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1889 April 20 Adolfus Hitler (Adolf Hitler) is born at Braunau am Inn, Austria. According to his birth certificate, he was born at six o'clock in the evening and baptized two days later by Father Ignaz Probst at the local Catholic church. (Payne)

(Hitler's father, Alois, was a 51-year-old Austrian customs official of questionable birth. His mother, Klara, was his father's niece and former servant -- twenty-three years his junior. Married in 1885, their first three children, two boys and a girl, all died before Adolfus was born.)

1889 June An antisemitic conference held at Bochum, Germany, draws a number of representatives from France and Austria-Hungary, including Georg von Schoenerer (Schönerer), and soon leads to the foundation of two German antisemitic political parties, the Deutsch-Soziale Partei led by Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg and the radical Antisemitische Volkspartei under peasant-rousing demagog, Otto Böckel. (P.G.J. Pulzer; Roots)

1889 August Leading socialist theorist and founder of the German Communist party, Rosa Luxemburg is forced into exile in Switzerland. Born into a prosperous Jewish business family in Russian Poland, she had been engaged in revolutionary activity since 1887.

1890 March 9 Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov is born at Kukarka, now Sovetsk, 500 miles east of Moscow. Molotov's original family name is Scriabin.

1890 March 18 German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck is dismissed from his post by Kaiser (emperor) Wilhelm II

1890 July Heligoland is ceded to Germany by Britain's Lord Salisbury.

1890 November 22 Charles Joseph de Gaulle is born at Lille, France.

1891 Ernest Krauss brings the swastika to the attention of a number of mysterious groups, both in Britain and Germany.

1891 April Father Berenger Sauniere, parish priest at Rennes-le-Chateau, in France, is said to have discovered four ancient parchment texts that contain the complete genealogies of Dagobert II and of the Mergovingian line from the seventh to the seventeenth centuries.

1891 Spring The Blue Star Lodge is founded by Gustav Meyrink in Prague. Meyrink is a close friend and correspondent of Friedrich Eckstein, founder of an influential Theosophical Society in Vienna.

1892 August The Hitler family is transferred by the Austrian customs service to Passau, Germany.

1893 February 24 Guido von List lectures on the ancient cult of Wotan and its priesthood to the nationalist Verein, "Deusche Geschichte." List claims that this extinct religion was the national religion of the Teutons before it was destroyed by Christianity. In time, this ancient priesthood will form the basis of his entire political mythology.

1893 April 7 Allen Welsh Dulles is born in Watertown, New York.

1893 July 31 Adolf Josef Lanz, age 19, becomes a novice at the old Cistercian monastery in Heiligenkreuz on the present Austro-Hungarian border. Lanz was born in Vienna on July 19, 1874, but later claimed to have been born at Messina, Sicily, on May 1, 1872. To mislead astrologers, so he said.

1893 August 30 Huey Pierce Long is born near Winnfield, Louisiana.

1893 October 1 "Gotterdammerung" by Guido von List appears in Karl Wolf's East German Review. Wolf is a Pan-German parliamentary deputy and close associate of Georg von Schoenerer.

1893 October 31 "Allerseelen under vorchristliche Totenkult des deutschen Volkes"by Guido von List appear in Karl Wolf's East German Review. (Roots)

1893 November 22 Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich is born in the small village of Kabany, now Novokashirsk, east of Kiev.

1893 Gladstone's second Irish Home Rule Bill is vetoed after great discussion in the British House of Lords.

1893 Adolf Josef Lanz first meets Guido von List as well as several members of the wealthy Wannieck family of Vienna at Gars-am-Kamp (A). (Roots)

1893 Georg von Schoenerer reenters Austrian politics. Schoenerer had been convicted of assault in 1888 and deprived of his political rights for five years.

1893 Rosa Luxemburg helps found the anti-nationalist Polish Socialist party while in exile in Switzerland.

1894 January 14 Guido von List publishes "Die deutsche Mythologie." More than a dozen other articles by List appear in the East German Review during 1894. He will be a regular contributor until December 1896.

1894 March 24 Edmund Hitler, Adolf Hitler's younger brother, is born in Passau, Germany, near the Austrian border.

1894 April 17 Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev is born in a mud hut in the village of Kalinovka, southwest of Kiev. His father, Sergei, a coal miner, sends Nikita to work in the mines when he is only nine years old.

1894 May A tombstone relief depicting a "Aryan" nobleman treading on an unidentifiable beast is excavated from the cloister flagstones at Heiligenkreuz. Adolf Josef Lanz (Liebenfels) writes his first published work, interpreting this relief as an allegorical depiction of the eternal struggle between the forces of good and evil. Lanz soon assimilated current racist ideas into a dualist religion, identifying the blue-eyed, blond-haired "Aryans" as the good principle and the various dark races as the evil. (Berthold von Treun, 1894)

1894 June Koreshism is founded in America by Cyrus R. Teed, who claims that his followers number more than 4,000 initiates. (Pauwels)

1894 October The court-martial of army captain Albert Dreyfus, a Jewish officer, creates a political crisis in France. The evidence presented against Dreyfus is insufficient; nevertheless, he is convicted and sent to Devil's Island for imprisonment.

1894 The Deutsch-Soziale Partei and the Antisemitische Volkspartei are merged into the Deutsch-Soziale Reformpartei. (Pulzer; Roots)

1894 Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Joseph Stalin), age14, enters the Tiflis Theological Seminary. He later says, the discipline there was an impetus toward his revolutionary activism.

1894 Thousands of Armenian men, women and children are massacred in Turkey.

1894 The Bund der Germanen is refounded. It had previously operated under the name Germanenbund from 1886 to 1889 when it was dissolved by the Austrian government. (Roots)

1894 Albert Einstein (b. 1879 in Ulm, Germany), the son of nonobservant Jews, moves with his parents from Munich to Milan, Italy, after the family business (manufacture of electrical apparatus) fails, and officially relinquishes his German citizenship. Within a year, without completing secondary school, he fails an examination that would have allowed him to pursue a course of study leading to a diploma in electrical engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Zurich Polytechnic).

