: Alois Schicklgruber is born in Austria. He would change his name later to Hitler, Adolf’s father

 

1860

12 August 1860: Klara Pölzl, Adolf Hitler's mother is born in the Austrian village of Spital.

 

1868

23 March 1868: Johann Dietrich Eckhart is born in Neumarkt, Bavaria, Germany.  Eckhart becomes one of the future founding members of the 'German Workers Party' (DAP), the Party that Adolf Hitler would end up leading and who would rename it the 'National Socialist German Workers Party' (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - NSDAP). He and Hitler were to become close friends

 

1871

21 March 1871: Germany under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck is unified.

 

1876

1876: Adolf Schicklgruber (Hitler's father) changes his surname to Hitler.

 

1885

07 January 1885: Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl; are married at six o'clock in the morning.  After the wedding ceremony, Alois went straight to his workplace to put in his daily shift.

17 May 1885: Gustav Hitler, Hitler’s older brother, is born.

 

1886

23 September 1886: Ida Hitler (Adolf's older sister) is born but dies like her brother in 1888.

 

1887

09 December 1887: Gustav Hitler, Hitler's older brother dies of diphtheria, a contagious disease producing fever and difficulty of breathing.

 

1888

22 January 1888: Ida Hitler, older sister to Adolf Hitler dies of diphtheria.

 

1889

20 April 1889: At 1830 hours, Klara Hitler gives birth to her fourth child, Adolf at her home in the Gasthof Zum Pommer, Vorstadt nr.219 in Braunau am Inn on the Austro-German border.

 

1892

17 June 1892: Otto Hitler is born but dies on 23 June 1892, less than one week of hydrocephalus.  It was believed for some time that Otto had been born before Hitler, but this was not to be the case. 

 

1893

12 January 1893: Hermann Wilhelm Göring is born in Rosenheim, Bavaria, Germany and Alfred Ernst Rosenberg is born in Tallinn, Estonia.

 

1894

24 March 1894: Adolf Hitler's younger brother Edmund is born in Passau, Germany, but would die in June 1900.

26 April 1894: Rudolf Hess is born in Alexandria, Egypt.  He was the son of a wholesaler and exporter who didn't move to Germany until he was 14 years old.

 

1895

01 May 1895: Adolf Hitler attends the primary school at Fischlam in Linz, Austria.

June 1895: Alois Hitler, Adolf's father retires after 40 years as an Austrian customs official. He spends the remainder of his time looking after his bees.

 

1896

21 January 1896: Hitler's younger sister Paula Hitler is born in Hafeld, Austria.

 

1897

29 October 1897: Joseph Goebbels is born into a strict working-class family from Rheydt in the Rhineland.

 

1898

29 July 1898: Anna Maria Himmler (nee Heyder) gives birth to her first-born son, Gebhard in Munich

 

1900

13 May 1900: Karl Wolf is born in Darmstadt.  Wolf would one day become Heinrich Himmler’s personal adjutant and eventually be appointed as his liaison in the Fuhrers headquarters.

29 June 1900: Edmund Hitler, Adolf Hitler's younger brother dies aged 6 years-old of measles.

17 September 1900: Adolf Hitler starts his secondary school education.

07 October 1900: Heinrich Himmler is born in Munich.  The son of a pious Roman Catholic schoolmaster, who had once been the tutor to the Bavarian crown prince whom Heinrich was named and who agreed to be young Heinrich’s Godfather.

                               

1902

1902: Gebhard Himmler senior moves his family to Passau in order to take up a new post at a local grammar school.

 

1903

03 January 1903: Alois Hitler, Adolf Hitler’s father dies in the Gasthaus Wiesinger

 

1904

07 March 1904: Reinhard Eugen Tristan Heydrich is born in Haille near Leipzig.  His father, Bruno was a Wagnerian operatic singer and was the founder and director of the Halle Conservatory of Music whilst his mother was an accomplished pianist.  Reinhard would grow up to earn the infamous title of ‘Hangman of Europe’ as one of Himmler’s closest lieutenants.  

 

1905

19 March 1905: Albert Speer is born at Mannheim, Germany.  Speer would become Hitler’s favourite architect and close confidant and a member of his inner circle.

Autumn 1905: Adolf Hitler leaves high school.

23 December 1905: Ernst Himmler, Heinrich Himmler’s younger brother is born in Munich.

 

1906

19 March 1906: Adolf Karl Eichmann is born Solingen in Germany.  Eichmann will later earn the nickname the ‘Desk murder’ for his role in Hitler’s genocidal war against the Jews of Europe.

1907

Early January 1907: Adolf Hitler moves to Vienna with the view of trying his luck to gain access to the Academy of Fine Arts, leaving his mother in poor health with breast cancer.

October 1907: Adolf Hitler is told that he has failed the two three-hour examinations which he needed to pass to gain access into the Academy of Fine Arts.  He requests the reasons for his failure and is subsequently told that his real talents may lay in architecture.

October 1907: Adolf Hitler is notified that his mother is dying, he decides to move back home to be with his mother.

21 December 1907: Klara Hitler (Adolf’s mother) dies of breast cancer aged 47 years old and Adolf is devastated.

1908

February 1908: Hitler returns to Viena from his hometown of Linz.

October 1908: Hitler is informed by the Academy of Fine Arts in Viena that he will not be allowed to re-sit the entrance exam.  Hitler is devasted.

18 November 1908: Hitler is now residing an apartment at 16 Felberstrasse 22, close to Westbahnhof in Vienna.  He will remain at this address for about nine months.

 

1909

Mid-August 1909: Because of financial restraints, Hitler as to leave his address at 16 Felberstrasse 22 and moves to cheaper accommodation in nearby Sechshauser Straße 58.

16 September 1909: Hitler moves out of his address at Sechshauser Straße 58.  It is now believed that he is living on the streets of Vienna as down-and-out.

09 December 1909:  Hitler moves into a doss-house for the homeless (Asyl fur obdachlose) in Meidling.  During the day, Hitler along with other resident have to vacate the premises.

 

1910

09 February 1910: Hitler’s luck changes for the better as his financial situation improves and he seeks better accommodation in a ‘Men’s Home’.  Here unlike life in the doss-house, he has a little privacy as his bed space is within a little cubicle and for a small sum of 50-Heller, he now can retain his little cubicle on a more indefinite basis.  The ‘Men’s Home’ has a lot more luxuries than he had at the doss-house.  Here Hitler along with his friend and business associate, Reinhold Hanisch, would make money from selling picture postcard size paintings of Vienna, Hitler being the artist and Hanisch being the seller.  Hitler also worked closely with a Jew by the name Josef Neumann and it seems that he was on friendly terms with him.

 

1911

Autumn 1911: Adolf Hitler fails to register for military service in Austria.

 

1912

06 February 1912: Eva Anna Paula Braun is born in Munich Germany.

 

1913

20 April 1913: Adolf Hitler, 24-years-old is now entitled to inherit his share of his father’s inheritance.

16 May 1913: The district court in Linz confirms Adolf Hitler’s share of his father’s inheritance.  The sum is 652 Kronen, but with the added interest Hitler receives 819 Kronen and 98 Heller.

24/25 May 1913: Hitler with a small suitcase containing all his worldly possessions, and accompanied by Rudolf Hausler, a short-sighted, unemployed shop-assistant, sets off for Munich.  They rent a small room together on the 3rd floor of Schleißheimer Straße 34, in the northern part of the city from a tailor by the name Joseph Popp.

Mid-May 1913: Hitler’s room-mate, Rudolf Hausler moves out of their shared room.  After a few days Hausler rents the room next door to Hitler.

August 1913: The Austrian police in Linz start making enquiries about the whereabouts of Adolf Hitler.  They are looking for him because of his non-registration for military service.

 

1914

19 January 1914: Hitler sends a telegram to the Austrian Consulate requesting more time to present himself for military registration.  He asked that the 5th February 1914 be considered for him.   This request was turned down by the Linz Magistrates.  In response he writes a three-and-a-half-page letter claiming full responsibility for not registering in time, but he states that he had indeed did register, but late and then never heard anything else from them.  The Consular officials after considering his letter decide to allow him the extra time, he requested the 5th February 1914 as the new dead-line, but instead of having to appear in Linz he now has to appear in Salzburg. 

05 February 1914: Hitler registers for military service in Salzburg, however after examination he is found to be too weak to undertake military service and is sent home.

28 June 1914: Assassination of the Austrian heir Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie the Duchess of Hohenberg, at Sarajevo.  Gavrilo Princip shot them during a visit to the Bosnian capital.  Princip was a Serb student belong to the Serbian terrorist group known as the ‘Black Hand’.

June 1914: The Secretary of the Austrian delegation in Belgrade suggests that the Serb government was somehow complicit in Sarajevo in relation to the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand.  Anti-Serb riots break out in Vienna, Brunn and Sarajevo and throughout Bosnia.

02 July 1914: German ambassador assures count Berchtold and Emperor Francis Joseph that Berlin would support any action that Austria would take against Serbia.

04 July 1914: Archduke Ferdinand is laid to rest at Artstetten family Schloss [Artstetten Castle], some 50 miles west of Vienna.

08 July 1914: The German ambassador in Vienna pushes count Berchtold to take energetic action against Serbia, preferably before Serbia’s ally Russia can intervene.

23 July 1914: The Austrians issue a 48-hour ultimatum to Serbia.

26 July 1914: Austria mobilises 8 Corps on the Russian frontiers.

28 July 1914: At exactly noon, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.

29 July 1914: The Russian Czar orders partial mobilisation.

30 July 1914: Nicholas II, the Czar of Russia orders full mobilisation.

31 July 1914: Turkey orders mobilisation for the 3rd of August.  All men 20-45 years old are to be called up.

01 August 1914: Germany declares war on Russia.

03 August 1914: Germany declares war on France.

04 August 1914: Germany declares war on Belgium and automatically invades her. Britain, allied to Belgium declares war on Germany.

05 August 1914: Hitler volunteers for military service, but not with his own country’s armed forces but with the First Bavarian Infantry Regiment.  After registering, they send him home.

Aug-Nov 1914: The first campaigns in East Africa begins.

7-16 August 1914: The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) land in France.

16 August 1914: Adolf Hitler is summoned to report for military service at the recruiting ‘Depot VI’ in Munich.  He is kitted out for the 2^nd reserve Battalion of the 2nd Infantry Regiment.   According to his own account in Mein Kampf he had written a letter of petition to King Ludwig II of Bavaria requesting the honour of serving in a Bavarian regiment which he claimed to have received a reply the next day allowing his enlistment.  It is more likely that the recruiting teams overlooked Hitler’s nationality on the grounds that they were swamped with potential recruits.

20 August 1914: On the Eastern Front, the Battle of Gumbinnen is initiated by the Germans, but due to bad planning, the Russians come out victorious. 

23 August 1914: On the Western front, the Battle of Mons begins, but due to overwhelming numbers of German troops involved, the British forces were forced to retreat. 

24 August 1914: A major German offensive is launched against France begins. 

23-30 August 1914: On the eastern front, the Battle of Tannenberg rages, which sees the German coming out on top.

5-12 September 1914: The First Battle of the Marne rages in France, in the end, an allied victory was secured and the German offensive in France was halted. The French refer to this battle as the ‘Miracle de la Marne’ (Miracle on the Marne).

Early September 1914: Hitler is sent to the newly formed Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (Known after its first commander as the ‘List Regiment’) for basic training.

