Early timeline of Nazism
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The early timeline of Nazism begins with its origins and continues until Hitler's rise to power.
Weimar Republic
1920
- Many Freikorps were disbanded. Some go underground, to reappear later.
- January: The DAP grows to 190 members.[1]
- February: Inter-Allied Control Commission order 2/3 of Freikorps disbanded.
- 24 February: DAP changes its name to National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). The party announces its programme in the Hofbräuhaus, known as the "25 points."[2][3][4]
- 13 to 17 March: Kapp Putsch
- 31 March: Adolf Hitler mustered out of the army.[5]
- April: Government stops paying Freikorps units.
- 3 April: 21 different Freikorps units, under the command of General Baron Oskar von Watter, annihilate the Ruhr Uprising in five days; thousands killed.
- 10 May: Dr. Joseph Wirth and Walter Rathenau announce their "Policy of Fulfillment"; not received well by nationalist groups.
- 8 August: Official founding date of the NSDAP
- 11 August: National Disarmament Law takes effect; disbands civil guards.
- 19 to 25 August: Second Silesian uprising, German Freikorps see more combat.
- 17 December: NSDAP buys its first paper, the Völkischer Beobachter.
- 31 December: NSDAP party membership was recorded at 2000.[1]
1921
- Third Silesian uprising; German forces see more combat.
- Hermann Erhardt forms Organisation Consul, a paramilitary group, out of former members of his banned Freikorps.
- Eugen Fischer, Erwin Baur, and Fritz Lenz publish the standard work of German racialism, Menschliche Erblichkeitslehre und Rassenhygiene (Human Hereditary Teaching and Racial Hygiene), a work which later helps form part of the scientific basis to the Nazi racial hygiene policies and their euthanasia campaign.[6]
- February 1921: highly effective at speaking to large audiences—Hitler spoke to a crowd of over 6,000 in Munich.[1]
- 28 July: Adolf Hitler is elected Vorsitzender (chairman) of the NSDAP with only one dissenting vote. Executive Committee of the party is dissolved. Party Founder Anton Drexler is made "Honorary Chairman" and resigns from the party soon after. Hitler soon begins to refer to himself as "Der Führer" (The Leader).[7]
- August 1921: NSDAP party membership was recorded at 3,300.[1]
1922
- Prototype versions of the Hitler Youth form.
- The Prussian State Health Commission for Racial Hygiene (Preussischer Landesgesundheitsrat für Rassenhygiene) works to centralise the institute's research concerning the practical application of racial hygiene, eugenics and anthropology.[8]
- 12 January: Adolf Hitler sentenced to three months for disturbance of 14 September 1921.
- 24 June: Hitler incarcerated; German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau assassinated, some involved are in the Organisation Consul.
- July: Inflation hits the German economy: 670 RM = 1 US$
- 27 July: Hitler released.
- August: 2,000 RM = US$1
- October: 4,500 RM = US$1
- 28 October: Benito Mussolini establishes his Fascist dictatorship in Italy.
- November: 10,000 RM = US$1
- 22 November: Dr. Wirth leaves office
- 16 December: The German Völkisch Freedom Party (DVFP) was founded when Wilhelm Henning, Reinhold Wulle and Albrecht von Graefe broke from the German National People's Party (DNVP).
- 27 December: France occupies the Ruhr.
1923
- 28 January: First Parteitage (Nazi Party Day) held under the slogan Deutschland Erwache (Germany Awake) in Munich.
- February: Reichsbank buys back RM; stabilizes RM at 20,000 to US$1
- 4 May: RM 40,000 = US$1
- 27 May: Albert Leo Schlageter, a German freebooter and saboteur, executed by a French firing squad in the Ruhr. Hitler declared him a hero that the German people was not worthy to possess.
- 1 June: RM 70,000 = US$1
- 30 June: RM 150,000 = US$1
- 1-7 August: Inflation became hyperinflation: RM 3,500,000 = US$1
- 13 August: Dr. Wilhelm Cuno leaves office
- 15 August: RM 4,000,000 = US$1
- 1 September: RM 10,000,000 = US$1
- 1 September: German Day Rally takes place in Nuremberg
- 24 September: Chancellor Stresemann ends the passive resistance in the Ruhr; infuriates the nationalists.
- 30 September: Major Fedor von Bock crushes a coup attempt by the Black Reichswehr.
- Also, RM 60,000,000 = US$1
- 6 October: Dr. Gustav Stresemann (People's) forms 2nd cabinet
- 20 October: General Alfred Mueller marched on Saxony to prevent a communist takeover.
- Then, General Otto von Lossow in Bavaria is relieved of command by Berlin; he refuses.
- 23 October: Communist takeover of Hamburg
- 25 October: Hamburg uprising suppressed
- 8 November: Hitler and Ludendorff launch the Beer Hall Putsch in the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich.
- 9 November: Beer Hall Putsch quelled.
1924
- 26 February: Hitler Putsch trial begins.
- 1 April: Hitler sentenced to five-years at Landsberg prison. From here, Hitler writes Mein Kampf with the assistance of Rudolf Hess.
- 24 October: France recognizes the Communist state known as the Soviet Union, alarming German conservatives in the process.
- 20 December: Hitler released from the Landsberg Prison.
1925
- 21 January: Japan recognizes the U.S.S.R.