1895 January 24 Sir Randolph Churchill (1849-95), father of Winston Churchill, dies. At the time of his death, his estate owes Nathaniel "Natty" Rothschild and Rothschild's Bank more than 66,000 pounds, a huge sum at that time. Had this been generally known, it would have caused a major scandal since he had always shown great favor to the Rothschild family and its various business interests. (The Churchills)

1895 Spring The Hitler family moves to Hafeld, Austria, near the old provincial capital of Linz, on the Danube.

1895 May 1 Adolf Hitler enters elementary school at Fischlham.

1895 June 25 Alois Hitler retires on a government pension from the Austrian customs service.

1895 Dr. Karl Lueger is elected mayor of Vienna, but is not allowed to take office by the Emperor.

1895 The Austrian government rules that Slovene classes must be introduced in an exclusively German school at Celje in Carniola. This relatively insignificant controversy takes on a symbolic importance to German nationalists, who use it to rally mass support.

1895 Drexel, Morgan and Company is renamed J.P. Morgan and Company, and quickly grows to be one of the most powerful banking houses in the world.

1895 Winter The United States Treasury, practically on the verge of bankruptcy, allows J.P. Morgan and Co. to organize a group of financiers to carry out a private bond sale to replenish the treasury.

1895 December 29 The Jameson Raid on the Boer republic of Transvaal increases anti-British hostility. Jameson led his raiding party of volunteers into the Transvaal hoping to join forces with discontented non-Boer Europeans (Uitlanders) to overthrow the government of President Paul Kruger. Jameson and his men are quickly captured. Cecil Rhodes, a close friend of Jameson, is clearly implicated and soon afterward is forced to resign as Prime Minister of Cape Colony. British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain is cleared of charges, but was probably aware of the conspiracy. After a prison term in Britain, Jameson serves as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1904 to 1908.

1895 The Sphinx, one of the most powerful advocates of the Germanic occult revival, ceases publication. It had been published since 1886 by Wilhelm Hubbe-Schleiden, founder of the first German Theosophical Society at Elberfeld in July 1884.

1895 Communist leader Vladimir Ilich Lenin, is exiled to Siberia.

1896 January 21 Paula Hitler, Adolf's sister, is born in Hafeld, Austria.(Payne)

1896 February 12 Guido von Linz writes an antisemitic article entitled "Die Juden als Staat und Nation" in Karl Wolf's East German Review. (Roots)

1896 June 16 Adolph Ochs meets with J.P. Morgan in New York City. Ochs said that at their first meeting, Morgan rose to greet him, shook his hand and warmly said, "So you're the young man I have heard about. Now, where do I sign the papers." (NY Times, June 26, 1996)

1896 August 18 Adolph Ochs purchases controlling interest in The New York Times for $75,000 ($25,000 of which, he says, is a loan from J. P. Morgan).

1896 August A new German Theosophical Society is founded in Berlin under the presidency of Franz Hartmann.

1896 Franklin D. Roosevelt enters Groton School, a preparatory school in Groton, Massachusetts. The headmaster, Endicott Peabody, an Episcopal clergyman, starts him thinking about a career in public service.

1896 Theodor Herzl publishes The Jewish State, in which he advocates the creation of a Jewish nation-state in Palestine.

1896 November Father Berenger Sauniere begins to spend large amounts on the restoration of Rennes-le-Chateau. He will spend several million dollars over the next twenty years.

1896 Albert Einstein returns to the Zurich Polytechnic, graduating as a secondary school teacher of mathematics and physics in 1900. Two years later, he obtains a position at the Swiss patent office in Bern, and while employed there (1902-09), completes an astonishing range of publications in theoretical physics.

1896 The first modern Olympic Games are held at Athens in Greece. Only thirteen countries compete.

1896 Colonel Georges Picquart, the new chief of French military intelligence, attempts to reopen the Dreyfus case and is dismissed after bringing charges against Major Ferdinand Esterhazy.

1896 Paul Zillmann founds the Metaphysical Review, a monthly periodical devoted to the esoteric tradition.

1897 Paul Zillmann, inspired by the nineteenth-century mystic Eckhartshausen and his ideas for a secret school of illuminates, founds the occult Wald-Loge (the Forest Lodge). Zillman becomes an important link between German occultists and their counterparts in Austria. (Roots)

1897 The Hitler family moves to Lambach, Austria.

1897 April Austrian premier Count Casimir Badeni introduces controversial language decrees, which ruled that all officials in Moravia and Bohemia should be able to speak both German and Czech, which clearly discriminated against Germans. These decrees provoked a nationalist furor throughout the Austro-Hungarian empire.

1897 April 7 The Wieden Singer's Club in Vienna organizes a List festival to commemorate the silver anniversary of List's literary career. List had long been a celebrity amongst the Pan-Germans of Austria. (Roots)

1897 July Adolf Hitler begins choir school at Lambach Abbey.

1897 Summer Bloody riots break out between mobs of ethnic Germans and Austrian police. Hundreds of Vereine (German-oriented organizations) are dissolved by the police as a threat to public order.

1897 August 29 Jewish nationalist Theodor Herzl organizes the first World Zionist Congress at Basel, Switzerland. The 204 delegates to the congress adopt a program calling for "a publicly recognized home for the Jewish people in Palestine." Herzl worked to secure acceptance of his ideas, first from the Jewish philanthropists Edmond Rothschild and Maurice de Hirsch, then from Emperor William II of Germany, Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, and Pope Pius X.

1897 September 3 The French periodical Le Temps publishes an article claiming that a certain Dr. Mandelstein, Professor at the University of Kiev, in the course of his speech opening the Zionist International Congress said, "The Jews will use all their influence and power to prevent the rise and prosperity of all other nations and are resolved to adhere to their historic destiny i.e. to the conquest of world power." Antisemites took these words very seriously and quickly used them to stir up anti-Jewish sentiments throughout eastern and western Europe.

1897 September 12 Adlof Josef Lanz, now Brother Georg, takes his vows as a Cistercian monk at Heiligenkreuz Abbey. Lanz's novice-master was Nivard Schloegl, a bible scholar and expert on oriental languages. Schloegl disdained the Jews as an arrogant and exclusive religious group, and his bible translations were placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Catholic Church because of his antisemitic prejudice.

1897 October 29 Joseph Goebbels is born at Rheydt in the German Rhineland to a lower middle-class Catholic family.

1897 Alfred Dreyfus's brother succeeds in having Major Ferdinand Esterhazy brought to trial. Against all evidence, Esterhazy is acquitted.

1897 Austrian Emperor Franz Josef finally allows Karl Lueger to assume office as mayor of Vienna.

1897 In Germany, Wilhelm Schwaner (b. 1863) publishes Der Volkserzieher, one of the earliest völkisch periodicals, which features a swastika on its title-page.