20 October 1914: Hitler completes his basic training and is sent with his regiment to Flanders on the Western Front.

29 October 1914: Hitler’s battalion gets its first taste of action on the Menin Road near Ypres.  In a letter to a friend. He states that his regiment had been reduced to just 611 men from a total of 3,600. 

5-17 September 1914: On the eastern front, the Battle of Masurian Lakes rage, the battle ends with a Russian defeat.

8-12 September 1914: Battle of Lemberg rages on the Balkan Front ending in a Russian victory.

15 September 1914: The first trenches of the war are dug along Chemin des Dames, both sides would now find themselves in a stalemate and as the weeks and months passed, the trench system became more intricate.

20 Oct-22 Nov 1914: In Flanders, Belgium, the first Battle of Ypres rages.

01 November 1914: Turkey enters the war on the side of Germany and Austria.

01 November 1914:  Russia declares war on Turkey.

05 November 1914: France, alongside Britian declare war on Turkey.

09 November 1914: Hitler is assigned to the regimental staff as an orderly (Ordonnanz).  His job is now that of a dispatch runner (Meldeganger), carrying orders from command post to command post, Trench to Trench.

11 Nov-early Dec 1914: the Russians are forced to retreat further east.

02 December 1914: Hitler is awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class.  Austro-Hungarian troops capture Belgrade.

08 December 1914: At Sea, the Battle of the Falkland Islands takes place.

11 December 1914: The Serbs recapture Belgrade.

22 Dec 1914-18 Jan 1915: The Russians repulse Turkish attacks in the Caucasus.

 

1915

03 January 1915: The Germans use poison gas for the first time on the Eastern Front.

24 January 1915: The battle of Dogger Bank is fought at sea.

08 February 1915: The winter Battle of Masuria begins in the east.

Feb-Sept 1915: First period of intensive German submarine warfare begins.

10-13 March 1915: On the Western Front, the Battle of Neuve Chapelle rages.

March 1915: Hitler’s regiment sees combat in the trenches near Fromelles, on the Western Front.

18 March 1915: The Allies attempt a naval attack on the Dardanelles.

22 Apr-27 May 1915: The second Battle of Ypres rages.

25 Apr- 09 Jan 1915: Allied landings at Gallipoli begins.

26 April 1915: Italy and the Allies agree to the Treaty of London.

02-04 May 1915: Battle of Gorlice-Tarnow is fought in the east.

04 May 1915: The second Battle of Artois begins.

09-10 May 1915: Battle of Aubers Ridge.

15-23 May 1915: Battle of Festubert begins.        

23 May 1915: Italy declares war on the Austro-Hungarian empire.

June 1915-Jan 1916: Main Allied campaigns begin in Cameroon, Africa.

23 June 1915: On the Italian Front, the Battle of Isonzo begins.

25 August 1915: Italy declares war on Turkey.

26 August 1915: Italy declares war on Germany.

05 September 1915: Czar Nicholas II takes personal command of the Russian armies.

25 Sept-14 Oct 1915: Battle of Loos rages.

25 Sept-04 Nov 1915: The Third Battle of Artois rages.

25 Sept-06 Oct 1915: French offensive in Champagne.

03 October 1915: Hermann Goring sets off on his first solo operational flight of the war

05 October 1915: Allied troops disembark at Salonika on the Balkan Front.

05 October 1915: Austro-Hungarian invades Serbia.

14 October 1915: Bulgaria joins the Central powers.

16 November 1915: Hermann Goring claims his first kill as a fighter pilot.

30 November 1915: France, Britain, Russia and Japan sign the Pact of London.

05 December 1915: Ottoman troops lay siege to the city of Kut, some 100 miles (160km) South Baghdad, which held some 8,000 British troops.

 

1916

08-17 January 1916: The Central Powers knock Montenegro out of the war.

21 February-18 December 1916: Battle of Verdun rages on the Western Front.

March-April 1916: The second period of submarine warfare begins.

24-19 April 1916: The Irish Easter Rebellion rages against British presence in Ireland.

29 April 1916: Siege of Kut ends after the British forces laid down their weapons and went into captivity.  (see 05 December 1915)

15 May 1916: The Austro-Hungarian’s launch a new offensive on the Italian Front.

31 May-01 June 1916: At sea, the Battle of Jutland.

04 June-10 Oct 1916: On the Eastern Front, the Brusilov offensive is underway.

01 July-19 Nov 1916: The First Battle of the Somme begins.  The British army lose a staggering 60,000 men through death or injury.  All that was gained was a mile of strategically useless piece of ground.  Before the Battle of the Somme finally ended; some 600,000 Allied lives would be lost.  The German military leadership believed that the British soldiers were lions being led by donkeys.

04 August 1916-09 January 1917: The British drive the Turks out of Egypt.

06-17 August 1916: The 6th Battle of Isonzo is raging on the Italian Front.

27 August 1916: Romania enters the war on the side of the Allies.

29 August 1916: Von Hindenburg is made Commander of the German field armies, with Ludendorff as Quartermaster General.

September-December 1916: The Central Powers invade Romania.

04 September 1916: The Allies capture Dar Es Salaam in German East Africa.

02 October 1916: Hitler’s regiment is sent southwards from Flanders to the Somme.

Early October 1916: Hitler is wounded in the left thigh when a shell explodes in the dispatch runner’s dugout, Killing and wounding his comrades.  Hitler is sent to a field hospital where he spends nearly 2 months recuperating (9th October -1st December 1916) in the Red Cross Hospital at Beelitz near Berlin. 

11 October 1916: In Germany, Adolf Wild von Hohenborn (1860-1925), the country's war minister ordered that a census be made of how many German Jews are serving as soldiers at the front. Hohenborn tried to claim that the census was aimed to laying to rest, once and for all, the myth that German Jews were shirking their duties to the Fatherland, however, a counterclaim had been made that the census was actually an attempt by anti-Jewish elements within the country to set-up anti-Jewish sentiments within Germany and to confirm that Jews were not patriots. The census was never published; however, it did show that German Jews were just as patriotic as their non-Jewish neighbours.

02 November 1916: Hermann Göring is nearly killed as he attempts to shoot down a British Handley-Page bomber.   Unaware that the bomber has an escort of British fighter planes.  He was hit in his hip and was forced to crash land his plane near a German field hospital.  Göring would spend the next four months in hospital recuperating. 

21 November 1916: Emperor Franz Josef of the Austro-Hungarian Empire dies.

06 December 1916: Lloyd George becomes the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

 

1917

February 1917: Hermann Göring returns to active service after his stay in hospital.  This time he is posted to Jasta 26, which was based in Upper Alsace which was under the command of Bruno Loerzer, a pilot Goring had already served with.

24 February -11 March 1917: The British retake Kut and capture Baghdad.

05 March 1917: Hitler returns to his regiment which is now based just a few miles to the north of Vimy on the Western Front. 

15 March 1917: Czar Nicholas II of Russia is forced to abdicate.  A provisional government is formed in Russia.

06 April 1917: The United States of America enter the war on the side of the Allies.

16-29 April 1917: Chemin des Dames offensive begins on the Western Front.

April 1917: Joseph Goebbels attends Bonn University to study classical philology, German literature and history.

24 April-22 May 1917: Battle of Dorian rages on the Balkan Front.  The Bulgarians defeat the British.

29 April 1917: Philippe Pétain is appointed Chief of the French General Staff.

17 May 1917: Hermann Goring is given command of his own squadron, Jasta 27 which shares the same airfield as Jasta 26.

18 June-13 July 1917: On the Eastern Front, the Kerensky offensive rages.

27 June 1917: Greece enters the war on the side of the Allies.

06 July 1917: T.E Lawrence and his Arab allies capture Aqaba for the allied powers.

31 July-10 November 1917: The Third Battle of Ypres rages.

Summer 1917: Hitler’s regiment to send to a location near Ypres.

August 1917: After heavy fighting, Hitler’s regiment is relieved from its position on the Western Front and is sent to Alsace.

03 September 1917: On the Eastern Front, The Germans capture Riga.

03 September 1917: The German and Bolshevik delegates meet at Brest-Litovsk to discuss the terms for the Russian surrender and treaty.  The Treaty was finally signed on 3rd March 1918.

September 1917: Hitler takes 18 days home leave for the first time but decides to visit Berlin.  He stays with one of his comrade’s parents.

Mid-October 1917: Adolf Hitler returns to his regiment from leave.  His regiment is now located at Champagne   

24 Oct-10 Nov 1917: Battle of Caporetto rages on the Italian Front with an Austro-German victory over the Italians.

02 November 1917: With the Balfour Declaration Britain openly supports the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which at this stage was a mere region of the Ottoman Empire.

10 November 1917: The Bolsheviks overthrow the Russian provisional government.

20 November 1917-08 January 1918: The Battle of Cambrai rages on the Western Front.

03 December 1917: The Bolshevik government in Russia sign an armistice with Germany.

11 December 1917: The British capture Jerusalem.

 

1918

08 January 1918: Woodrow Wilson, the US President, publishes his 14-point plan as a basis for peace.

28 January 1918: The Bolsheviks found the Red Army in the newly formed Soviet Union

03 March 1918: Russia signs the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central powers.

21 Mar-18 July 1918: The Germans launch their spring offensive in the West.

23 Mar-15 Aug 1918: The Germans shell Paris.

02 April 1918: U.S troops arrive on the Western Front.

May 1918: The Allies intervene in the Russian Civil War.

May 1918:  Joseph Goebbels leaves Bonn University to study at Freiburg near the Black Forest.

07 May 1918: Romania and the Central powers sign the Treaty of Bucharest.

18 July-10 Nov 1918: Allied counter-offensive rages on the Western Front.

Mid-July 1918: Hitler’s regiment takes huge losses during the 2nd Battle of Marne.

04 August 1918: Hitler is awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class from his regimental commander Major von Tubeuf, though the nomination for the award originally came from one of his other commanders, Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, a Jewish officer. The medal is believed to have been awarded for carrying an important dispatch through heavy enemy shelling, but according to the Third Reich’s Propaganda apparatus, schoolchildren were told that their Fuehrer received the Cross for capturing 15 French soldiers single-handedly.

Mid-August 1918: Hitler’s regiment is sent to Cambrai to stop a British offensive near Bapaume

Late-August 1918: Hitler is sent on a telephone communications course near Nuremberg.

10 September 1918: Hitler takes another 18 days home leave and again visits Berlin.

14-29 September 1918: Allied counter attack makes gains in Bulgaria.

19 Sept-25 Oct 1918: British Troops capture Damascus, Beirut and Aleppo

End September 1918: Hitler returns to his regiment which is now stationed near Comines, which is under constant harassment from the British.

30 September 1918: An armistice is concluded between the Allies and Bulgaria.

13/14 October 1918: On the heights south of Wervick, which is part of the Ypres Front, Hitler with several of his comrades find themselves retreating from their dug-out after being hit from a mustard- gas attack which caused him to go temporally blind. He is sent for initial treatment in a field hospital in Flanders.

21 October 1918: Hitler, following the gas attack that left him temporally blind is sent to the military hospital in Pasewalk, near Stettin in Pomerania.

24 Oct-02 Nov 1918: Battle of Vittorio Veneto rages on the Italian front.

27 October 1918: Austro-Hungarian Empire asks Italy for an armistice.

28 October 1918: Mutiny of German sailors at Kiel.

30 October 1918: The Turkish 6th army in Mesopotamia surrenders to the Allies.

07 November 1918: The Socialist Kurt Eisner proclaims Bavaria a republic.

09 November 1918: The German Kaiser abdicates and a republic (Weimar) is declared as Chancellor Max von Baden hands over his office to the Socialist Fredrich Ebert.

