January 30th 1933

Hitler is invited into power

The Nazis came to power legally at the
head of a right-wing coalition. A succession of governments failed to deal with the economic crisis. None of the conservative parties had mass support and they became increasingly afraid of a Communist victory. Eventually, a group of politicians offered Hitler the Chancellorship at the head of a coalition government. This offer came just in time because the Nazi vote was dipping.

1933

Law and Intimidation

The Nazis wanted Jews to be eliminated from politics, government service, public life, and cultural activity by a combination of law and intimidation. The government passed the "Law for the Reconstruction of the Civil Service", which enabled the expulsion of political opponents and the majority of Jews from government employment. There was sporadic anti-Jewish violence and in April Hitler approved a boycott of Jewish stores and shops.

15 September 1935

Nuremberg Laws

On the eve of the annual party rally at
Nuremberg civil servants produced the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour".

A person was Jewish according to the number of grandparents who were Jews in a religious, not racial, sense. "Aryans" were forbidden from having sexual relations with Jews or marrying them. Jews lost their full citizenship and were reduced to second-class status.

9-10th November 1938

Kristallnacht

In 1938 German Jews faced a hail of discriminatory regulations. Their assets and property were seized. On the night of 9-10th November, hundreds of synagogues were burned down and Jewish shops attacked. Over ninety Jews were killed. 30,000 were sent to concentration camps and not released unless they emigrated. The Nazis called this riot Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass", because of the destruction it caused.

Trying to escape

Trying to escape

German and Austrian Jews realised that there was no future for them in the Third Reich and tried desperately to find countries that would accept them. But at a time of high unemployment, few countries wanted impoverished Jewish refugees. This was a tragedy because at that time Nazi policy was simply to make the Jews leave, but there were few places for them to go. Nevertheless, some Jews did manage to emigrate.

September 1939

Poland

The outbreak of war and the conquest of
Poland forced the Nazis to reassess their anti- Jewish policies. From 1937-39 their aim was to make Jews emigrate. In 1939-40 the policy became forced emigration and expulsion. Jews were concentrated in towns and cities prior to being removed, and ghettos were created: a temporary measure and more a case of desperation than design.

1 September 1939 - 24
August 1941

Euthanasia

The Nazi programme of compulsory euthanasia saw the murder of over 70,000 mentally or physically disabled inmates of sanatoria and asylums after doctors certified them as “life unworthy of life”. The victims were transported to one of six clinics where they were poisoned with carbon monoxide gas piped through false shower heads in mock bathrooms. The programme was suspended after some of the relatives worked out what was happening.

22 June 1941

Operation Barbarossa

The invasion of the Soviet Union was intended by Hitler to be "an ideological war of extermination". Orders were issued for all captured political officers and Jews who worked for the Communist Party or the state to be shot by mobile killing squads known as Einsatzgruppen. They were assisted by locally recruited auxiliaries, especially in the Ukraine and the Baltic States. Policy soon shifted to killing Jewish men, women and children without any discrimination.

November 1941

Steps towards mass murder

In November construction began on the first death camp at Belzec, near Lublin in Poland. Two more were planned in the region of Warsaw and Lublin. In December, gas vans operating in the town of Chelmno began the systematic murder of Jews from nearby Lodz. They were loaded into the back of lorries with the engine's exhaust fumes piped into the airtight compartment. The vans were then driven a few miles to mass graves in a forest, where the Jews were unloaded and buried.

20 January 1942

The Wannsee Conference

In late November 1941 Heydrich summoned leading civil servants and SS officers to a meeting at Wannsee near Berlin to coordinate the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in Europe. The meeting had to be postponed until 20th January 1942 as Germany declared war on America. At the Conference Heydrich announced the systematic deportation of Jews from across Europe to "the East". The fit would be put to work; those unable to would be put to death.

Spring 1942

Genocide in the East

The implementation of the "Final Solution" varied from country to country and was influenced by the extent of German control and the stage in the war at which it was put into effect. In every country anti-Jewish laws involved the registration and confiscation of Jewish property and assets. The distribution of plunder created a common interest between the Germans and their collaborators.

1942-1944

Genocide in Central and Western Europe

The implementation of the "Final Solution" varied from country to country and was influenced by the extent of German control and the stage in the war at which it was put into effect. In every country anti-Jewish laws involved the registration and confiscation of Jewish property and assets. The distribution of plunder created a common interest between the Germans and their collaborators.

Summer 1943 - January 1945

The End of Extermination and the Death Marches

From August 1943 the temporary death camps began to stop operating and evidence of their existence was destroyed. Majdanek, which was a death and labour camp near Lublin, was captured almost intact in July 1944. In November mass murder by gas at Auschwitz- Birkenau stopped. During the winter 1944-45 as the Red Army drew near, the Nazis started to evacuate camps in the East. The aim was to transport prisoners to camps in areas still under German control. Thousands perished on the wintery roads.

July 1944 - May 1945

Liberation

The concentration and extermination camps were liberated from July 1944. The last were overrun in April and May 1945. Allied troops entering the camps were shocked by what they found. For the prisoners liberation was not a clear cut experience. Some were too ill to know they were free. Survivors, especially those from Eastern Europe, had no homes to go to, did not want to return, or faced a cold reception.

November 1945 - October 1946

The Nuremberg Trials

The Allies discussed trying the top Nazis as war criminals during the war. This required a major innovation in international law. The Allies drew up the charter for an International Military Tribunal to try the surviving Nazi leaders. Its main purpose was to indict the Nazis for conspiring to wage an aggressive war as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes. The trial in Nuremberg lasted from November 1945 to October 1946. Although the mass murder of the Jews was mentioned, it was never central to the prosecution case. Thousands of perpetrators escaped justice.