1898 January Novelist Emile Zola publishes an open letter entitled "J'accuse," attacking the French army and bringing the Dreyfus affair to the public's attention. Dreyfus's cause is taken up by French radicals, socialists, and intellectuals. Later that year the major document used against Dreyfus is proven to be a forgery.

1898 January 6 Guido von List is visited by the old catholic bishop of Bohemia, Nittel von Warnsdorf, who congratulates him on "a new epoch in the history of religion." (Balzli; Roots)

1898 Spring Father Georg (Adolf Josef Lanz) is said to have visited Lambach Abbey, spending several weeks studying in the private library of Theoderich Hagn, the former abbot. Hagn had ordered swastikas designs carved on the abbey as early as 1868. (Angebert)

1898 July 30 Former German Chancellor Otto von Bismark dies.

1898 September 19 Father Georg (Adolf Josef Lanz) assumes teaching duties in the seminary at Heiligenkreuz (A). (Daim)

1898 The Marxist Social Democratic Labor party is established in Russia.

1898 Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin) becomes involved in radical political activity.

1898 Georg von Schoenerer launches his Los von Rome (break from Rome) campaign.

1898 Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Trotsky) is arrested and later exiled to Siberia where he soon joins the Social Democratic Party. Trotsky is the son of a well-to-do Jewish farmer from Yanovka in the southern province of Kherson.

1898 Hitler develops an interest in Germanic mythology and mysticism. According to his abbot, he was a good student and a class leader.

1899 January Adolf Hitler leaves choir school at Lambach Abbey.

1899 February 23Hitler's father buys a house near the old Catholic cemetery in Leonding, a suburb of Linz, Austria.

1899 April 11 Father Georg (Adolf Josef Lanz) writes a letter to the authorities of Heiligenkreuz Abbey, complaining of his desire for physical and intellectual freedom. (Heiligenkreuz Abbey Archive)

1899 April 27 Father Georg (Adolf Josef Lanz) renounces his holy vows and leaves Heiligenkreuz Abbey. The abbey register refers to his leaving as a "surrender to the lies of the world and carnal love." (Daim)

1899 August Guido von List is married to Anna Wittek, his second wife. The wedding is celebrated in the evangelical Protestant (Lutheran) church. Like many other Austrian Pan-Germans, List had rejected the Catholic Church. (Austrian Staatsarchiv, Vienna)

1899 Britishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain publishes "The Foundations of the 19th Century." The book's introduction is written by Lord Redesdale, Bertrand Mitford, grandfather of Unity Mitford and a close personal friend of the Wagner family. (The House of Mitford)

1899 Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin) leaves the Tiflis Theological Seminary without graduating and becomes a full-time revolutionary organizer.

1899 Journalist and future statesman Winston Churchill escapes from Boer captivity in South Africa.

1899 Alfred Dreyfus is granted a retrial, but once again is found guilty. Afterward, President Emile Loubet grants him a pardon.

1899 Georg von Schoenerer begins to associate the Pan-German movement with a new Lutheran movement, accounting for about 30,000 protestant conversions in Bohemia, Styria, Carinthia and Vienna between 1899 and 1910.

1900 February 2 Edmund Hitler, Adolf Hitler's younger brother, suddenly dies. Mysteriously, both his mother and father choose not to attend the funeral. Instead, they both travel to neighboring Linz, where the local bishop resides and don't return until the following day. 11-year-old Adolf goes to the funeral alone. No headstone is ever erected on Edmund's grave. (Waite)

(Robert Payne states that young Edmund died on February 29. Toland: February 2)

1900 February Hitler's personality suddenly changes. Reportedly, he becomes distant, moody and evasive. His grades deteriorate, and he begins to cause trouble in school.

1900 September 17 Hitler enters Realschule at Linz, but he continues to do poorly in school.

1900 Karl Rohm, who visited with English Theosophists in London during the late 1890s, founds a publishing house at Lorch in Wurttemberg. His publications include translations of the works of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton and other contemporary occultists. (Roots)

1900 Adolf Josef Lanz returns to Vienna where he joins Georg von Schoenerer's Pan-German movement and converts to Protestantism. (Ostara III, 1930)

1900 December 25 Adolf Josef Lanz (Liebenfels) later claims that it was on this date that he founded the Order of the New Templars. Lanz said he set himself up as the order's Grand Master and adopted the swastika as his emblem. (Historians believe the order was not modeled along Templar lines until sometime after 1905.) (Roots)

1900 Germany begins to expand its navy in an attempt to challenge British control of trade and the seas.

1900 The work of Mendel is rediscovered. Those who regard the mental traits of Man (intelligence and so on) as being primarily inherited, believe that their hypothesis is scientifically proved by Mendelian genetics. For them, the whole of human history becomes a part of the biological evolution Darwin had described in the animal kingdom. They see it as their duty to demand the prevention of procreation by other "inferior races" and by "inferior individuals" within their own race, in order to stave off the decline and ruin of European culture which they allege is near at hand. (Science)

1900 King Humbert I is assassinated and succeeded by Victor Emmanuel III as king of Italy.

1900 Sigmund Freud publishes 'The Interpretation of Dreams.'

1900 The first modern concentration camps are built by Field Marshal Lord Roberts, British Commander-in-Chief in South Africa during the Boer War. Camps are expanded by General Lord Kitchener, and the population of the concentration camps increases to approximately 110,000 whites and 107,000 Africans. An estimated 27,927 whites, of whom 26,251 are women and children, and at least 13,315 Africans die due to starvation, poor location, bad administration, and disease. (Grolier)

1900 Georg von Schoenerer converts to Protestantism.

1901 January 22 Queen Victoria dies on the Isle of Wight, ending the longest reign in British history (64 years). Her son, Edward VII, succeeds her.

1901 February 25 The United States Steel Corporation is incorporated in the state of New Jersey by J.P. Morgan in defiance of the Sherman Anti-trust Law. One-seventh of the total capitalization goes to the men who arrange the intricate deal. Morgan, himself, is said to have made $80 million. (Schlesinger I)

1901 March 4 William McKinley is inaugurated as U.S. President for a second term. Theodore Roosevelt is Vice President.

1901 September 6 U.S. President William McKinley is shot by Anarchist Leon Czolgosz, as he attends a reception for the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo.

1901 September 14 President McKinley dies of his wounds and Forty-two-year-old Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as President.

1901 Stalin, now a member of the Georgian branch of the Social Democratic party, roams the Caucasus, agitating among workers, helping with strikes, and spreading socialist literature.