10 November 1918: Whilst recuperating in the military hospital in Pasewalk, Hitler and the other patients are informed by a Pastor of the Kaisers abdication and Germany’s defeat. The hearing of this news traumatised and left him a deeply bitter man.

11 November 1918: An armistice between the Allies and Germany takes effect. The First World War officially ends.

19 November 1918: Hitler is discharged from the military hospital in Pasewalk and returns to Munich via Berlin with a total of 15 marks and 30 pfennigs to his name. He is attached to the 7th Company of the 1st Reserve Battalion of the 2nd Infantry Regiment.

November/December 1918: Hitler is attached to the Traunstein Prisoner-of-War camp

December 1918: The German workers and soldiers’ councils hold their first congress in Berlin. The congress calls for the nationalising of key industries and the seizure of the aristocracy’s lands. They also demand that von Hindenburg be sacked and the army be purged.

09 November 1918: The German Reich (also known as the Weimar Republic) is proclaimed

17 December 1918: Heinrich Himmler is discharged from the army.

 

1919     

05 January 1919: In Munich, the right-wing German Workers Party (DAP) is founded by a Locksmith by the name of Anton Drexler and the sports journalist Karl Harrer. Drexler and Harrer are also joined by Gottfried Feder and Johann Dietrich Eckart

05-11 January 1919: The Communist group, the ‘Spartacists’ organise a general strike in Berlin and they occupy several key buildings in the city. The German army move against the Berlin revolt and after five days they quash the Spartacists. The revolt was doomed from the start when the people of Berlin stayed at home and took no part in the rebellion. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, two key members of the revolt were arrested and murdered by officers of the Guards Cavalry Division. Their bodies were later dumped in the Landwehr Canal.

18 January 1919: Peace conference begins at Versailles near Paris.

19 January 191:  National and local elections are held in Germany. The SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland’s-German Socialist Party) win 11,509100 votes making them the largest party in the Reichstag gaining a staggering 165 seats (37.9 %)

31 January 1919: Germany is officially declared a republic at Weimar. The country is now known as the Weimar Republic.

07 February 1919: The German Chancellor Friedrich Ebert at a Cabinet convention in Weimar condemns the terms the terms of the Armistice.

12 February 1919: After his spell as a guard at the Traunstein Prisoner-of-War camp Hitler returns to Munich and is assigned to the 2nd Demobilisation Company in preparation for being discharged from the army. Hitler however has no wish to demobilised as the army has become his home and grabs any opportunity to delay his discharge.

13 February 1919: Hermann Göring writes to the German army’s settlement office requesting that be discharged from the armed forces. He offers to give up his pension rights in exchange for being granted the rank of Captain as well as retaining the right to wear his military uniform. It took the settlement office some 4 months to agree to Goering’s request.  From now on, he would be referred to as Captain Göring (retired).

17 February 1919: The German government signs the Armistice and is forced to give up territory to Poland.

21 February 1919: The Provisional Government of Munich’s Minister-President Eisner is assassinated by an aristocratic young officer by the name Graf von Acro-Valley, whom was at the time a student at Munich University.

11 March 1919: Famine spreads in Central Europe deeply effecting Germany.

23 March 1919: The socialist journalist Benito Mussolini forms the first Fascio di Combattimento in Italy.

06 April 1919: In Munich, a mixed group of left-wing politicians and organisations meet in the Queens bedchamber of the Royal Palace and proclaim a Räterepublik (a Soviet Republic) of Bavaria

under the leadership of a 26-year-old poet called Ernst Toller.

12/13 April 1919: Troops loyal to the legitimate government of Bavaria overthrow Ernst Toller’s Räterepublik in Bavaria but were in turn defeated by Spartacist fighters and armed workers including soldiers sympathetic to the Communist cause. A second Räterepublik under the hard-core Communist Eugen Levine is proclaimed in Munich.

30 April 1919: The German delegation arrive at the Paris Peace Conference.

28 April 1919: The League of Nations is founded.

15 June 1919: Hitler attends an anti-Bolshevik course at Munich University which has been organised by Captain Karl Mayr, whom had taken over command of the ‘Information Department’. Hitler’s name was on departments list of informants since May or early June 1919. Captain Mayr would later become a strong critic of Hitler and have to flee Germany to France after Hitler’s accession to power but later captured after France falls to the Germans in 1940. Mayr would die as a prisoner in the Buchenwald Concentration camp.

17 June 1919: The German delegates are stoned by angry crowds as they leave the Paris Peace Conference for Berlin.

21 June 1919: The German navy scuttles her fleet at Scapa Flow in order to prevent the ships being seized by the Allied powers.

28 June 1919: The Versailles Treaty is signed at the end of the Paris Peace Conference in the Hall of Mirrors within the Chateau of Versailles. The main function of the treaty is to prevent Germany from ever becoming a dominant European power again. To achieve this aim, the treaty forbade Germany from having an air force, it prevented her navy from having more than 6 warships over 10,000 tonnes, it also limited her army to a mere 100,000 troops. The treaty also confiscated large tracts of territories. Poland, which had not existed as an independent state since 1795, was re-formed. Danzig was given special status as a ‘self-governing free city’. Alsace-Lorraine, which had become part of Germany in 1871, was returned to France. The industrial area of the Saarland, was to be administered by the newly formed League of Nations for 15 years, and after which a referendum would be held there to decide its future status. All of Germany’s colonies were seized by the Allies and Germany was a forced to accept blame for starting the war and the cost of the war would be met by Germany in reparation payments to the Allied powers as soon as the calculations have been decided. The severity of the treaty caused widespread resentment and anger throughout Germany. The majority of Germans felt that they never been militarily defeated by the Allied powers but had been stabbed in the back by her internal enemies. The treaty was soon dubbed as the infamous ‘Versailles Diktat’ and it greatly assisted the likes of Adolf Hitler in their quests for power and influence.

18 July 1919: The German Reichstag voted against separation of Church and State.

14 August 1919: The Weimar constitution comes into effect in Germany

15 August 1919: The French government states that it has lost 60 per cent of its air force because of the war.

28 August 1919:  The German army crush a Polish-backed uprising in Upper Silesia.

September 1919: Adolf Hitler takes on the role of an army ‘education officer’. His responsibilities are to attend political meetings and report his findings back to his superiors.

06 September 1919: The Austrian parliament agrees to sign the Versailles Treaty.

10 September 1919: The Treaty of Saint-Germain is signed in Austria by the Allies and Austrians.

12 September 1919: Hitler attends a political meeting being held by the German Workers Party (DAP) on behalf of his regimental Information Department. Hitler erupts into a rage when DAP speaker discusses the possibility of Bavaria breaking away from the Reich. Anton Drexler is deeply impressed with the passion and oratory skills in Hitler and decides to encourage him to join the party.

16 September 1919: At the request from Captain Mayr, who was responding to a question from another superior, asks Adolf Hitler to produce a report on the possible dangers to the German nation from the Jews. In it he states anti-Semitism on purely emotional grounds will find its ultimate expression in the form pogroms. The anti-Semitism of reason, however, must lead to the planned legal opposition to and elimination of the privileges of the Jews. Its ultimate goal, however, must absolutely be the removal of Jews altogether. Only a government of national power and never a government of national impotence will be capable of both. This is Hitler’s first known attack on the Jews, which points to a view that he began to echo what he had been hearing in and around Munich about the treacherous behaviour of the Jews and how they were implicit in Germany’ military defeat.  His anti-Semitism may have been used as an excuse by him to blame the Jews [Scapegoat], alongside the Communists for the defeat and humiliation of Germany at Versailles.

16 September 1919: Adolf Hitler joins the German Workers Party [DAP] as member No 555, later however he would claim that he was member No 7 and even went as far as doctoring his membership card to illustrate this. He is given responsibility for recruiting new members and as Party Propaganda leader.

October 1919: The Allied forces end their participation in the Russian Civil War.

02 October 1919:  The French parliament ratifies the Versailles Treaty.

16 October 1919: Hitler speaks to a crowd of over 100 people who had attended one of the DAP’s meetings in Munich. The thirty-minute speech electrified the audience and confirms Hitler’s status as an exceptional orator.

29 October 1919: It is reported that anti-Semitism is spreading throughout Germany.

19 November 1919: Benito Mussolini along with 37 other Fascists are arrested following riots after the Socialist election victory in Italy.

19 November 1919: The United States Senate refuse to ratify the Versailles Treaty on the grounds that Article 10 of the Treaty binds the US to declare war if one of the other signatories are attacked by Germany.  They claim that this will deprive Congress of its power of declaring war. The US have other issues concerning the treaty but the declaration of war was their primary concern.

27 November 1919: The Allied powers and Bulgaria sign the Treaty of Neuilly.

15 December 1919: In Britain, Sir Hugh Trenchard, commander of the RAF proposes that the RAF become a permanent force.

 

1920

12 January 1920: It is believed that some 29,000 Jews have been murdered in the Ukraine.

02 February 1920: The Soviet government recognises Estonia’s independence.

03 February 1920: The Allies demand that Germany hand over 890 political and military leaders suspected of committing war crimes.

05 February 1920: The German Reichstag refuses the Allies demand to hand over alleged war criminals.

10 February 1920: The German Ex-Crown Prince Wilhelm offers to hand himself over to the Allies for trial in place of the 890 alleged war criminals.

24-25 February 1920: The German Workers Party officially change its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei [National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi)]. At the meeting, which was held at the Festsaal of the Hofbräuhaus over 2,000 people hear Hitler’s speech. The Nazi Party published its ‘25 Point Party Programme’.  Point 4 read: 'None but members of the nation, may be citizens of the state.  None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation.  No Jew therefore, may be a member of the nation’.  Another point in the programme stipulated that all Jews who migrated to Germany before 1914 should be expelled from the country. 

01 March 1920: Admiral Horthy becomes the head of state of Hungary.

31 March 1920: Hitler leaves the army to pursue a political career.

06 April 1920: French troops take over Frankfurt.

25 April 1920: The League of Nations propose fixing Germany’s war indemnity at 3,000,000,000 marks a year for 30 years.

28 May 1920: A state of war is declared between the Soviet Russia and Poland. Poland makes an appeal to the West for assistance.

04 June 1920: The Allies and Hungary sign the Treaty of Trianon.

06 June 1920: The German Reichstag elections are held with the Social Democratic Party [SPD] gaining 6,104,400 votes, a loss from the previous results of over five million votes even though they are the largest party in the Reichstag. The NSDAP did not stand in this election.

09 June 1920: King George V opens the Imperial War Museum at Crystal Palace, London.

22 June 1920: In France, the Allies fix German war reparations at £12.500 million.

01 July 1920: The German government surrenders her largest airship, L71 to Britain.

18 July 1920: The Ex-Kaiser’s youngest son, Joachim commits suicide at Potsdam near Berlin.

10 August 1920: The Allies and Turkey sign the Treaty of Sevres.

12 August 1920: Hitler rages against the Jews and promises all those who were present, that one day, the Jews will be denied any power within Germany. The Jews would become a frequent target in Hitler's speeches.

20 September 1920: The League of Nations approves Germany’s Eupen and Malmédy being handed over to Belgium.

06 October 1920: Soviet Russia and Poland sign an armistice at Riga, Latvia.

14 October 1920: Soviet Russia recognises the independence of Finland.

09 November 1920: The city of Danzig in Poland is officially proclaimed a free city.

10 November 1920: The British body of ‘the unknown soldier’ arrives from France for internment within Westminster Abbey.

11 November 1920: The French body of ‘the unknown soldier’ is buried under the Arc de Triomphe

December 1920: The bankrupt newspaper Volkischer Beobachter is bought by wealthy supporters and given to the Hitler’s NSDAP.

