February 27 - Fire destroys Germany's Reichstag (parliament building).
February 28 - President Hindenberg issues decree giving Hitler emergency powers.
March 5 - Reichstag elections: Nazi Party wins 44% of the vote.
March 20 - Establishment of Dachau, first concentration camp; imprisonment of political opponents.
March 24 - Reichstag passes "Enabling Law" used to advance Nazi power.
April 1 - Nazis proclaim a one-day nation-wide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.
April 7 - Jews dismissed from German civil service jobs, including teachers and professors; Jewish lawyers denied membership in the German Bar.
April 25 - New laws restrict number of Jews allowed to attend German public schools.
April 26 - Creation of the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei - secret state police).
May 1 - Jews excluded from German Armed Forces; free trade unions dissolved.
May 10 - Public book burning.
July - Nazis authorize Kulturbund of German Jews (later called Jüdische Kulturbund - Jewish Culture Association), limited to Jewish artists and audiences.
July 20 - Concordat between the Vatican and the Third Reich is signed in Rome.
October 14 - Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
November 12 - Reichstag elections; Nazis take 93% of the vote.
November 17 - United States officially recognizes the Soviet Union.
December 1 - Hitler declares German state and Nazi Party to be one and the same.
June 30 - "Night of the Long Knives": Hitler orders murder of key Nazi officials, particularly in SA (Sturm Abteilung - Stormtroopers), in a purge enabling him to solidify his power.
August 1 - As President Hindenburg lies dying, Reichstag combines powers of the office of President with that of Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler.
August 2 - Death of President Hindenburg; Hitler declares himself Führer (leader) of Germany and Commander-in-Chief of the German Armed Forces; all German soldiers required to take personal oath of loyalty to Hitler.
October-November - First major arrests of homosexuals throughout Germany.
April - Jehovah's Witnesses banned from German civil service jobs; many arrested throughout Germany.
April - Gestapo consolidates all Jewish cultural associations into Jüdische Kulturbund.
May - "Juden Verboten" ("Jews Prohibited") signs posted outside many German restaurants, shops, and towns and villages.
September 6 - Street sales of Jewish newspapers prohibited.
September 15 - Reichstag passes anti-Semitic "Nuremberg Laws" legally defining "Aryan" and "non-Aryan"; Jews deprived of German citizenship; Jews prohibited from displaying German flag in their homes and from employing German "Aryan" servants under age of 45; marriages between Jews and Germans forbidden.
March 7 - In violation of Versailles Treaty, Nazi army enters Rhineland; no response from other powers.
July 12 - First arrests and deportation of German Gypsies to Dachau concentration camp.
Summer - Olympic games held in Berlin.
October 15 - German Ministry of Science and Education prohibits "non-Aryans" from teaching in public schools and bans private instruction by Jewish teachers.
October 25 - Hitler and Mussolini sign pact forming Rome-Berlin Axis.
July 16 - Establishment of Buchenwald concentration camp.
Summer - Nazis forbid Jüdische Kulturbund artists from performing works of composers born in Germany, including Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and Schumann.
September 7 - Hitler repudiates the Versailles Treaty.
November 16 - New restrictions prevent German Jews from obtaining passports to travel abroad except in special cases.
November 25 - Germany and Japan sign military pact.
May 17 - Jews and "Mischlinge" (people of part-Jewish origin) were made separate categories in the German census.
April 26 - German Jews required to register all property valued over 500 Reichmarks.
June 12-18 - First wave of arrests of Austrian Gypsies; men sent to Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen; women to Lichtenburg.
June 15 - Arrest of any Jew in Germany with a previous conviction for any offense, including traffic violations.
July 6-15 - International conference in Evian, France: 32 countries prove unwilling to provide needed refuge for German Jews; most countries refuse to accept additional Jewish refugees.
July 25 - German Jewish doctors' licenses canceled; they may treat only Jewish patients.
July 27 - Street names of Jewish origin are changed.
September 29 - Chamberlain and Hitler sign Munich Agreement; France and Italy also sign; Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia is annexed by Germany.
October 5 - Passports of German Jews must be marked with the letter "J."
October 28 - Polish Jews living in Germany forcibly deported to Poland.
November 7 - Ernst vom Rath, third councilor of German embassy in Paris, is shot by Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew from Germany.
November 9-10 - "Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass)," a nation-wide pogrom; anti-Semitic riots throughout Germany and Austria; many Jews murdered; 200 synagogues destroyed by fire; 7,500 shops looted; 26,000 Jews sent to concentration camps.