1901 Lev Borisovich Kamenev (originally Rosenfeld) joins the Russian Social Democratic Workers' party.

1901 Hitler attends Lohengrin, his first opera, at the Linz Opera House.

1901 Rudolf Glauer (Rudolf von Sebottendorff) claims to have been initiated into a lodge of Freemasons at Bursa in Anatolioa by the patriarch of the Termudi family, Greek Jews from Salonica. Old Termudi had retired from business to devote himself to the study of the Cabbala and collecting alchemical and Rosicrucian texts. After Termudi's death Sebottendorff said he had inherited this occult library and begun his own study of the secret mystical exercises of the Baktashi dervishes. (Sebottendorff; Roots)

(Sebottendorff was born November 9, 1875 in the Saxon market town of Hoyerswerda, north of Dresden.)

1901 Theodor Fritsch sends a circular to some three hundred individuals who had earlier been active party antisemites. Fritsch hoped to establish a broad and powerful antisemitic movement outside parliament, where he thought it would be more effective. (Roots)

1901 The first German translation of The Secret Doctrine, the Theosophical Society's basic text, is published.

1902 January 3 Alois Hitler dies in Leonding (A). Oddly, no headstone is erected on his grave by the family, even though his wife, Klara, had received a considerable inheritance and a government pension. Josef Mayrhofer, the mayor of Leonding, is appointed as Adolf and Paula's guardian.

1902 January Theodor Fritsch founds the Hammer, a völkisch and Social Darwinist, antisemitic periodical.

1902 March 26 British imperialist and statesman Cecil Rhodes dies.

1902 April Ludwig Woltmann founds the Social Darwinist publication, Politisch-Anthropologische Revue.

1902 Guido von List goes blind for eleven month following an eye operation for cataracts. During his long convalesence, a fundamental change takes place in the character of List's ideas. Occultism becomes central to his thoughts on rune symbolism and the basis of his belief in the ancient German faith. (Balzli; Roots)

1902 September 14 Angela Hitler, Adolf's half-sister, marries Leo Raubal.

1902 November 15 The German Workers Party (DAP) is first organized in the northern Bohemian city of Aussig (Usti nad Labein). (Unknown Nazis)

1902 Karl Hermann Wolf and his followers resign from the Austrian Pan-German party.

1902 Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Trotsky) escapes abroad from Siberia. He soon meets Lenin, and begins a troubled relationship with the Bolshevik party.

1902 Rudolf Steiner, a young scholar who had studied in Vienna before writing a study of Goethe at Weimar, becomes general secretary of the German Theosophical Society in Berlin.

1902 Baron Nathaniel "Natty" Rothschild meets Theodor Herzl to discuss a possible Jewish homeland to be setup in Palestine.

1902 The Zionist Congress rejects a British offer of land for a Jewish settlement in Uganda, East Africa.

1902 Dr. L. Woltmann, a gentleman-scholar, founds the Politisch-Anthropologischen Revue (Political-anthropological review). (Science)

1902 The Treaty of Vereeniging ends the South African War (the Boer War 1899-1902).

1903 Philipp Maschlufsky begins editing the occult periodical Die Gnosis in Vienna. It was later acquired by a group of Berlin Theosophists who amalgamate it with Rudolf Steiner's Luzifer. (Roots)

1903 April Fourty-nine Jews are murdered in a pogrom at Kishinev in western Russia. After the massacre, Theodor Herzl calls for the creation of Jewish nachtasyls (havens) throughout the world.

1903 April Guido von List sends a manuscript concerning the "Aryan proto-language" to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. It is his first attempt to interpret by means of occult insight the letters and sounds of the runes, as well as the emblems and glyphs of ancient Germanic inscriptions. This manuscript becomes the "masterpiece" of his occult-nationalist researches,"Die Ursprache der Arier, deren Schrift und Heilszeichen." (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1903 May Adolf Josef Lanz, now calling himself Dr. Jorg Lanz-Liebenfels, publishes a scholarly article in Ludwig Woltmannn's Politisch-Anthropologische Revue 2.(This is his first known use of the name Liebenfels. Lanz by this time was also using a doctoral title, and although there is no evidence of his having earned a degree from the University of Vienna, one may have been conferred by some other university.)

1903 September An Association of Occultism in Vienna establishes a lending-library, where its members can consult the works of Zollner, Hellenbach and du Prel. (Die Gnosis)

1903 September Die Gnosis publishes an article by Guido von List indicating the new theosophical cast of his occult thinking. (Roots)

1903 The Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party is held in London. This meeting splits the new party into two factions: the Bolsheviks (majorityites), led by Lenin (Vladimir Ulyanov), and the Mensheviks (Minorityites), led by Yuri Martov. Leon Trotsky sides with the Mensheviks. Even though he admires Lenin and his pragmatism, he fears that Lenin's "elitist" organizational methods will lead to dictatorship.

1903 Theodor Herzl endorses British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain's plan to establish a Jewish homeland in East Africa. After two years of squabbling, the Zionist Congress again rejects the so-called Uganda Plan in 1905.

1903 Alexander, King of Serbia, is assassinated and is succeeded by Peter I.

1903 Dr. Jorg Lanz-Liebenfels (Adolf Josef Lanz) publishes an anticlerical book entitled Katholizismus wider Jesuitismus (Frankfurt, 1903).

1903 Rudolf Steiner publishes Luzifer, a Theosophically oriented periodical, in Berlin (until 1908).

1903 Orville Wright makes the first successful flight in a self-propelled airplane.

1903 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels publishes a long article entitled "Anthropozoon biblicum" in Vierteljahrsschift fur Bibelkunde, a perodical for biblical research. This strange investigation of the past extends his earlier Theosophical and scientific hypotheses and sets out the basic ideas that will be further developed in his Theo-Zoology or the Lore of the Sodom-Apelings and the Electron of the Gods (1905). (Roots)

1903 Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev (Radomyslsky) joins Lenin in Switzerland and becomes one of his closest collaborators.

1903 Lenin sets about organizing the Bolshevik revolutionary group. Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin) supports the Bolsheviks. Lenin, it is said, greatly appreciates Dzhugashvili's familiarity with Russian nationality problems and his intense personal loyalty.

1904 January 17 The first issue of the DAP (German Workers Party) newspaper appears in Austria. (Unknown Nazis)

1904 March 17 Franklin D. Roosevelt marries Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, his sixth cousin. President Theodore Roosevelt, her uncle, comes to New York City to give the bride away. The young couple sees a great deal of "T. R." and his liberal ideas and strong leadership help Franklin to decide on a career in politics.