15 December 1920: Austria joins the League of Nations along with China.

 

1921

06 January 1921: In Berlin statistics indicate that some 485,000 children in the capital are seriously diseased and undernourished.

13 January 1921: The German’s announce their intention to build a 1443-ton submarine which is capable of travelling at 17.5 knots and with a 35mm armour plate.

21 January 1921: In Germany, The Abwehr (Counter-Intelligence agency of the armed forces) is formed. Its first commander is naval officer Kapitan Zur see Patzig. Patzig is strong opponent to Hitler’s Nazis.

February 1921: Some 6,500 people come to hear Hitler give a speech in the huge tent of Munich’s Krone Circus. Hitler has now become indispensable to the Party.

19 February 1921: France and Poland sign a military and economic pact.

20 March 1921: In Germany the electorate representing Upper Silesia votes to remain part of Germany.

24 March 1921: Some 20 people are killed after a Communist attempt to take Hamburg.

15 May 1921: In the Italian national elections, Mussolini’s Fascists win 22 seats.

21 July 1921: Members of the NSDAP, without Hitler’s knowledge start negotiations with the German Socialist Party in an attempt to merge the two organisations and to move their Headquarters from Munich to Berlin. When Adolf Hitler hears of the negotiations he threatens to resign if the merger goes ahead. Knowing that the Party would be doomed if they lost Hitler, the merger collapses, At the same time, Hitler demands the chairmanship of the party and that he is given full authority over the movement.

29 July 1921: Adolf Hitler becomes the leader (Fuhrer) of the National Socialist German Workers Party.

04 August 1921: Russia suffers from a famine sweeping the country.

06 August 1921: The German Reichstag proposes a huge increase in taxes to pay for Germany’s war reparations.

10 August 1921: In Paris the Supreme Council decides to partition Silesia between Poland and Germany.

15 August 1921: The economic situation in Germany deteriorates even thorough as the German Mark declines in value, one British pound is now worth 340 Marks.

29 September 1921: The German Mark continues to decline in value. A British pound is now worth 500 marks.

04 October 1921: To combat the declining value of the Mark, Germany puts a 100 per cent surcharge on all imports.

17 October 1921: The German Mark continues to fall. One British pound can now fetch 720 Marks.

22 October 1921: The German government resigns as Germany falls deeper and deeper in economic mess.

07 November 1921: One British pound is now worth 1,200 German Marks as the German economy slips into chaos.

07 November 1921: Benito Mussolini takes the title of II Duce [the Leader].

 

1922

January 1922: Hitler was sentenced to three months imprisonment for ‘disturbance of the peace’ after violence erupted during one of his beer hall speeches, however, he only served four weeks of that sentence.[i]

January 1922: Heinrich Himmler meets Ernst Rohm for the first time in Munich.

02 January 1922: The German Mark hits more trouble as one British pound buys 32,000 marks.

05 January 1922: In Washington, the arms conference adopts the declaration outlawing submarine warfare against merchant shipping.

06 January 1922: The Allies decide to postpone German war reparations.

31 January 1922: The cost of living in Germany rises to 73.7 per cent since January 1921.

06 February 1922: The Washington Naval Treaty limits the size and numbers of certain types of warships and the arms conference in Washington comes to a close, but before it did so it agrees to outlaw the use of poisonous gas in wartime.

14 February 1922: In Geneva, Polish and German delegates meet to discuss the dispute in Upper Silesia.

26 February 1922: France and Britain agree to a 20-year alliance in Paris.

10 March 1922:  In Germany, the Reichstag orders the removal of all monarchy emblems from public buildings.

14 March 1922: In Rome, tensions between Fascists and Socialists come to a head as fighting erupts.

01 April 1922: Reinhard Heydrich enrols as a cadet in the naval school in Kiel. His class is called “Crew 22” named after the year.

03 April 1922: Soviet Russia’s Joseph Stalin becomes the Communist Party General Secretary.

16 April 1922: Germany and Soviet Russia agree to economic co-operation by signing the Treaty of Rapallo.

18 April 1922: In Genoa, Germany is blocked from talks because of the economic deal they completed with Soviet Russia (the Treaty of Rapallo) on 16th April 1922.

26 May 1922: In Moscow, Lenin suffers from a stroke.

31 May 1922: In Paris, The Reparation Commission decide to postpone Germany’s 1922 reparation repayments.

13 June 1922: Austria declares itself bankrupt.

14 June 1922: In Russia it is agreed that a three-man council will govern Soviet Russia while Lenin recovers from his stroke.

24 June 1922: The German Foreign Minister who signed the despised Treaty of Rapallo, Walter Rathenau is assassinated by right wing activists. The treaty had surrendered territorial claims after Germany's defeat after the Great War.

03 July 1922: In Paris, Britain’s Lloyd George proposes a world disarmament policy to the League of Nations.

09 July 1922: Germany faces total financial ruin as the Mark collapses again.

19 July 1922: Benito Mussolini warns the Italian government of trouble if it continues to suppress his Fascists.

3-4 August 1922: Mussolini’s Fascists seize control of Milan City Council.

05 August 1922: Albert Einstein flees Germany after he is threatened with assassination from an extreme group of radical nationalists. The same group who murdered the German foreign minister, Walter Rathenau.

24 August 1922: The German mark begins to collapse as a brief recovery. One British pound is now worth 8,000marks.

31 August 1922: The Allied governments give Germany a six-month reprieve in war reparations.

24 October 1922: In Italy, the Fascists demand the resignation of the Italian government and the formation of a Fascist government in its place.

28 October 1922: Mussolini’s Fascists march on Rome.

30 October 1922: Benito Mussolini becomes Italy’s new Prime Minister.

November 1922: Rudolf Höss joins the NSDAP as member 3240.

01 November 1922: The German Mark continues to slide. One British pound can now buy 20,000 marks.

November 1922: Hermann Göring attends a mass demonstration in Konigsplatz. It was here that he first encountered Adolf Hitler whom had also attended the demonstration. After a few speakers had their say the crowd became impatient and started chanting for Hitler to give a speech but Hitler refused. As soon as Göring discovered why Hitler had refused to make a speech he was deeply impressed and totally agreed with him.

14 November 1922:  The German Chancellor Joseph Wirth resigns from office because of the worsening economic situation in Germany.

16 November 1922: Benito Mussolini warns the Italian Chamber of Deputies to do as they are told or the chamber would be dissolved.

21 November 1922: Clemenceau, the Ex-Premier of France warns that Germany’s fragile democracy is under threat from militants.

22 November 1922: Wilhelm Cuno becomes Germany’s new Chancellor.

25 November 1922: Mussolini is given dictatorial powers by the Italian Chamber of Deputies for one year.

30 November 1922: Adolf Hitler addresses a National Socialist rally in Munich. Some 50,000 supporters attended.

26 December 1922: The Allies War Reparation Committee claim that Germany has deliberately defaulted on her war repayments.

30 December 1922: Soviet Russia is now officially known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

31 December 1922: France rejects a non-aggression pact with Germany.

 

1923

02 January 1923: In Paris, the Allies reduce German reparation payments to £2,800 million

06 January 1923: The U.S Senate votes to withdraw its troops currently stationed in Germany.

09 January 1923: French troops prepare to occupy the German town of Essen as a reprisal for Germany defaulting in her reparation payments.

11 January 1923: Because of Germany's inability to pay war reparations, France and Belgium militarily occupy the coal rich area of the Ruhr. The German government called for passive resistance against French and Belgium occupation.  To pay striking workers, the German government prints vast amounts of more money, however, this led to runaway inflation, causing financial ruin for many, and this led to an increase of hostility towards the new Republic, and this new anger and resentment allowed the far right and anti-Judeo groups to become part of mainstream politics. The Jews are now being targeted more and more and are being accused of losing Germany the war.

21 January 1923: In Germany, miners announce a strike in protest to French and Belgian occupation of German territory.

27 January 1923: The NSDAP holds its first party rally in Munich.

February 1923: Hermann Göring is given command of the SA (Sturmabteilung) better known as the ‘Brownshirts)

01 February 1923: In Germany, French troops prevent much needed coal being transported to other parts of Germany from the occupied Ruhr.

05 February 1923: Benito Mussolini orders the arrest of several hundred Socialists in Italy.

25 February 1923: French troops seize control of more German territory along the Rhine and tighten their blockade against the rest of Germany.

03 March 1923: French troops take control of the Rhine ports of Mannheim and Karlsruhe.

31 March 1923: Nine Germans are killed and at least 43 are injured during a riot in the town of Essen against French troops, who had arrived at the Krupp Steel Works to requisition their trucks.

23 April 1923: In Italy, the Catholic Party resigns from Mussolini’s coalition government.

05 June 1923: French troops seize railways in the Ruhr.

09 June 1923: A Military coup in Bulgaria topples Premier M. Stambouliski.

27 April 1923: In Rome, Pope Pius XI condemns the Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr.

28 June 1923: Rudolf Höss is arrested for the murder of schoolteacher Walther Kadow, a fellow Freikorps member. 

30 June 1923: A bomb planted on a train at Duisburg, Germany, kills 10 Belgian troops.

06 July 1923: the German government in Berlin is told to condemn the violence in the Ruhr by the French and Belgian governments or they will sever relations with them.

08 July 1923: The Turks and the Allies agree to a peace treaty which will restore to Turkey the Aegean areas and Armenia which she lost after the last war.

10 July 1923: In Italy, Mussolini bans all opposition parties.

12 July 1923: The British Chancellor of the Exchequer tells France and Belgium to withdraw their troops from the Ruhr for fear that it may cause a new world conflict.

20 July 1923: The British Chancellor proposes a committee be set up to investigate Germany’s ability to pay its war reparations.

29 July 1923: France and Belgium reject Britain’s proposals to set up a committee to investigate Germany’s ability to pay her war reparations.

August 1923: With prompting from Ernst Röhm, Heinrich Himmler joins the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) with membership number 42,404

07 August 1923: In Germany, the financial crises deepen. The British pound is now worth 15 million marks.

11/12 August 1923: The German Chancellor Cuno resigns as Germany’s economy collapses. Gustav Stresemann takes over his office.

September -October 1923: Heinrich Himmler joins the ‘Black Reichswehr’ which is also known as ‘Werner Company.’ The Black Reichswehr is used to defeat leftist Saxon and Thüringen regimes.

06 September 1923: The British pound is now valued at 200 million German marks.

12 September 1923: The British pound is now worth 600 million German marks.

15 September 1923: The Reichsbank in Germany increases its rate to 90%, in an attempt to stem the demand for money.

26 September 1923: In Germany, President Friedrich Ebert declares a state of emergency throughout Germany.

20 October 1923: Bavaria breaks off relations with the Reich.

21 October 1923: A republic is proclaimed in the Rhineland.

22 October 1923: The British pound is now valued at staggering 183,000,000,000 German marks.

27 October 1923: The French send in troops to occupy the Rhineland areas of Bonn and Wiesbaden as retaliation for Germany’s failure to fulfil promised timber shipments.

29 October 1923: Dr. Erich Zeigner, Prime Minister and Minister of Justice is deprived of all his offices after trying to establish a Communist government within Saxony by Reich President Friedrich Ebert. 