November 11 - German Jews prohibited from owning or bearing arms.
November 12 - German Jews forced to pay 1.25 million Reichmarks for damages caused on Kristallnacht; one billion Reichmarks fine is levied on Jews of Germany; Jews can no longer attend public concerts, exhibitions, plays or movies.
November 15 - All Jewish children expelled from German public schools.
December 2-3 - Jews banned from German streets on certain days; Gypsies in Germany required to register with police.
December 3 - German Jews' drivers' licenses and car registrations confiscated.
December 6 - German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop signs non-aggression pact with France.
December 8 - Jews can no longer attend German universities.
December 13 - "Aryanization" decree expropriates Jewish industries, businesses and shops.
February 21 - Jews required to turn over all gold, platinum, silver, precious stones and pearls to Nazis.
March - Jews leaving Nazi Germany are prohibited from taking possessions they acquired after January 30, 1933; they are permitted to take only 10 marks.
March 15 - Nazi Germany invades and occupies Czechoslovakia without immediate response from other powers.
April 30 - German Jews lose all legal rights as renters; many are expelled from their homes.
May 15 - Ravensbruck concentration camp for women established.
June - Jewish refugees aboard the S.S. St. Louis denied entry to Cuba and the United States; forced to return to Europe.
June 5 - 2,000 Austrian Gypsy men above the age of 16 arrested and sent to Dachau and Buchenwald; 1,000 women above the age of 15 are sent to Ravensbruck.
July 26 - Adolf Eichmann placed in charge of Prague Central Office for Jewish Emigration.
August 23 - Soviet-German non-aggression pact signed by Stalin and Hitler.
September 1 - Germany invades Poland; World War II begins.
September 3 - Britain and France declare war on Germany.
September 3 - Jewish curfew and shopping restrictions imposed in Nazi Germany.
September 17 - Soviet Union invades eastern Poland.
September 21-Establishment of "self-governing" Judenräte Councils of Jews and concentration of Polish Jews in urban ghettos.
September 23 - German Jews forced to relinquish all radios, cameras, etc.; food rations reduced.
September 28 - Partition of Poland between Germany and USSR.
October - Hitler authorizes "euthanasia program" in Germany: doctors to kill institutionalized mentally and physically disabled.
October 12 - First deportation of Jews from Austria and Moravia to Poland.
November 23 - Jews throughout occupied Poland ordered to wear yellow Judenstern (Jewish star) on their chests or blue Judenstern armbands.
December 1 - Food rations for Jews further reduced in Germany.
February 8 - Lodz ghetto established.
April 9 - Nazi Germany invades Denmark and Norway: Denmark surrenders; Norway fights.
April 27 - Heinrich Himmler, head of SS (Schutzstaffel - Hitler's elite corps of Stormtroopers), orders construction of Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland; first prisoners, mostly Poles, arrive in early June.
April 30 - Lodz ghetto sealed: approximately 164,000 Polish Jews imprisoned.
May 10 - Nazi Germany invades Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
May 15 - Holland surrenders to Germany.
May 28 - Belgium surrenders to Germany.
June 4 - British army evacuates its forces from Dunkirk, France.
June 22 - France surrenders to Germany.
July 19 - German Jews denied telephones.
July - Systematic killing of German Jewish hospital patients begins in Brandenburg where mentally ill and infirm Jews are first victims of murder by gassing.
September 27 - Formation of Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis.
October 3 - Anti-Jewish laws passed by Vichy government in France.
October 12 - Warsaw ghetto established.
November 15 - Warsaw ghetto sealed.
November - Hungary, Romania, and Czechoslovakia join the Berlin - Rome - Tokyo Axis.
March 22 - Nazis prohibit Gypsy and Afro-German children from attending German schools.
March 24 - Germany invades North Africa.
April 6 - In alliance with Italy and Bulgaria, Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
April 24 - Lublin ghetto sealed.
June 22 - Germany invades Soviet Union.
June 23 - Nazi mobile killing squads begin the murder of millions of Jews, Gypsies and Communist leaders in the Soviet Union: first use of mass graves.
July 8 - Jews in Nazi-occupied Baltic states required to wear Jewish star.
July 20 - Minsk ghetto established.
July 31 - Hermann Goering appoints Reinhard Heydrich to carry out "The Final Solution" (the extermination of all the Jews of Europe); Bialystok ghetto established.
September 1 - Massive protest by German citizens brings end to "Euthanasia program" in Germany (70,000 - 93,000 victims).