1904 May 22 Adolf Hitler is confirmed at the Linz cathedral.

1904 June Klara Hitler sells her house in Leonding and moves into a comfortable apartment in nearby Linz.

1904 Summer Hitler leaves Steyr Realschule. He soon falls ill and recuperates with his mother's relatives in Spital, Austria.

1904 July 3 Theodor Herzl, the Hungarian credited with founding modern political Zionism dies at Edlach, Austria.

1904 August 15 The Austrian DAP is officially founded at Trautenau (Trutnou). Two of the party's first leaders are from Hitler's hometown of Linz. (Unknown Nazis)

1904 September Adolf Hitler reenters Realschule at Steyr, Austria.

1904 Chaim Weizmann settles in England, joins the faculty of the University of Manchester and becomes a leader of the British Zionist movement.

1904 Britain concludes the Entente Cordiale with France.

1904 Autumn Adolf Hitler meets August Kubizek at the Linz Opera House, and they soon become close friends.

1904 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels publishes the conclusion of "Anthropozoon biblicum" in Vierteljahrsschift fur Bibelkunde. (Roots)

1904 Jorg Lanz-Liebenfels (Adolf Josef Lanz) publishes two more anticlerical books: Das Breve 'Dominus ac redemptor noster' (Frankfurt 1904) and Der Taxil Swindel (Frankfurt 1904).

1904 Dr. A. Ploetz, a gentleman-scholar, founds the Archiv für Rassenkunde und Gesellschaftsbiologie (Archives of Race-theory and Social Biology). (Science)

1904 The formation of the Anglo-French Entente alarms the nationalistic leadership in Germany.

1905 Sergey Nilus publishes a book in Russia containing what are called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Certain versions claim they were actually written by a Jew named Asher Ginsburg under the pen name Achad Haam. Most historians are now convinced the Protocols are an antisemitic forgery that can be traced back to a non-Jewish, French writer, Maurice Jolie, in the mid-1800's.

1905 The Petersburg Soviet of Workers is formed by a group of Communist radicals in St. Petersburg.

1905 Middle-class liberals in Russia form the Constitutional Democratic party (Cadets).

1905 Two-hundred thousand workers and their families stage a peaceful march to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The Czar's palace guards panic and fire into the crowd, killing 500 marchers. Afterward, the day becomes known nationwide as "Bloody Sunday."

1905 A general strike and revolution breaks out in Russia.Trotsky returns to take a leading role in the St. Petersburg (later Petrograd) Workers' Soviet. He is arrested, tried, and again exiled to Siberia.

1905 Zinoviev returns to Russia representing Lenin and the Bolsheviks during the 1905 Revolution.

1905 Czar Nicholas II grants a constitution to the Russian people.

1905 Rene Guenon publishes Le Roi du Monde.

1905 Dr. A. Ploetz founds the GeselIschaft für Rassen-hygien(Society of Race-hygiene). (Science)

1905 An article written by Adolf Josef Lanz first appears in Theodor Fritsch's Hammer.

1905 Winter Adolf Josef Lanz, alias Dr. Jorg Lanz-Liebenfels, publishes the first issue of Ostara, a popular and vehemently racist, antisemitic magazine. This same year, Lanz publishes the fundamental statement of his doctrine, entitled: Theo-Zoology or the Lore of the Sodom-Apelings and the Electron of the Gods. Lanz's specific recommendations for the disposal of so-called racial inferiors included deportation to Madagascar, enslavement, incineration as a sacrifice to God, and forced labor as beasts of burden.

(Note: After Hitler came to power in 1933, Madagascar was often suggested by the Nazis as a place for the deportation of the Jews. This odd choice seems to be a direct link to Lanz and his theories. Lanz published the first issue of Ostara at Graz, but it was henceforth published at Rodaun until mid 1913. It was then published at Moedling until 1917, when the first series (Ostara I) was discontinued. Ostara II was published for a brief time in 1922 at Magdeburg. Ostara III was published in Vienna from 1927 to 1931 sponsored by Johann Walthari Wolfl.

1905 At the 1905 World Zionist Congress one Jewish group withdraws after the majority of delegates again rejects a British proposal for establishing a Jewish homeland in Uganda. Despite opposition from fundamentalist and assimilationist Jews as well as other internal divisions, the Zionist organization begins to gather strength. (Grolier)

1905 Friedrich Wannieck, his son, Friedrich Oskar Wannieck, Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels and fifty other prominent Austrians and Germans sign the first public announcement concerning support for the proposed Guido von List Society. (GLB; Roots)

1905 Readers of Theodor Fritsch's Hammer, then numbering more than three thousand, begin organizing themselves into local Hammer-Gemeiden (Hammer-Groups). (Roots)

1905 Germany attempts to isolate France diplomatically by supporting Moroccan independence. Contrary to German expectations, Britain rallies to the support of France.

1905 American labor leader Eugene V. Debs founds the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

1905 Albert Einstein publishes three scientific papers and obtains a Ph.D. degree from the University of Zurich. The second of his 1905 papers proposes what is today known as the special theory of relativity.

1905 The Japanese destroy the Imperial Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima.

1905 The union of Norway and Sweden is dissolved, and Haakon VII is elected king of Norway.

1905 W.E.B. Du Bois forms the Niagara Movement and demands full civil rights for all black Americans.

1906 March 19 Adolf Eichmann is born in the Rhineland but his family later moves to Austria.

1906 Spring Adolf Hitler becomes infatuated with a girl named Stefanie in Linz, but never dares to speak with her. Instead he attempts to communicate with her by telepathy, according to August Kubizek.

1906 Hitler quits school in Linz without graduating.

1906 July Noted Theosophist Harald Gravell van Jostenoode writes a complete issue of Lanz-Liebenfel's Ostara. Gravell demands the return of the Crown Jewels and Holy Lance of the Holy Roman Empire to the German Reich. (To the Pan-Germans, the return of the regalia (Reichskleinodien) to a new imperial capital at Nuremberg represented the restoration of a neo-Carolingian Greater German Empire under Hohenzollern rule, which would then reabsorb the historic "German" territories of Austria, Bohemia and Moravia, as well as Belgium, Holland and Scandanavia.) (Roots)

1906 Summer Hitler makes his first visit to Vienna, spending several weeks sight-seeing and attending the opera. With whom he stayed and other details of his visit remain uncertain.