02 November 1923: The Social Democrats resign from the German government.

06 November 1923: In Berlin, at least 1,000 shops are looted during a spate of antisemitic violence.

08-09 November 1923:  The Nazis attempt to seize power in Munich (Munich Putsch).  Hitler and others are taken into custody and accused of high treason.

11 November 1923: Hitler is arrested at Essing, a village just outside Munich, for his part in the attempted coup.

13 November 1923: The French finally agree to the setting up of a committee to investigate Germany’s ability to pay her war reparations.

15 November 1923: The German government issue a new unit of currency, a banknote worth a staggering 1,000,000,000 marks in an attempt to beat inflation however the German mark is now in effect valueless; a loaf of bread in Germany now costs over 200 billion marks.

16 November 1923: Great Britain and Italy reject France’s proposal that it should occupy more parts of Germany.

17 November 1923: The Reichsbank in Berlin announces that its branches will no longer accept deposits after November.

23 November 1923: After losing a vote of confidence, the German Chancellor Stresemann resigns from office.

29 November 1923: Dr. Wilhelm Marx is appointed as German Chancellor.

29 November 1923: An international committee is set up under US banker William Dawes to investigate Germany’s economy and her ability to pay her war reparations.

06 December 1923: In Britain, Winston Churchill is defeated in the seat of West Leicester.

25 December 1923: Johann Dietrich Eckart dies of heart failure in Berchtesgaden, Germany.

 

1924

21 January 1924: Vladimir Llyich Ulyanov, known to the world simply as Lenin, dies from a stroke.

22 January 1924: In Moscow a council is appointed to succeed Lenin. Leon Kamenev, Gergory Zinoviev and Joseph Stalin forms the council.

25 January 1924: Premier Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia and the French Premier Poincare sign a treaty of alliance in Paris.

26 January 1924: Petrograd is renamed Leningrad in honour of the late Soviet leader Lenin.

27 January 1924: Mussolini’s Italy signs a pact with Yugoslavia which allows Italy to annex the free city of Fiume.

27 January 1924: Mussolini dissolves the Chamber of Deputies claiming that Parliamentary rule is causing anarchy.

01 February 1924: Britain recognises the USSR.

02 February 1924: In Moscow, Alexis Rykov becomes President of the Council of Commissars.

07 February 1924: Italy recognises the USSR and signs a commercial treaty with them.

26 February 1924: Adolf Hitler along with Erich von Ludendorff goes on trial for their part in the failed putsch in Munich.

10 March 1924: Rudolf Höss is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for his role in the murder of murder of Walther Kadow, a fellow Freikorps member who had been accused of betraying Albert Schlageter, a fellow Freikorps member to the French in 1923.

13 March 1924: Ahead of the general election, the Reichstag in Germany is dissolved.

Mid-February 1924: Gregor Strasser is arrested whilst trying to recruit an undercover police officer for the banned Nazi Party. He is charged with aiding and abetting high treason and sentenced to 15 months where he joined Hitler in Landsberg prison but was immediately released when he was elected as a member of the Lower Bavaria in the local parliament as leader of the V-S-B (Volkischer-Sozialer-Block)

29 March 1924: Dr Erich Zeigner, former Prime Minister and Justice Minister of Justice of Saxony is sentenced to three years imprisonment for corruption.

01 April 1924: Adolf Hitler is sentenced to 5 years in prison for his part in the attempted ‘Beer Hall Putsch’ on the 8^th November 1923 but could be out on parole in 6 months’ time. Ernst Röhm is released is released from prison. - Reinhard Heydrich is promoted to senior midshipman and attends the Naval Academy Mürwik (Marineschule Mürwik) in Mürwik, near the city of Flensburg. During his training, Heydrich would be called the ‘White Jew’ or ‘white Moses’ by some of his fellow cadets as a rumour was started that he was from Jewish descend.  During his training, Heydrich would strike up a friendship with Wilhelm Canaris (future head of Germany’s military intelligence unit) who was serving as an officer on the cruiser Berlin. Heydrich would be promoted to second naval lieutenant.

15 April 1924: In Paris, Britain and France agree to the Dawes Plan for German war reparations. The Dawes Plan, which was drawn up by the US banker Charles Dawes allows Germany to attain a loan of £45 million to help stabilise the German economy.

16 April 1924: Germany agrees to the Dawes Plan but will still require their Parliament to endorse it.

17 April 1924: Mussolini’s Fascists sweep to victory in the Italian general election.

04 May 1924: The Reichstag elections are held in Germany with the SPD gaining 100 seats by winning 6,008,900 votes (20.5 %) a loss of nearly one hundred thousand votes. Though still making them the largest single party in the Reichstag, the Nationalists (DNVP) came very close to the SPD by netting an incredible 95 seats (5,696,500) which accumulated to winning 19.5 % of the vote. With Hitler still in prison the NSDAP only manages to capture 6.5 % of the votes cast (1,918,300), this equalled 32 seats in the Reichstag.

07 July 1924: Adolf Hitler, announces is resignation as leader of the NSDAP and the withdrawal from politics in general. Hitler took this time to concentrate on finishing his book (Mein Kampf).

24 July 1924: Heinrich Himmler becomes Gregor Strasser’s secretary within the Lower Bavaria National Socialist Freedom Movement.

02 August 1924: In London, the Allied governments all agree to accept the Dawes Plans and urges Germany to officially endorse it.

08 August 1924: The Reichsbank has now become independent from the Reichstag. This is in line with the Dawes Plan which is aimed at preventing the German government from blindly printing banknotes as a way to control inflation. The Reichsbank, to promote a boost in confidence in the German financial system, they decide to replace the German mark with the new currency, the Reichsmark.

17 August 1924: French and Belgian troops leave the German towns of Offenburg and Appenweier.

29 August 1924: In Germany, the Reichstag endorses the Dawes Plan.

01 September 1924: Germany makes its first war reparation payment to the Allies following the Dawes Plan.

12 September 1924: The Italian Fascist Deputy, Armando Casalini is assassinated by communists on a tram in Rome.

22 September 1924: The League of Nations in Geneva a draft document making war illegal.

23 September 1924: The German government applies to join the League of Nations.

October 1924: Ernst Röhm writes to Ludendorff claiming that the SA is independent of its political wing (the NSDAP) and he demands its representation in the Reichstag.

01 October 1924: The draft plan to outlaw war is put before the League of Nations Assembly for deliberation.

04 October 1924: Mussolini declares that his Fascist Party is above the law.

28 October 1924: France recognises the Soviet Union.

11 November 1924: In New York, prices hit record highs on Wall Street as 2,258,399 shares are traded.

12 November 1924: Italy’s Mussolini opens his country’s new one-chamber parliament.

13 November 1924: In Italy, Mussolini introduces a bill that will allow women to vote in national elections.

30 November 1924: The last French and Belgian troops pullout of the Ruhr.

01 December 1924: Britain signs a commerce treaty with Germany.

05 December 1924: Benito Mussolini pushes through a bill in the Italian parliament to heavily suppresses the freedom of the press in Italy.

07 December 1924: The German general elections are held with the SPD winning 131 seats (7,881,000, 26.0%)) thus keeping them as the majority party in the Reichstag and with 103 (6,205,800 votes cast, 20.5%) while the NSDAP vote collapses to only 907,300 (3.0%) voters backing them, they ended up with 14 seats, a loss of 18 seats. The KPD (Communists) vote falls from 3,693,300 to 2,709,100, a loss of 17 seats to 45 seats.

11 December 1924: The German Chancellor Dr Wilhelm Marx resigns as Chancellor after conservative politicians oppose the Dawes Plan.

18 December 1924: Pope Pius XI denounces the Soviet Union.

20 December 1924: At 1215 hours, Adolf Hitler is freed from Landsberg prison after serving just 9 months his 5-year prison sentence as the authorities believe that with the Nazis in a financial mess and disintegrating fast Hitler was no longer a threat.  With his release, Hitler sets about rebuilding his party and this time, ensuring that he total control of the party levers and its members.

 

1925

03 January 1925: Mussolini assumes full dictatorial powers.

05 January 1925: Mussolini forms a new Fascist cabinet.

07 January 1925: The Germans launch Emden, their first warship since the Great War.

15 January 1925: In Berlin, Hans Luther becomes the German Chancellor

February 1925: Joseph Goebbels joins the NSDAP and soon becomes a good friend of Gregor Strasser.

14 February 1925: The bans that had been put into place against the NSDAP and the SA are officially lifted in Bavaria.

17 February 1925: Hitler meets with Gregor Strasser, who had just recently resigned as leader of the NSFB (National Socialist Freedom Movement)

25 February 1925: After Gregor Strasser’s meeting with Hitler on the 17^th, he joins the newly reformed NSDAP with the membership number 9. Strasser soon became The Nazis Gauleiter (Gau-leader-district leader

27 February 1925: Adolf Hitler makes his first public appearance in Munich since his release from prison

March 1925: After making a provocative speech to some 4,000 Party supporters, the authorities in Munich ban Hitler from speaking in public. A ban that would last for 3 years.

12 March 1925: Hitler appoints Heinrich Himmler as Gauleiter of Lower Bavaria.

29 March 1925: Presidential elections held in Germany with no candidate winning the overall majority, so a runoff election was held in April. This was the first Presidential elections held in Germany.

08 April 1925: In Berlin, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg announces that he will now stand as an independent candidate for the German Presidency. Hindenburg was a well-known supporter of the monarchy.

10 April 1925: Edouard Herriot resigns as Premier of France.

14 April 1925: King Boris of Bulgaria survives an assassination attempt on his life when his car is ambushed in Sofia by Bolsheviks.

17 April 1925: Paul Painleve becomes the French Premier.

26 April 1925: Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg is elected as Germany first elected President.

May 1925: Ernst Röhm resigns the leadership of the SA because of difficulties with Hitler concerning the role of the SA.

06 May 1925: Republicans in Germany protest against the election of Field Marshal von Hindenburg as President.

12 May 1925: Field Marshal von Hindenburg is sworn in as President of Germany.

16 June 1925: The French government accepts Germany’s offer of a security pact.

14 July 1925: French and Belgian troops begin to withdraw from the Ruhr in Germany.

18 July 1925: The first part (vol 1) of Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ (My struggle) is published in Germany.

22 July 1925: In Germany, President von Hindenburg grants an amnesty to prisoners jailed before June 15^th 1915.

17 August 1925: Rioting takes place in Vienna after Zionists open their conference in the city.

27 August 1925: France pulls all its troops out of the Ruhr.

01 September 1925: Ernst Thalmann becomes the leader of the German Communist Party (KPD).

15 September 1925: Germany is invited to attend the Locarno security conference which is to be staged in Switzerland.

05 -16 October 1925: The Locarno Conference convenes in Switzerland.

22 October 1925: Greek troops cross into Bulgaria after a border dispute.

24 October 1925: Bulgaria and Greece agree to allow the League of Nations help resolve their border dispute.

29 October 1925: Greece withdraws her troops from Bulgarian territory as requested by the League of Nations.

05 November 1925: In Italy, Mussolini bans all left-wing parties.

06 November 1925: Joseph Goebbels meets Adolf Hitler personally for the first time after Hitler summons him after hearing glowing reports about him. Hitler hoped to woo Goebbels away from his rival Gregor Strasser and into his own inner circle.

06 November 1925: In the Soviet Union, Kliment Voroshilov replaces Trotsky as head of the Red Army.

07 November 1925: In Italy, the Liberal Party merges with Mussolini’s Fascists.

09 November 1925: The Nazis establish the Schutzstaffel, protection squad which would later evolve into the Schutzstaffel [SS].