September 3-6 - Two ghettos established in Vilna, Lithuania.
September 15 - Decree requires Jews throughout "Greater Reich" to wear a yellow badge with Jewish star and inscription "Jude" (Jew) above their hearts.
September 23 - First experimental gassing of Soviet prisoners of war at Auschwitz.
September 29-30 - 33,771 Kiev Jews murdered at Babi Yar.
October - Construction of extermination camps at Majdanek-Lublin and at Birkenau (Auschwitz II).
October 1 - Jews forbidden to emigrate from Germany.
October 10 - Theresienstadt (Terezin) ghetto established in Czechoslovakia.
October 14 - Beginning of general deportation of all remaining Jews in Germany and Austria, initially to Lodz ghetto; Germans reach outskirts of Moscow.
October 31 - Employers prohibited from giving Jews benefits beyond base wages.
November 1 - Construction of Belzec extermination camp.
November 6-7 - In Rovno, Ukraine, 17,000 Jews executed.
November 5-9 - 5,000 Gypsies deported from Austrian camps to Lodz ghetto; massacre in Odessa: 34,000 killed.
December 7 - Japan bombs Pearl Harbor: 2,335 U.S. military personnel and 68 civilians killed.
December 7-9 - United States enters World War II; massacre in Riga, Latvia: 25,000 dead; gassing operations begin at Chelmno, Ukraine.
December 11 - Germany and Italy declare war on the United States.
December 22 - Massacre in Vilna: 32,000 dead.
December 26 - Jews forbidden to use public phones throughout Nazi-occupied lands.
January 5 - German Jews prohibited from subscribing to newspapers and journals.
January 16 - Deportation of Jews from Lodz to Chelmno killing center begins.
January 20 - Wannsee Conference: Nazi coordination of "The Final Solution."
January 21 - Unified resistance forms in Vilna ghetto; Jewish resistance groups expand in number throughout Eastern Europe.
February 8 - First Jews from Salonika, Greece, deported to Auschwitz.
February - Evacuation of Poland's major Jewish ghettos begins, launching systematic deportation and murder of Jews in occupied central Poland.
March 1 - Construction of Sobibor extermination camp.
March 17 - Killings begin at Belzec extermination camp.
March 26 - German Jews required to affix the Star of David to their doors.
March 28 - First Jews from France sent to Auschwitz.
April 17 - German Jews prohibited from using public transportation.
April 29 - Dutch Jews ordered to wear yellow badge.
May - Killing of Jews in Sobibor death camp begins.
May 4-12 - Approximately 10,000 Jews held at Lodz ghetto are deported to Chelmno death camp.
May 27 - Belgian Jews ordered to wear yellow badge.
June 1 - Treblinka death camp opens where in ensuing 13 months over 800,000 Jews are killed.
June 7 - French Jews ordered to wear yellow badge.
June 19 - German Jews' electric appliances, typewriters and bicycles confiscated.
June 30 - All Jewish schools in Germany closed.
Summer - Nazi Aktionen liquidate 5,000 Jews remaining in Rovno.
July 22-September 12 - Mass deportations from Warsaw ghetto; Treblinka extermination camp completed; 300,000 Jews deported to Treblinka.
July 28 - Jewish resistance organization forms in Warsaw ghetto.
August 13-20 - Majority of Croatian Jews sent to Auschwitz.
September 5-12 - 15,000 Jews in Lodz ghetto (mostly children under ten, people over sixty-five or too weak or ill to work) deported to Chelmno where 55,000 Jews have already been imprisoned.
September 18 - Jews in Germany can no longer buy meat, wheat products, or milk.
October 9 - Jews in Germany can no longer buy books.
October 16 - More than 1,000 Jews from Rome are sent to Auschwitz.
November 24 - News of the extermination camps and mass killings of European Jews made known in United States by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.
December 1 - Special internment camp for non-Jewish Polish youth opens in Lodz.
February 2 - Soviet army defeats Nazis at Battle of Stalingrad; turning point in World War II.
February 26 - Transport of Gypsies arrives at newly established Gypsy camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
February 27-28 - 15,000 Jewish forced laborers in Berlin arrested and deported to Auschwitz.
March 1 - Nearly 100,000 attend Stop Hitler Rally at Madison Square Garden, New York.
March 7 - Most remaining Gypsies in Germany and Nazi-occupied countries arrested and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau
April 19-May 16 - Warsaw ghetto uprising; Jews resist Nazi deportation to death camps.