1906 Hitler and August Kubizek visit St. Georgen on the River Gusen, the site of an ancient German battle. Hitler tells Kubizek that much could be learned from the "spirits" residing in the ancient soil and in the mortar between the cracks of the ruined buildings. At exactly this same time, both Lanz and List were telling their students in Vienna this same story. (Kubizek)

1906 November Hitler attends Wagner's opera Rienzi in Linz and is greatly affected. He soon becomes an ardent admirer of Richard Wagner, and most especially his racist theoretical writings. According to August Kubizek, Hitler read Wagner's works in a private library owned by the wealthy father of a friend, and is already an ardent antisemite. (Kubizek)

1906 Ernst Haeckel, an eminent zoologist, founds the Monist League, repeatedly warning against the dangers of race-mixing. (Roots)

1906 H.M.S. Dreadnought, the first modern battleship, is launched by Great Britain.

1906 The Algeciras Conference in Spain approves the French plan of establishing a protectorate over Morocco.

1906 Two articles written by Adolf Josef Lanz appear in Theodor Fritsch's Hammer #5.

1906 The Aga Khan III forms the All-India Moslim League.

1906 The Dreyfus affair ends after Alfred Dreyfus is vindicated by a civilian court and readmitted into the French army.

1907 January Hitler learns his mother, Klara, is dying of breast cancer.

1907 Hitler moves to Vienna with the hope of dedicating his life to a career as an artist and painter.

1907 Jorg Lanz-Liebenfels (Adolf Josef Lanz) publishes Theosophy and the Assyrian 'Man-Beasts.'

1907 Schoenerer and the Pan-German party are defeated in the Austrian parliamentary elections.

1907 After graduating from Harvard University, Franklin Roosevelt completes his studies at Columbia University Law School in New York City, and soon begins to practice with a leading New York law firm.

1907 Britain signs a treaty of friendship with Russia.

1907 The Triple Entente, a series of bilateral agreements, is formed between Britain, France and Russia. Europe is thus divided into the two armed camps.

1907 Lazar Kaganovich begins work in a shoe factory in Moszyr, fifty miles north of Kabany. He had been introduced to the trade by his uncle, Levich Kaganovich. The Kaganovich clan, itself, was huge and Lazar had numerous relatives throughout Russia. Although a Jew, Lazar had refused to be bar mitzvahed.

1907 Guido von List who has often used the aristocratic title "von" in his name since 1903, finally enters the title in the Vienna address book of 1907. This soon comes to the notice of the nobility archive, which urges an official inquiry. (Roots)

1907 October 1 The Panic of 1907 causes runs on banks across America and brings about a collapse of the stock market and the depression of 1907-1908. J.P. Morgan and friends import $100 million in gold from Europe to help shore up U.S. currency. (Schlesinger I)

1907 October 2 Guido von List tells the magistrates investigating his alleged nobility that his family was descended from Lower Austrian and Styrian aristocracy. List claims his great-grandfather had abandoned the title after entering a burgher trade (inn keeper), but that he had resumed the title after leaving commerce for a literary career in 1878. (Balzli; Roots)

1907 October Hitler fails his entrance examination to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

1907 November Hitler is called home by the family doctor, Dr. Eduard Bloch, a Jew. The doctor later wrote that Hitler displayed no sign of animosity or racial prejudice, and was one of the most grieving sons he had ever seen. (Bloch)

1907 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels purchases the ruins of an ancient medieval castle, Burg Werfenstein, outside the village of Struden near Grein in Upper Austria, with the aid of his wealthy friends. Lanz soon converts it into the headquarters of the Order of the New Templars (ONT). (Roots)

1907 December Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels writes an article entitled "Der Orden des neuen Templels" in Ostara I, # 18, stating that he is founding a museum of "Aryan" anthropology, for which he has secured a suitable site (i.e. Burg Werfenstein). He also sets out the ONT program, describing it as an "Aryan" mutual-aid association founded to foster racial consciousness through genealogical and heraldic research, beauty contests, and the foundation of racist utopias in the underdeveloped parts of the world. (Roots)

1907 December The Sphix Reading Club, an occult study-group is founded by Franz Herndl, in Vienna.

1907 December 21 Klara Hitler dies of breast cancer. Dr. Bloch will later say he has never seen a more grieving son. Many years later, Hitler personally arrange for Dr. Bloch to leave the country unmolested.

1907 December 25 Jorg Lanz Liebenfels celebrates Christmas Day by hoisting a swastika flag from the high tower of Burg Werfenstein. Two flags were flown: one displaying the Liebenfels blazon, while the other showed a red swastika surrounded by four blue fleur-de-lis upon a golden field. (Herndl; Roots)

1907 Max Altmann begins to publish the widely popular Zentralblatt fur Okkultismus, which was edited by D. Georgiewitz-Weitzer, who wrote his works on modern Rosicrucians, alchemy and occult medicine under the pseudonym G.W. Surya. (Roots)

1907 Universal male suffrage is introduced in Austria.

1907 Rasputin, real name Grigori Yefimovich, gains influence at the court of Russian emperor Nicholas II.

1907 Leon Trotsky again escapes abroad from Siberia and continues to write extensively.

1907 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels will later claim more than 100,000 copies of Ostara were circulated in 1907. It was widely distributed from tobacco stands and eextremely popular with the right-wing fencing associations. (Daim; Roots)

1907 The Deutsch-Soziale Reformpartei wins only six seats in the German parliament. (Roots)

1907 Karl Brandler-Pracht, returns from the United States and soon afterward founds the First Vienna Astrological Society. (Roots)

1908 February Hitler returns to Vienna and settles into a flat at number 29 Stumpergasse.

1908 Guido von List, identifies the swastika (Hakenkreus) as an ancient symbol of racial purity, as well as a sign of esoteric knowledge and occult wisdom.

1908 Albert Einstein submits a paper to the University of Bern and becomes a privatdocent, or lecturer, on the university faculty.

1908 Austria announces its annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austrian's expansion intensifies its rivalry with Russia and eventually leads to war.