20 November 1925: The Freemasons and other secret societies are banned by the Fascist government in Italy.

23 November 1925: Painleve resigns as the French Premier.

26 November 1925: The German Reichstag approves the Locarno agreement.

28 November 1925: Aristide Briand becomes the new French Premier.

01 December 1925: The Locarno treaties are signed by European powers.

05 December 1925: In Germany, Dr Luther resigns as Chancellor.

24 December 1925: In Italy, Benito Mussolini declares that he is answerable only to the King of Italy.

 

1926

03 January 1926: In Rome, Mussolini now holds the offices of Prime Minister; Foreign Minister and War Minister.

29 January 1926: In Russia, all students have to do compulsory military training.

31 January 1926: In Italy, Benito Mussolini assumes the power to rule by decree.

03 February1926: In Czechoslovakia, ‘Czech’ becomes the country’s official language and rights of minority groups are guaranteed.

08 February 1926: The German government applies to join the League of Nations.

09 March 1926: The League of Nations in Geneva considers Germany’s request to join the League.

10 March 1926: Gregor Strasser, Adolf Hitler’s main rival in the Nazi Party is confined to bed for several weeks after his car was hit by a freight train at the level crossing in Altenessen. Strasser suffered severe leg injuries. Hitler takes this opportunity to continue his wooing of Joseph Goebbels.

13 March 1926: The League of Nations refuses Germany a permanent seat on the League council.

07 April 1926: Joseph Goebbels meets Hitler again in Munich. Hitler turns on the charm and organises a grand reception for his future prodigy in an attempt to encourage him away from the Strasser camp. Violet Gibson, a British citizen, shoots Benito Mussolini in an assassination attempt. The bullet grazes Mussolini’s nose but apart from that he remains unhurt. Gibson is released without charge but ends her days in a mental hospital in England.

24 April 1926: Germany signs a friendship treaty [The Treaty of Berlin] with the Soviet Union.

May 1926: Hitler calls a general membership meeting in Munich. The German National Socialist Workers Association in Munich is made the sole bearer of the movement.

12 May 1926:  The German Chancellor Luther resigns from office.

17 May 1926: In Germany, Socialist Dr Wilhelm Marx is appointed Chancellor after Luther quits.

Early July 1926: The NSDAP (Nazi Party) holds its first rally since the failed putsch. The rally is held at Weimar in Thüringa.

04 July 1926: The Hitler-Jugend [Hitler Youth] is formed as the youth movement of the Nazi Party.

08 September 1926: Germany joins the League of Nations.

September 1926: Hitler appoints Pfeffer von Salomon as national commander of the newly reconstituted SA, thus removing another ally of Gregor Strasser and placing him firmly in his own camp. At about this time the newly formed Schutzstaffel (protection Squads or simply better known as the SS) which was a development out of Hitler’s original bodyguard, the Strosstrupp Adolf Hitler came under von Salomon’s command.

07 October 1926: Italy becomes a one-party-state as Mussolini assumes total power.

23 October 1926: In Italy, women are banned from holding public office.

31 October 1926: In Rome, A 15-year-old boy, Anteo Zamboni is lynched after he shoots at Mussolini in a failed assassination attempt. The bullet tears the Fascist leaders’ coat.

02 November 1926: Mussolini survives an assassination attempt by an 18-year-old boy. After the incident Pope Pius claims that the Duce has God’s full protection.

07 November 1926: Joseph Goebbels arrives in Berlin as Hitler’s Gau (District leader) for that city, replacing Dr Ernst Schlange. The Nazis had made very little progress in Berlin due to the fact that Berlin was a communist stronghold. A few members of the party believed and hoped that Goebbels would fail in turning the tide in favour of the Nazi Party. He is met by Otto Strasser, Gregory’s brother, who had arranged for him to stay with the editor of the Berliner Lokalzeitung, Hans Steiger and his wife in their spacious apartment near Potsdamer Bridge.

14 November 1926: To grab much needed media attention, Joseph Goebbels, the new NSDAP Gau of Berlin, marches a group of Nazi Brownshirts (SA) through the heavily ‘Red’ area of Neukolln. The Brown Shirts, who were heavily outnumbered fled after being attacked by the Rotfrontkamperbund (Red Front Fighters) after Goebbels made a provocative speech. He had achieved what he had set out to achieve, that being to let everyone know that he meant business.

25 November 1926: In Italy, Mussolini restores the death penalty.

10 December 1926: Adolf Hitler has the second part of ‘Mein Kampf’ (My Struggle) published.

15 December 1926: In Italy, the Roman fasces[1] is adopted as the country’s national emblem.

25 December 1926: In Japan Hirohito becomes Emperor.

 

1927

Early January 1927: Joseph Goebbels finds new four-room premises with access to telephones at 44 Lutzowstrasse for his Berlin headquarters.

17 February 1927: In Germany Martin Bormann joins the NSDAP as member 60,508.

19 June 1927: Heinrich Himmler finishes reading the first volume of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

04 July 1927: Joseph Goebbels new Nazi newspaper, Der Angriff (The Attack) hits the streets of Berlin.

20 July 1927: King Michael I is enthroned in Romania.

September 1927: Heinrich Himmler is made Second-in-Command of the SS.

13 September 1927: On behalf of the SS leadership, Himmler issues his SS Order No 1, which states a strict dress and conduct code for members of the SS. SS men were to wear their uniforms at all times whilst on duty or at party meetings. They also had to parade for inspection prior to every meeting. They were not allowed to smoke, take part or interrupt speeches, and they were forbidden to leave the meeting whilst the speeches ongoing. SS men were not to take sides in quarrels and not involve themselves in anything that did not concern them. They were also to take on intelligence duties, that is to say that they were to gather information on their own political leaders and the SA as well as external political movements and potential enemies of the party.

02 October 1927: President von Hindenburg celebrates his 80th birthday and the Reichstag grants an amnesty for all those who had either been imprisoned or exiled for political offences. Hermann Göring would use the amnesty to return to Germany after he fled the country after the failed Beer Hall Putsch.

December 1927: Heinrich Himmler reads the second volume of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

27 December 1927: Josef Stalin is confirmed as Soviet leader.

 

1928

January 1928: Under Stalin’s orders, Leon Trotsky is exiled to Alma Ata in Kazakhstan.

April 1928:  In an attempt to alleviate the fears of the land-owing classes in time for the forthcoming elections Hitler claims that ‘Point 17’ of the Party Programme is solely aimed at Jews. Point 17 proclaimed: ‘A reform of land-ownership and an end to land speculation.’

20 May 1928: In Germany the Reichstag elections takes place. In this election Hitler’s NSDAP decide to put up a candidate for all of the 35 electoral districts. Hitler as yet, still cannot stand for the Reichstag as he still does not have German citizenship even though he had renounced his Austrian citizenship back in 1925. The Nazis had a disappointing result, they polled only 809,771 votes throughout the country, down 100,000 whilst the communists increased their vote by some 500,000 to 3.25 million. It was however the Social Democrats night as they stormed home with an impressive 9 million votes. Out of the Reichstag’s 500 seats, the Nazis gained only 12, in which two of them went to Goebbels and Göring.

13 June 1928: The 12 Nazi Reichstag deputies take their seats in the German parliament.

01 July 1928: Reinhard Heydrich is promoted to first lieutenant and was posted to the Baltic Naval Station in Kiel.

03 July 1928: Heinrich Himmler and Margarete Boden, the daughter of a German landowner in Gonzerzewo, West Prussia, are married.

14 July 1928: The Reichstag passed an ‘Amnesty Act’ for those imprisoned for political crimes and as such Rudolf Höss is released from custody as part of this amnesty.

August 1928: Hitler calls a conference of the Party leadership. Here he switches the Party’s priorities from the cities to the countryside and redraws the boundaries of each of the Gaues in which the Party is organised.

27 August 1928: Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, the USA, and most of the members of the League of Nations sign up to the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The Pact is designed to renounce war as a means to settling disputes amongst nations. Its major flaw however was that the nations had no real power to enforce the Pact.

 

1929

 

January 1929:  A second conference of the NSDAP Party leadership sees the completion of the reorganisation of the Party which had originally been started two years previously.

20 January 1929: After exactly one year as deputy leader of the SS Heinrich Himmler is appointed Reichsführer of the SS. The SS at this stage of its development barely consisted of 280 men, which was scattered across Germany.

11 February 1929: 11 February 1929: Benito Mussolini and Cardinal Gaspar (the Vatican's Secretary of State) sign a treaty within the Lateran Palace [Lateran Treaty]. This allows the ‘Vatican City’ to be recognised as an independent state with the Pope [Holy See] as its permanent head of state.

15 February 1929: In Germany, it is estimated that there is now some 3.2 million people without employment.

24 March 1929:  Mussolini’s Fascist Party receives almost 100% of the votes cast in the Italian elections.

11 April 1929: Germany refuses Leon Trotsky’s appeal for political asylum.

20 April 1929: King Victor Emmanuel of Italy and Benito Mussolini open the country’s first all-fascist parliament.

May 1929: Elections held in Germany.

01 May 1929: In Berlin, eight people die in the May Day marches as communists clash with the police.

03 May 1929: Berlin is declared a city in a state of siege as nine more people die in riots.

22 May 1929: Benito Mussolini’s fascist government bans beauty shows claiming that they are immoral.

07 June 1929: The Vatican City is now 'officially' declared as a ‘State’ after Benito Mussolini after Cardinal Gaspari signed the ‘Lateran Treaty’, back in February. 

12 June 1929:  Diarist Anne Frank is born in Frankfurt on Main in Germany.

28 July 1929: In Geneva, forty-eight countries sign a convention for the treatment of prisoners-of-war.

03-04 August 1929: The NSDAP holds its most impressive rally to-date. Some 200,000 party members and supporters attend the Munich based rally and some 60,000 Uniformed SA men parade before Hitler.

29 October 1929: The New York Stock Market collapses (Black Thursday) as nearly 13 million shares changed hands as panic selling caused widespread chaos. By midday the leading bankers In New York held an emergency meeting to discuss the crises and this meeting spread rumour and panic which in turn sent prices back up again and in turn fuelled the crises. The effect of Black Thursday was especially felt in Germany as the flow of US dollars that had been helping to prop up the German economy and war reparations were abruptly cut off and all short-term loans were called in which inturn burst the economic bubble that was fuelling the German economy and plummeting it eventually into an abyss which in turn created the perfect conditions for Hitler’s National Socialists to reap electoral capital.

17 November 1929: The NSDAP wins 132.097 (5.8%) votes in the City of Berlin council elections. The Communists still hold the majority vote by winning a staggering 40.6% of the total votes cast.

12 December 1929: The last British troops on the Rhine leave their base at Wiesbaden.

 

1930

January 1930: The National assembly in France vote in favour of building the Maginot Line.

January 1930 The Strasser brothers announce that they intend to launch a new daily paper on 1^st March 1930, this angers Goebbels as he believes it is a blatant attempt by the brothers to destroy his own local paper, Der Angriff and as a way of undermining him as Gau of Berlin.

01 January 1930: In Berlin, eight Jews are murdered by members of the Sturmabteilung (SA).

05 January 1930: Stalin declares all farms in the Soviet Union as ‘collective farms.’

14 January 1930:  Brown Shirt member Horst Wessel, leader of Storm Unit 5, the Alexanderplatz section, who had been assigned to the run-down and notorious Fischerkiez area of Berlin is shot in the head by a group of Communists after they discovered where he lived. He was rushed to the nearest hospital.

