World War II in Europe

A Timeline of Events

1933• January: Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany• February: Reichstag (German parliament building) burns• March: Hitler gains dictatorial power; first concentration

cap opens• May: Hitler orders mass burning of “un-German” books• June: Dachau concentration camp opens

1934

• German president Hindenburg dies

• Adolf Hitler becomes Fuhrer, has total control of Germany

1935

• Jews stripped of rights when Nuremberg Race laws are passed

• Hitler introduces military draft, which violated Treaty of Versailles

1936

• Gestapo, German secret police, is placed above the law• Italy attacks and conquers Ethiopia• Germany tries to sign pact with Spain, but the country erupts into

civil war and will not be able to help the Nazis• Germany occupies Rhineland, a region that bordered France

– This also was a violation of the Treaty of Versailles, but no country took direct action against Germany

1937

• Hitler unveils plans for war, two full years before war breaks out in Europe

• He outlined which countries to attack first and how he would do it, then he detailed the steps to take for total European domination

1938• Germany annexes

Austria, Hitler’s birthplace• Germany occupies

Czechoslovakia, a country with many German-speaking citizens

• The Czechs thought the French would help them, but instead they followed a policy of appeasement – giving in to demands to keep the peace

• Kristallnacht, night of the broken glass, occurs – Jews are forced to pay for the damages

1939• Germany signs a military alliance with Italy• Nazis reveal that they created a non-aggression pact

with Russia, ensuring that the Soviet Union would not fight against Germany

• Britain and Poland sign Mutual Assistance treaty; Britain and France realize Hitler is intending for war to break out

• Germany invades Poland using a method called “blitzkrieg,” or lightning war – the country fell to the Nazis in weeks

• Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand Declare war on Germany, WWII begins

• Nazis begin euthanasia on sick and disabled in Germany, over 100,000 put to death

• Russia attacks Finland, gets kicked out of the League of Nations

1940• Nazis invade

Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands; all fall under German control within a matter of months

• Germany unleashes air raids (bombings) on Britain, both day and night; blackout laws passed in England

• Germany begins massive bombings on all major British cities

• Axis pact between Italy, Japan and Germany signed

1941

• Yugoslavia and Greece fall to the Nazis• Nazis begin mass murder of Jews• Jews ordered to wear yellow stars in all Nazi territories• Nazi officials told to prepare for “final solution,” extermination of all

undesirables; first experimental gas chambers used at Auschwitz • Germany attacks Russia, breaks non-aggression pact – the Soviet Union

joins the Allies• Japan bombs Pearl Harbor

1942• USA enters the

war• Final Solution

enacted across Nazi-occupied Europe

• Russia and England begin talks of an alliance

• Germany begins bombing Russian cities

• England and USA first learn of mass extermination in concentration camps

1943• Hitler orders

liquidation of all Jewish ghettos in Poland, concentration camps are loaded to full capacity

• Parts of Italy surrender to Allied forces

• German troops rescue Mussolini, who re-establishes government in Northern Italy

• Allies begin major air raids on Berlin

1944• British and American troops unleash huge

bombing attacks on German cities, both in daylight and at night

• Allies launch Normandy invasion and begin massive campaign against German territories; Germans suffer severe defeats

• Anne Frank and family arrested and sent to concentration camps

• France is slowly liberated from German rule• Several German generals commit suicide after

humiliating military defeats

1945• Allied troops begin to

enter German territory; Germans step up final solution

• As they liberate the land, Allied forces stumble across concentration camps; they are horrified at what they find

• Allied troops discover old salt mines full of stolen Nazi gold and art worth hundreds of millions

• Knowing German defeat is near, Hitler commits suicide; many German officials do the same to avoid war tribunals

• Germans surrender may 7, 1945

• V-E day, May 8 1945