- 16 February 1925: Bavaria lifts ban on NSDAP.
- 27 February 1925: The NSDAP is refounded.
- 9 Mar 1925: Bavaria bans Hitler from public speaking.
- 7 July: French troops withdraw from the German Rhineland.
- 14 July: Allied evacuation of the Ruhr valley begins.
- 18 July 1925: Vol. 1 of Hitler's Mein Kampf released.
- July–August: Germans are forced to leave Poland and Poles are expedited out of Germany in disputed territories.
- 11 November: Schutzstaffel created as a sort of praetorian guard for Hitler.
- 27 November: Locarno Treaties ratified by Reichstag.
1926
- 4 July: Nazi Party "Re-founding Congress" takes place in Weimar
1927
- 5 March: Hitler speaking ban lifted in Bavaria.
- 17 August: Franco-German commercial treaty signed.
- 20 August: "Day of Awakening" celebrated in Nuremberg
1928
- 20 March: NSDAP gains 2.6% of the vote in Reichstag elections.
- 28 September: Prussia lifts Hitler speaking ban.
- 20 October: Alfred Hugenberg becomes head of DNVP
- 16 November: Hitler first speaks at Berlin Sportpalast, Germany's largest venue.
1929
- January: Heinrich Himmler appointed chief of the SS. He begins to transform it into a powerful organization
- 2 August: "Party Day of Composure" occurs in Nuremberg
- 16 October: Liberty Law campaign officially begins. The Nazi Party joins a coalition of conservative groups under Hugenberg's leadership to oppose the Young Plan.
- 22 December: The Liberty Law referendum is defeated. Hitler denounces Hugenberg's leadership parlance.
1930
- September: Hitler at trial of 3 SA Lieutenants disavows the SA goals of replacing the army and hence appeases the army.
- 14 September: In a milestone election, Nazis gain 6 million votes in national polling to emerge as the second largest party in Germany.
1931
- 11 May: Austrian Kreditanstalt collapses
- May: Four million unemployed in Germany.
- 20 June: Herbert Hoover puts moratorium on reparations.
- 13 July: German bank crisis.
- 18 September: Geli Raubal dies.
- 11 October: Harzburg Front formed of coalition between DNVP, Stahlhelm, and Nazi Party
- Himmler recruits Reinhard Heydrich to form the 'Ic Service' (intelligence service) within the SS; later in 1932 it was renamed the Sicherheitsdienst (SD).
- December: Unemployment (Arbeitslosigkeit) reaches 5.6 million in Germany as people become more and more disillusioned with the German government.
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Nazi Revolution
1934
- 11 April: Pact of the Deutschland: Hitler persuades the top officials of the army and navy to back his bid to succeed Hindenburg as president, by promising to "diminish" the three-million-man-plus SA and greatly expand the regular army and navy.
- 20 April: The Gestapo is transferred from Göring to Himmler and Heydrich, who begin to integrate it into the SS.
- 16 May: German officer corps endorses Hitler to succeed the ailing President Hindenburg.
- 30 June – 2 July: Night of the Long Knives or Blood Purge: On pretext of suppressing an alleged SA putsch, much of the brownshirt leadership (i.e. Ernst Röhm) are arrested and executed. Schleicher and other political enemies are murdered. Papen briefly imprisoned; between 150 and 200 were killed. The SS, formerly part of the SA, now comes to the forefront.[9]
- 13 July: Defending the purge, Hitler declares that to defend Germany he has the right to act unilaterally as "supreme judge" without resort to courts.
- 2 August: President Hindenburg dies. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted the "Law Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich". This law stated that upon Hindenburg's death, the office of president would be abolished and its powers merged with those of the chancellor.[10] The decree is illegal but goes unchallenged. The army swears oath to Hitler.[11]
- 19 August: The German people in a plebiscite overwhelmingly (90%) approve merger of the offices of President and Chancellor. Hitler assumes the new title of Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and Reich chancellor). He is now both the head of state and the head of government.[12]
See also
References
Notes
- ^ a b c d Kershaw 2008, p. 89.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 87.
- ^ Zentner & Bedurftig 1997, p. 629.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 37.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 93.
- ^ Beno Müller Hull, "Human Genetics in Nazi Germany", in Medicine, Ethics and the Third Reich, edited by John J. Michalczyk (Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1994), pp. 27-33.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 83.
- ^ Gretchen E. Schafft, From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004), p. 47.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 309–316.
- ^ Shirer 1960, pp. 226–227.
- ^ Martin Broszat, Hans Buchheim, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, and Helmut Krausnick, Anatomie des SS-Staates, vol 1. (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1967), p. 18.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 318.
General sources
- Brustein, William (1996). "Appendix C: A Chrononology of Significant Weimar Events". The Logic of Evil: The Social Origins of the Nazi Party, 1925–1933. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. pp. 191–193. ISBN 9780300065336. OCLC 185693383.
- Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6. OCLC 227016324.
- Mitcham, Samuel W. (1996). Why Hitler?: The Genesis of the Nazi Reich. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-95485-7. OCLC 34514893.
- Shirer, William L. (1981) [1960]. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-62420-0. OCLC 1039308032.
- Stackelberg, Roderick (2007). The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-30860-1. OCLC 647694517.
- Zentner, Christian; Bedurftig, Friedemann (1997) [1991]. The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-3068079-3-0. OCLC 964852318.