15 January 1930: In Britain, Ramsay MacDonald urges all the world powers scrap their battleships.

21 January-22 April 1930:  In London, a naval conference agrees to limit the size of its fleet.

29 January 1930: Heinrich Himmler writes to his old mentor Ernst Röhm, who is acting as a military advisor in Bolivia, stating that the SS are growing in numbers and that enlistment in the organisation is becoming more and more selective.

23 February 1930: After six weeks in critical condition Horst Wessel dies in Hospital. Joseph Goebbels turns the death of the volunteer into a propaganda coup and turns Wessel into a major Nazi Martyr.

01 March 1930: Horst Wessel is given a martyr’s funeral.

10 March 1930: The unemployment levels in Britain tops 1.5 million.

27 March 1930: The coalition government in Germany collapses after they could not agree on unemployment insurance contributions. Hermann Muller, the Social Democrat Chancellor tried in vain to get President von Hindenburg to allow him to rule by emergency decree but the aging President refused to allow this and decided to call new elections and at the same time appoints a new Chancellor, Heinrich Bruning, leader of the Catholic Centre Party. Bruning was told by the President that he could run the country by Presidential decree which meant he did not have to rely on the Reichstag.

April 1930: The trade unions in Saxony declares a strike. Otto Strasser backed the strike and used his paper in Berlin ‘Arbeitsblatt’ to promote the strike which caused a backlash from Hitler as Hitler was opposed to the strike.

26 April 1930: Hitler calls a party leadership meeting in Munich to discuss how to deal with his closet rival, Gregor Strasser and his followers within the party. At the meeting he gives the Strasser an ultimatum, he had to finish with his newspapers or he would be fired from his post as organisation leader, after which he ripped into the Strasser’s political ideas and policies and then demanded that he and his supporters toe the line, and that line was controlled by Hitler himself. At the meeting Hitler appoints Joseph Goebbels as Reich Propaganda Fuehrer.

21 May 1930: In Germany, Otto Strasser is requested to attend a meeting with Hitler at his hotel in Berlin, to discuss his support for the strikers.

26 May 1930: The International Olympic Committee in Paris recommends Berlin be the host for the 1936 games.

08 June 1930:  King Michael I of Romania abdicates and is by replaced with Carol II.

12 June 1930: In Germany, Max Schmeling beats the American Jack Sharkey for the heavyweight boxing championship of the world.

23 June 1930: In London, Neville Chamberlain becomes Chairman of the Conservative Party.

End of June1930: Hitler instructs Goebbels, as Gauleiter of Berlin, to expel Otto Strasser and his supporters from the Party.

01 July 1930: Last of the French troops leave the Rhineland.

16 July 1930: In Germany, Otto Strasser and his supporters are expelled from the NSDAP.

18 July 1930: The German Reich President dissolves the Reichstag. The new elections are to be held on 14 September 1930.

16 July 1930: The German President von Hindenburg uses his Presidential decree to pass the German budget after the Reichstag refused to pass it.

14 September 1930: Reichstag elections.  The Social Democratic Part [SDP] secure the most seats with 143 representatives being returned to parliament even though they lost 10 seats. The NSDAP went from 12 seats to winning 107, Hitler’s percentage of the vote went from just 2.6 % to 18.3 %, thus making them the second largest group in the Reichstag.  The Communist Party [KPD] of Germany became the third largest party with 77 seats won. The Centre Party won 68 seats and the German National People’s Party [DNVP] won 41 and the German People’s Party secured just 30 seats. 

25 September 1930: Hitler denounces the Versailles Treaty and promises to build a large conscript army if ever he wins power.

06 October 1930: The German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning meets with Adolf Hitler.   

13 October 1930: Hermann Goering alongside 106 other Nazi Reichstag members in defiance of a ban wears the uniform of the SA in the Reichstag chamber whilst SA men demonstrated outside the building.

12 November 1930: Ernst Röhm, now back in Germany meets Joseph Goebbels for the first time in the Nazi Party’s new headquarter, the Brown House.

06 December 1930: Reinhard Heydrich meets Lina von Osten at a dance in Kiel, the two would later marry. Lina, alongside her brother Hans, were already members of the NSDAP (Hans was a member of the SA) and she was a committed antisemite. Heydrich seemed to be uninterested in politics and at times had even mocked Hitler and Goebbels.

18 December 1930: Reinhard and Lina von Osten become engaged to marry. 

 

1931

January 1931: The National Socialist Factory Cell Organisation (NSBO) is accepted as a fully organ of the Party.

January 1931: Reinhard Heydrich is summoned to attend a military court of honour after a young woman with whom Heydrich had been sexually involved with and who believed that she and Heydrich were ‘unofficially engaged’ to marry complains that her honour had been besmirched after learning that Heydrich planned to marry another woman [Lina von Osten].  The way Heydrich handles the complaint during the court of honour infuriates those presiding over it 9He denied that he ever planned to marry the young woman and that it was she who initiated the sexual activity between them).  The results of the court were forwarded onto admiral Raeder to decide his fate.

05 January 1931: Ernst Röhm takes over as SA chief.

10 February 1931: Joseph Goebbels persuades the NSDAP members of the Reichstag to walk out of the chamber in protest at government plans to limit abuses of parliamentary immunity. Goebbels needed the immunity to prevent himself being sued in a court of law due to some of his controversial speeches prior to his election to the Reichstag.

01 March 1931: Albert Speer joins the NSDAP. Membership number: 474,481.

14 March 1939: Slovakia proclaims its independence

28 March 1931: President von Hindenburg, in an attempt to quash political violence, issues an emergency decree, stating that all political meetings and gatherings be registered and all posters and pamphlets be censored.

April 1931: Reinhard Heydrich is dishonourably discharged from the German navy on charges of impropriety.

30 April 1931: Reinhard Heydrich is expelled from the navy after being accused of bringing the officer corps into disrepute.  Admiral Raeder felt that Heydrich had besmirched a woman’s honour and by doings so insulted the navy.

29 May 1931: Joseph Mengele joins the Freikorp.

01 June 1931: After being offered a position with rank within the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad) which was still technically under the control of Ernst Röhm and his Sturmabteilung [SA] but was now being run by Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich joins the NSDAP [number: 554,916] as prerequisite of taking the job.

14 June 1931: Reinhard Heydrich meets with Heinrich Himmler to discuss the potential job within the SS. Himmler was looking for someone who understood intelligence work and how to set-up such an organisation, and thanks to an old friend of Heydrich’s, Himmler was led to believe that he had worked within Admiral Raeder’s intelligence network within the navy, but Heydrich pointed out that he hadn’t been an intelligence officer. Himmler was greatly impressed with Heydrich at the interview that he asked him to draw up a draft of how he would go about creating an intelligence unit within the SS.  Impressed with his draft, Himmler decided to give offer him the job. 

24 June 1931: The Treaty of Berlin which was signed on 24^th April 1926, is renewed with additional protocols (see also 5^th May 1933).

14 July 1931: Reinhard Heydrich becomes an active member of the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad/SS). 

10 August 1931: Under orders from the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich sets up a counter-espionage unit known as an ‘Ic’ section of the SS in Munich. The unit was the Schutzstaffel’s [SS] attempt at building a security service, which would eventually mushroom into the notorious Sicherheitsdienst [SD]. Heydrich modelled his Ic on the German army’s Ic department, which was also a counter-espionage department.  The unit would keep tabs on all actual and potential enemies of the Nazi Party [Social Democrats, Communists etc] and seek out enemies whom had infiltrated the Nazi party and subsidiary groups [The SA and SS] for the sole purpose to spy on the movement and its leaders. Heydrich had been catapulted into the heart of the SS and would become Himmler’s right-hand man.

18 September 1931: Hitler’s half-sister, Angela’s daughter Geli, who was 23 years old and totally under Hitler’s will commits suicide in her room within Hitler’s apartment in Prinzeregentenplatz in Munich after Hitler leaves to attend a meeting in Hamburg.

October 1931: Karl Wolf joins the SS.

04 October 1931: Hermann Göring receives an urgent telegram from Hitler asking him to return to Berlin at once as events have started to move swiftly in the Nazis favour. The economic situation in Germany was becoming worse by the day, especially after has two major banks had collapsed and with unemployment passing 5 million. Politicians close to the President started to look at the Nazis for answers and started to apply pressure for the aging President to do the same.

10 October 1931:  Hitler meets President von Hindenburg after being persuaded to meet him to ask his help to form a new government. The meeting was a total failure. Hitler had suffered a bout of nerves and had launched into one of his infamous monologues which did not impress the aging President one little bit. Unimpressed and bored with Hitler, Hindenburg abruptly brings the meeting to a close stating to Schleicher that ‘Hitler could never be considered as the next Chancellor of Germany, Minister of Posts maybe, but never Chancellor’.

November 1931: In Germany, the Frankfurt police come into possession of secret draft documents, known as the Boxheim Papers, which were drafted by local Nazi leaders in Hesse, which set out preparations for a Nazi coup if a Communist rising occurred. The papers included decrees for the immediate execution of anyone resisting, refusing to co-operate with the Nazis or found in possession of firearms. Hitler claimed to have no knowledge of these sensational documents.

01 December 1931: Reinhard Heydrich is promoted SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain)

19 December 1931: Joseph Goebbels marries Magda Quandt in Goldenbow, Mecklenburg. Goebbels best man on the day is Adolf Hitler himself.

28 December 1931: Reinhard Heydrich marries Lina von Osten in the St Catherine’s Church, Großenbrode [Grossenbrode], near Heiligenhafen on the Baltic coast. As a wedding gift, Himmler promotes Heydrich to SS-Sturmbannführer (Major).

31 December 1931: The SS Race Office is set up to maintain the racial and ideological purity of the SS by Heinrich Himmler. Heinrich Himmler issued his ‘SS Marriage Order’ which encouraged all unmarried SS men to find suitable wives, which would be vetted for suitability[2] of becoming members of the SS community that Himmler was building, and any SS man who marries without first obtaining an SS marriage certificate would be expelled from the SS.

 

1932

January 1932:  Reinhard Heydrich is promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer (major).

05 January 1932:  Hitler receives a telegram from General Groener, who was Germanys Defence Minister and acting Minister of the Interior, asking him to attend an urgent meeting in Berlin with him. Hitler believing that his time had come exclaims ‘Now I have them in my pocket! They have recognised that they have to negotiate with me’.

06 January 1932: Hitler meets with General Wilhelm Groener, acting Interior Minister as well as Defence Minister, and Otto Meissner, Hindenburg’s State Secretary in Berlin.

07 January 1932:  The German Deputy Police Commissioner Bernhard Weiss imposes another 7-day ban on Goebbels newspaper Der Angriff after the paper insulted the Jewish faith.

09 January 1933:  Germany defaults of her war reparation payments.

12 January 1932: Hitler rejects Chancellor Brüning’s plan to extend the President’s term of office, but he does offer the President his support if he would sack Chancellor Brüning and call new elections to the Reichstag as well as the Prussian Landtag. President von Hindenburg rejects Hitler’s offer.

27 January 1932: Hitler makes a speech to a group of industrialists at the Industry Club in Dusseldorf. In his speech Hitler reassured his audience that he and his party would protect their interests, especially against the communist menace. After the speech the industrialists gave Hitler a standing ovation and a few days later, the party received large financial donations from a large group of industrialists.

15 February 1932: President von Hindenburg announces that he will stand for the Presidential office again and with the date of the election set for 13 March 1932 by the Presidential Commission.

February 1932: Adolf Hitler is persuaded by Joseph Goebbels to stand against President von Hindenburg in the forthcoming Presidential elections, but before he could stand Hitler first had to attain German citizenship.