1908 Cyrus R. Teed (the first Koresh) dies in America.

1908 August Kubizek joins Hitler in Vienna and becomes his roommate at number 29 Stumpergasse.

1908 March 2 The Guido von List Society is officially founded in Vienna by supporters who are attracted to the distinctive admixture of nationalism and occultism propounded by this strange, pagan mystic. In the years between 1908 and 1912 scores of well-known figures in Austria and Germany join. Membership lists can be found in GLB. (Roots)

1908 Spring Festivals held at Burg Werfenstein are believed to be the earliest organized ONT activities. Several hundred guests arrived by steamer from Vienna to the sound of a small cannon fired from the beflagged castle. The large party was treated to a concert in the castle courtyard and festivities lasted late into the night with bonfires and choir-singing. This event was widely publicized in the Austrian national press, thus helping to publicize Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels, ONT and Ostara to a much broader audience. (Herndl; Roots)

1908 April Hitler returns home one day and tells Kubizek that he has joined a secret antisemitic lodge. (Toland)

1908 July Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels publishes the 25th issue of Ostara. This issue features another contribution by the Theosophist, Harald Gravell van Jostenoode, which outlines a thoroughly Theosophical conception of race, quoting Annie Besant, the successor of Madame Blavatsky at the Theosophical Society in London, as well as Rudolf Steiner, Secretary General of its German branch in Berlin. (Roots)

1908 July From July 1908 to the end of World War I, Lanz will personally write 71 issues of Ostara. (Ostara was the pagan goddess of Spring.) (Roots)

1908 July Karl Maria Wiligut (Weisthor) writes a series of nine pagan commandments. He claims that his father had initiated him into the family secrets in 1890, and that he is able to recall the history and experiences of his tribe over thousands of years. (Roots)

1908 Wiligut (Weisthor) meets Theodor Czepl of the Order of the New Templars (ONT) through an occult circle in Vienna, whose members included Willy Thaler, a cousin of Wiligut, his wife Marie Thaler, a well-known actress, and several other ONT brothers.(According to Frau B., a source of Rudolf Mund, Hitler is said to have also frequented this group between 1908 and 1913.) (Roots)

1908 October Hitler fails his art examination at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna for a second time.

1908 November 18 Hitler moves out of his flat, leaves no forwarding address, and doesn't speak to Kubizek again until March 1938. Police records show Hitler moved to new lodgings on the Felberstrasse only a few blocks away. He lived at this new address from November 18, 1908 to August 20, 1909.

1908 December 31 Simon Wiesenthal is born at Buczacz in what was then Austria-Hungary.

1908 Dr. Walter Riehl joins the Austrian DAP.

1908 William Thomas Manning (1866-1949) becomes the Episcopal rector of Trinity Parish in New York City. Manning had been born in Northampton, England, and immigrated to America.

1908 Guido von List publishes the first three of his seven Guido List Bucherei. GLB 1 (Geheimnis der Runen) was a key to the meaning and magical power of the runes. GLB 2 (Die Armanenschaft der Ario-Germanen) was a study of the political authority and organization of the Wotanist priesthood (Armanenschaft), and GLB 3 (Die Rita der Ario-Germanen) an esoteric interpretation of folklore and place-names. (see also 1909, 1910, 1911 and 1914) (Roots)

1908 William Durant, founds the General Motors (GM).

1908 Ford Motor Company produces the first Model T.

1908 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.

1908 Zinoviev is briefly Imprisoned in Russia. After his release, he rejoins Lenin in western Europe, where he edits various Communist newspapers.

1908 The Tunguska fireball explodes in Siberia with the force of a modern H-bomb.

1908 In the German colony of South-West Africa, all existing mixed marriages are annulled and such marriages are forbidden in the future. The Germans involved are deprived of their civil rights. Dr. E. Fischer, a Dozent in anatomy at the University of Freiburg, begins to investigate the 'bastards' (persons of mixed blood, born mainly of unions between Dutch (Boer) men and Hottentot women) of Rehoboth in German South-West Africa (now Namibia). (Science)

1908 The Young Turk Revolution in Turkey leads to political reform.

1909 Summer Hitler visits Georg Lanz von Liebenfels at his home. (Lanz was interviewed by Daim on May 11, 1951, and confirmed this meeting with Hitler. (Daim)

1909 August 20 Hitler moves into a flat on Vienna's Sechshauserstrasse.

1909 August 29 Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung arrive in New York City on their way to be honored for their work at Clark University in Massachusetts. This will be Freud's first and only visit to America, but Jung will make several return trips.

1909 Winter Adolf Hitler is said to have first seen the Holy Lance (Helige Lanz) at the Hofburg Treasure House in Vienna. (Ravenscroft)

1909 December Hitler takes up residence at Vienna's Asylum for the Homeless.

1909 Louis Bleriot flies an airplane of his own design from France to England.

1909 Karl Maria Wiligut (Weisthor) resigns his membership in the Schlarraffia, a quasi-masonic lodge he had joined in Görz in 1889. He had attained the grade of Knight and the office of Chancellor. His lodge name was Lobesam. (Roots)

1909 Lanz von Liebenfels begins writing to Philipp Stauff at Enzisweiler near Lake Constance. (Bundesarchiv; Roots)

1909 Guido von List publishes his GLB 4 (Die Namen der Völkerstämme Germaniens und deren Deutung) a continuing study of his esoteric interpretations of folklore and place-names. (Roots)

1909 Albert Einstein receives an appointment as associate professor of physics at the University of Zurich. He is by now recognized as a leading scientific thinker throughout German-speaking Europe.

1910 January The Jewish population of Vienna increases to 175,294 out of a total 2,031,420 (8.75%). Jews in some neighborhoods accounted for 20 percent of the residents.

1910 February 9 Adolf Hitler settles into comfortable quarters at the Mannerheim, a comfortable residence for bachelors in Vienna.

(Josef Greiner later claimed that Hitler had a substantial collection of Lanz von Liebenfels' Ostara. He also claimed to remember Hitler engaging in heated conversations with a fellow-boarder named Grill about Lanz's racial ideas.)(Daim)

1910 May 30 Philipp Stauff writes a letter to Heinrich Kraeger in which he mentions the idea of an antisemitic lodge with the names of members kept secret to prevent enemy penetration. Stauff was convinced that the powerful influence of Jews in German life could be understood only as a result of a widespread Jewish secret conspiracy. It was supposed that such a conspiracy could best be combatted by a similar antisemitic organization. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)

1910 August 5 Hitler testifies in court during a lawsuit he had filed against Reinhold Hanisch, an ex-business partner.

1910 Autumn A Hammer group is established in Magdeburg.

1910 November 8 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected to the New York state senate.

1910 December Rudolf Glauer (Rudolf von Sebottendorff) claims to have founded a mystical lodge in Constantinople while writing a study on Baktashi dervishes. (Roots)

1910 Averell Harriman's mother pays for the building of the Eugenics Records Office, an American branch of the Galton National Laboratory in London.