May 16 - Liquidation of Warsaw ghetto by Nazis.
June 11-21 - All Jewish ghettos in Poland and the USSR are liquidated.
July-September - Hundreds of Jewish partisans leave Vilna ghetto for the forest where they continue resistance to the Nazis.
August 2 - Inmate uprising at Treblinka death camp.
August 16 - Revolt in Bialystok ghetto.
September 9 - Allies invade Italy.
September 23 - Liquidation of Vilna ghetto by Nazis.
October 2 - Nazis attempt to round up Danish Jews; Danes use boats to smuggle most Danish Jews (7,200) to neutral Sweden.
October 14 - Inmate revolt at Sobibor extermination camp.
October 20 - United Nations War Crimes Commission established.
November 3 - Following uprisings at Sobibor extermination camp and elsewhere, Himmler orders killings of 42,000 Jews in the Lublin area, including 17,000 prisoners at Majdanek.
April 5 - Nazis order Hungarian Jews to wear yellow badge.
April 7 - Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba escape from Auschwitz with detailed information about the extermination of the Jews; in June, they bring the news to the world from underground in Czechoslovakia.
May 2 - First transport of Hungarian Jews reaches Auschwitz.
May 6 - A hunger strike by younger workers starts in the Lodz ghetto and spreads for several days.
May 15-June 8 - 476,000 Hungarian Jews deported to their deaths in Auschwitz.
June 4 - Allied Forces reach Rome.
June 6 - D-Day: Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Western Europe begins in Normandy, France.
June 23 - Soviet Union renews offensive on Eastern front.
July 3-July 14 - 7,196 Jews deported from the Lodz ghetto to Chelmno extermination camp where they are murdered.
July 24 - Advancing Soviet troops liberate Majdanek extermination camp.
August 2-3 - Gypsy camp at Auschwitz liquidated by Nazis; 3,000 Gypsies gassed.
August 3 - U.S. troop ship arrives in New York carrying 1,000 European refugees including 874 Jews; they are sent by train to Oswego, New York where they remain at Fort Ontario until war's end - the only such rescue by the United States.
August 7-30 - Remaining Lodz ghetto Jews deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau as Soviet troops continue advance into Poland.
October - Nazis deport some prisoners westward from Auschwitz to use as forced labor in German camps and factories.
October 7 - Members of the Sonderkommando (camp prisoners forced to burn corpses) blow up a gas chamber and crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.
October 23 - Paris liberated by Allied forces.
November 24 - Himmler orders destruction of Auschwitz crematoria as Nazis try to hide evidence of the death camps.
January 17 - Soviet troops
liberate Warsaw.
January 17 - Nazis evacuate Auschwitz prisoners;
"death marches" to camps in Germany begin.
January 27 - Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz-Birkenau.
February 4-11 - Roosevelt, Churchill and
Stalin meet at Yalta Conference in the Crimea.
February 14 - Americans and British bomb
Dresden: 80,000 German civilians killed.
March 5 - American troops reach Rhine River.
April 11 - American troops liberate Buchenwald
concentration camp.
April 12 - President Roosevelt dies.
April 15 - British troops liberate Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp; some inmates had been evacuated from Auschwitz.
April 25 - American and Soviet troops meet
at the Elbe River.
April 28 - Mussolini executed by Italian
partisans.
April 29 - American troops liberate Dachau
concentration camp.
April 29-30 - Allied troops liberate Ravensbruck
concentration camp.
April 30 - Hitler commits suicide in Berlin.
May 2 - Soviet troops capture Berlin.
May 3 - Nazi leaders handed over to International
Red Cross.
May 5 - American troops liberate Mauthausen
concentration camp.
May 7 - Nazi Germany surrenders unconditionally;
end of World War II in Europe.
August 6 - The United States drops the first
atomic bomb, on Hiroshima: the death toll reaches 92,233 within two weeks;
in 40 years the number of victims of the bomb and its aftermath would
reach 138,890.
August 8 - The Soviet Union declares war
on Japan.
August 9 - The United States drops the second
atomic bomb, on Nagasaki: immediate death toll is 40,000; in three months
5,000 more die. In thirty years the Nagasaki atomic bomb death toll would
rise to 48,857 victims.
August 14-15 - Japan surrenders unconditionally;
end of World War II.
November 22 - First major War Crimes Trials
commence; the trials conclude on October 1, 1946: twelve defendants sentenced
to death, three to life imprisonment, four to various prison terms, three
acquitted.