22 February 1932: Joseph Goebbels announces to a packed party members meeting in the Berlin Sportpalast of Hitler’s candidacy for Reich President.

26 February 1932: Adolf Hitler swears his oath of allegiance and becomes a German citizen.

13 March 1932: Presidential elections take place in Germany. Hitler decides to stay in Munich for the results. Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg polls 18,651,497 (40.6 %) votes, Adolf Hitler gains an impressive 11,339,446 (30.1 %) with the communist leader Ernst Thalmann accumulating 4,983,341 and Theodor Duesterberg of the DNVP only managing a mere 2,557,729 votes. With Hindenburg just missing the absolute majority needed to return him to the Presidential palace another Presidential election was called. Hindenburg regarded the results as insulting. The little ‘Bohemian’ (Hitler) had forced him into a rerun. The 10 April 1932 is set for the new election date. Chancellor Bruning, in an attempt to hinder the Nazis decreed that no electioneering for the Presidential election could take place until 04 April 1932.

17 March 1932: The police raid the SA office in Berlin finding documents indicating a possible coup d’état if Hitler was to win the election. This was a huge embarrassment to Hitler, if it could be proved that he knew about the plot, the police could arrest him and charge him with high treason. The race was on to calm things down. Ernst Röhm reassured Schleicher whilst Göring called a press conference at the Kaiserhof where he made it clear that the NSDAP would stay within the confines of legality and that no coup d’état was planned.

April 1932: Because of an escalation of violence, The German government placed a ban on the wearing of political uniforms such as the SA’s and SS’s. Though both organisations openly flaunted the ban.

April 1932: Joseph Goebbels, borrowing a small Junkers passenger plane from the National Socialist Flying Corps, to fly Hitler from venue-to-venue. He termed the saying ‘The Fuhrer over Germany’ for propaganda purposes.

10 April 1932: The second Presidential elections take place in Germany with von Hindenburg taking 53 per cent of the total votes cast (19,359,983 votes) whilst Hitler’s share of the vote increased to 13,418,547 (37 %) up by 2 million, with the communist leader Ernst Thalmann losing over a million. Hindenburg is returned to office as President of Germany.

April 1932: The Prussian Landtag elections are held with the NSDAP taking 36.3 per cent of the votes which saw their number of seats rise from 6 to 162, making them the largest party in the Landtag, though this still did not give them an overall majority and in turn they could not form a government. Elections also took place in Anhalt, Bavaria, Hamburg and Wurttemberg in which the NSDAP did extremely well but it was in Anhalt that they had their first real taste of success, here they won 40.9 per cent of the votes which enabled them to appoint their first Minister-President.

12 May 1932: Outside the Chamber in the German Reichstag, 4 NSDAP Reichstag members assaulted a journalist whom had published letters written by Ernst Röhm detailing his homosexual tendencies’. The 4 men refused to be expelled from the chamber as their colleagues in the Reichstag chamber started a quarrel with other the members. After a while the police had to be called in.

25 May 1932: Joseph Goebbels, whom had gained a seat in the Prussian Landtag to gain extra immunity started a fight with his 162 Nazi members against 80 communist members. Their missiles were chairs and inkpots. The aim of the fight was to destabilise the Landtag.

29 May 1932: The NSDAP win their first majority in the Landtag elections in Oldenburg. Out of 46 seats they take control of 24.

April 1932: The bans that were imposed on the SA and SS, as well as other organisations are lifted by the German Chancellor.

01 April 1932: Adolf Karl Eichmann joins the NSDAP.

01 May 1932:  Joachim von Ribbentrop joins the NSDAP as member 1,199,927.

30 May/April 1932: Hindenburg sacks his chancellor, Heinrich Brüning with plans to promote Franz von Papen and then summons Hitler and Göring and asks them if they will honour the agreement that they made with von Schleicher to support a new government he was about to form. In return Hindenburg promised to lift the bans that were currently in place against the SA and SS and the dissolution of parliament. Hitler promised the aging president that he would abide by his promise.

June 1932: With the ban on the SA still in place, Joseph Goebbels leads a group of uniformed SA men to a large and busy restaurant on the Potsdamer Strasse, hoping that the police would attempt to arrest them, however, the police refused to take the bait and did nothing.

June 1932: Reinhard Heydrich is promoted to Standartenführer [colonel].

02 June 1932: In Germany von Papen is named as the new Chancellor.

04 June 1932: The German Reichstag is dissolved.

06 June 1932: Rudolf Jordan, the Gauleiter of Halle-Magdeburg contacts Gregor Strasser to enquire if the rumours that he is hearing about Reinhard Heydrich are true, that he is of Jewish heritage and was the party looking into the allegation, and if not, they should certainly do so. Strasser asked the party’s expert in genealogies, Dr. Achim Gercke to look into the matter. Gercke would later confirm that the rumours were false and that a proper investigation was carried out. On hearing that the rumours were resurfacing, Heydrich employed his own specialist in the field of investigation, Ernst Hoffman, an SD officer to investigate his genealogy in greater detail, so that his own mind could be put to rest and that he had evidence to prove his Germanic stock.

13 June 1932: Hitler meets with the new Chancellor, von Papen and demands that he stop dragging his feet and lifts the bans that had been imposed on his movement.

16 June 1932:  Franz von Papen, the German Chancellor finally lifts the bans that had been imposed on the SA. With the bans lifted the Brownshirts (SA) went looking to antagonise local communist groups. Violent pitched battles spread across Germany.

16 June-09 July 1932: The Lausanne Conference agrees to end German war reparations.

17 July 1932: Escorted by police the SA stage a march through a staunch communist area of Hamburg as a way pick a fight with them. The communists took the bait and one of the bloodiest street battles takes place. At least 19 people died and 285 wounded as gunfire ruled the streets. In response von Papen banned all further demonstrations and parades until after the forthcoming elections.

18 July 1932: Joseph Goebbels speaks on the Radio for the first time.

End July 1932: Reinhard Heydrich is promoted to SS-Standartenführer (full colonel).

31 July 1932: The NSDAP wins 230 seats in the Reichstag elections in Germany capturing 13,745,000 (37.3%) votes. Though again they fail to gain the majority in the Reichstag which in itself was a disappointment to the Nazi leadership.

04 August 1932: At Furstenberg army base near Berlin, Hitler secretly meets the German Defence Minister Schleicher to discuss his demands in relation to any new government being formed. He demands for himself the Chancellors office as well as Minister-President of Prussia, the Interior Minister’s job for Wilhelm Frick, Goering to be awarded the Aviation Ministers post, Goebbels is to be made a minister for a new ministry for the Education of the People, the Labour Ministry is to go to Gregor Strasser and Schleicher would remain Defence Minister. Later Hitler would reshuffle his would-be-cabinet…Instead of the Labour Ministry, Strasser would be awarded the Interior Ministries of Prussia and Germany itself, whilst Wilhelm Frick would be State Secretary in the Reich Chancellery.

09 August 1932: Five SA men murder a communist miner in front of his mother in the town of Potempa Later at their trial the SA men are sentenced to death. While awaiting their sentence to be carried out the SA leader Ernst Röhm visits them in prison whilst Goebbels lauds them as martyrs in hi newspaper Der Angriff.

13 August 1932: Hitler is offered the vice-chancellorship under von Papen but his sights are set much higher and so refuses the post.

22 August 1932: Hitler sends a telegram to the 5 SA men condemned to death for murdering a communist miner on the 9^th August 1932, stating his support for them and promising to do all he can to help them. In the eyes of a lot of ordinary Germans, Hitler it seems supports gangsterism and their support for the Nazis begin to waiver.

24 August 1932: The 5 SA men who murdered a communist miner on the 9^th August 1932 have their death sentences commuted.

30 August 1932: Herman Göring, one of the Nazis who won a seat in Germany’s last elections is elected as President of the Reichstag.

01 September 1932: Joseph Goebbels becomes a father with the birth of his daughter Helga.

12 September 1932: At the first working session of the Reichstag turns in a farce when the Nazis and communist members vote against von Papen’s government in a motion of ‘no confidence’, von Papen had tried to use the Presidential emergency decree to dissolve the parliament before the vote could be held but Göring as Reichstag President ignored Papen and the decree.

November 1932: Eva Braun, attempts suicide by trying to shoot herself. She is found with a bullet in her neck.

06 November 1932: Germany again goes back to the polling stations to elect members for the Reichstag.  The NSDAP see a sharp decline in support as they go from 230 seats to 19, from 37% of the vote to 33%.  The Social Democratic Party [SPD] vote also declined, from 133 seats (21%) to 121 seats (20%), whilst the Communist Party of Germany [KDP] vote rose from 14% of the vote to nearly 6% of the vote, thus securing 100 seats, 11 seats up from last election).  This decline in support for the two top parties created more instability within Germany, where the members of the top echelons of society began to fear a communist revolution, and as such, pressure was put onto Hindenburg to bring the Nazis into government, by offering Hitler the position of Vice-Chancellor within a coalition government. Politicians like von Papen believed that they could tame (control) Hitler, and when he was no longer useful, dispense with his services, but again, Hitler refused to take the bait, and held out for the office of Chancellor.

17 November 1932: Whilst trying to woe Mussolini in Rome, Göring receives an urgent message from Hitler stating that he must return at once as von Papen’s government had resigned and Hitler had been summoned by Hindenburg.

19 November 1932: Hitler accompanied by Göring meets Hindenburg. At the meeting the President asks Hitler about his party’s policies after which Hindenburg states that he would like to see Hitler taking part in a new government and was asked to go away and think about it further.

24 November 1932: After much deliberation Hitler decides not to accept Hindenburg’s offer to be part of the government believing that he can achieve real power if he bides his time.

02 December 1932: President von Hindenburg selects his defence minister Schleicher as Chancellor thus replacing von Papen. One of the first things Schleicher as Chancellor does is to try to split the NSDAP by offering Hitler’s main rival within the party, Gregor Strasser, the offices of Vice-Chancellor and Minister-President of Prussia. Strasser though tempted with the offer decided to turn it down, instead he tried in vain get Hitler to accept a share of power in the new government and even threatening to break away and form his own party if Hitler still refused.

03 December 1932: The German Chancellor Franz von Papen resigns from office and General Kurt von Schleicher becomes Germany's new Chancellor. Schleicher had been secretly undermining von Papen's Chancellorship so that he could take over as Chancellor.  Schleicher had tried to bring Hitler into his cabinet but when Hitler refused, he opened up talks with Gregor Strasser offering him the role as Vice-Chancellor.  Once Hitler discovered that Schleicher had initiated talks with Strasser, he flew into a fit of rage, accusing him of treachery and ordered Strasser to reject the offer.  Schleicher had hoped that Strasser's appointment would seriously weaken the NSDAP and thereby end Hitler’s attempts to win the office of Chancellorship for himself.

08 December 1932: Gregor Strasser resigned from all party offices that he held within the NSDAP due to pressure being piled onto him after Chancellor Schleicher’s offer of vice-Chancellorship.

 

 

[1] fasces, insignia of official authority in ancient Rome. The name derives from the plural form of the Latin fascis (“bundle”). The fasces were carried by the lictors, or attendants, and was characterized by an axe head projecting from a bundle of elm or birch rods about 5 feet (1.5 metres) long and tied together with a red strap; it symbolized penal power. https://www.britannica.com/topic/fasces

[2] That they were of pure Aryan stock and therefore void of Jewish blood and other undesirable characteristics. 

 

[i] Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6. p.108