1910 Jean Monnet moves to Montreal and soon becomes associated with the Hudson Bay company and the banking firm, Lazard Brothers.

1910 Edward VII dies and is succeeded by his only surviving son, who becomes King George V.

1910 Guido von List publishes GLB 5 (Die Bilderschrift der Ario-Germanen or Ario-Gernische Hieroglyphik) a glossary of secret "Aryan messages" in hieroglyphs and heraldic devices. (Roots)

1910 British politician Winston Churchill is appointed First Lord of the Admiralty.

1910 Philipp Stauff moves to Kulmbach in Franconia from Enzisweiler on Lake Constance where he had published a nationalist newspaper since 1907. (Roots)

1910 Philipp Stauff joins the List Society and quickly becomes a member of the inner circle (HAO). (Roots)

1911 January 18Johannes Hering, a member of the local Hammer group in Munich, the Pan-German League and a close friend of both Guido von List and Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels, writes to Philipp Stauff, the prominent völkisch journalist, telling him that he has been a Freemason since 1894, but that this "ancient Germanic institution" has been polluted by Jewish and parvenu ideas. He concluded that a revived "Aryan" lodge would be a boon to antisemites. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1911 March 21 Johanna Polzl, Hitler's aunt, dies after giving him a modest inheritance shortly before her death.

1911 April 5 The Hammer group in Magdeburg institutes what is called the Wotan Lodge, with Hermann Pohl elected Master. (Roots)

1911 April 15 A Grand Lodge is formed with Theodor Fritsch as Grand Master, but the work of formulating rules and rituals is undertaken by theWotan Lodge. (Roots)

1911 May 4 Hitler is ordered by a court in Linz to surrender his orphan's pension to his sister, Paula.

1911 John Foster Dulles joins the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell in New York City.

1911 The Austrian DAP wins three seats in the Austrian parliamentary elections.

1911 Summer The HAO (Hoher Armanen-Orden or High Armanen-Order), a tiny inner circle of initiates within the List Society, is formally founded at the midsummer solstice, when the most dedicated List Society members in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich travel to meet their Austrian colleagues in Vienna. (Roots)

1911 June 23 Guido von List takes members of the HAO on a "pilgrimage" to the St. Stephen's catacombs in Vienna, where List claimed to have first sensed Wotan while still a child. They then continued on to other Wotanist "sanctuaries" on the Kahlenberg, the Leopoldsberg and at Klosterneuburg. (List; Roots)

1911 June 24 During the next three days, List and 10 members of the HAO, including Philipp Stauff, travel to Bruhl near Mödling, Burg Kreuzenstein, and finally Carnuntum, where a photo of the "pilgrims" is taken. (Roots)

1911 July The Germans send a gunboat to Agadir to put pressure on the French to guarantee German iron interests in West Morocco and also to cede parts of the French Congo to Germany during what is called the second Moroccan crisis. (Roots)

1911 Italy's attempt to annex Cyrenaica and Tripolitania leads to the Italo-Turkish War.

1911 September 6 Dr. Jorg Lanz-Liebenfel (Adolf Joself Lanz) uses the title "von" on his letterhead to Johannes Hering (the first traceable use by Lanz).(Bundesarchiv, Koblenz) (Goodrick-Clark says Lanz was using title by 1903.)

1911 September 14 Russian Prime Minister Pyotyr Stolypin is assassinated while watching an opera with the Czar in Kiev. The assassin, Dmitri Bogrov, is said to be a terrorist, but was later discovered to be a police agent.

1911 October 25 Winston Churchill is appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in Britain.

1911 November 11 Guido von List receives a letter from an individual calling himself "Tarnhari," who claims to be the descendant or reincarnation of a chieftain of the ancient Wölsungen tribe in prehistoric Germany. During the early postwar years this same person (Ernst Lauterer) is closely associated with Dietrich Eckart, Hitler's mentor in the early days of the Nazi Party.

(Tarnhari popularized List's writings during WWI as can be seen from the writings of Ellegaard Ellerbek (Gustav Leisner), a völkisch-mystical writer who paid extravagant tribute to both List and Tarhari.) (Roots)

1911 November Hermann Pohl sends a circular to some fifty potential antisemitic collaborators, stating that the Hammer group in Magdeburg has already established a lodge upon appropriate racial principles with a ritual based on Germanic pagan tradition. Pohl urges his correspondents to join his movement and to form lodges of their own, adding that this project has the full support of Theodor Fritsch. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1911 Rudolf Glauer (Rudolf von Sebottendorff) becomes a Turkish citizen in Constantinople. (Roots)

1911 Mikhail Kaganovich, the older brother of Lazar Kaganovich, is arrested for being a member of the Bolshevik party.(Wolf)

1911 Guido von List publishes his GLB 2a (Die Armanenschaft der Ario-Germanen. Zweiter Teil), continuing his "exploration" of the Wotanist priesthood. (Roots)

1911 Lazar Kaganovich first sees Leon Trotsky, at a speech in Kiev. Trotsky, he later said, was already a well-known figure throughout Russia.

1911 Italian forces seize Tripoli.

1911 Otto Richard Tannenberg a well-known Pan-German writer, publishes Greater Germany: The Work of the Twentieth Century, urging his countrymen to create a great European empire by uniting all German and German-related peoples. (Architect)

1912 January The Deutsch-Soziale Reformpartei wins only three seats in the German parliament. (Roots)

1912 January 12 Hermann Pohl writes a manifesto for the "loyal lodges" of the Germanenorden, which stresses his desire for a fervent, rather than numerous, following, which would usher in an "Aryan-Germanic religious revival" stressing obedience and devotion to the cause of a pan-German "Armanist Empire" (Armanenreich) and the rebirth of a racially pure German nation, in which the "parasitic and revolutionary mob-races" (Jews, anarchist crossbreeds and gypsies) would be deported. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1912 Austrian DAP headquarters in Vienna are located in the same district where Adolf Hitler has his apartment. (Unknown Nazis)

1912 February Karl August Hellwig , a retired colonel and follower of Guido von List living in Kassel, drafts a constitution for the future Reichshammerbund. This document sets up a council of twelve members called the Armanen-Rat. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1912 March Theodor Fritsch, recalling the weakness of the earlier antisemitic political parties, demands a new antisemitic organization "above the parties." (Hammer #11; Roots)

1912 March 12 The Grand Lodge, founded on April 5, 1911, adopts the name Germanenorden upon the suggestion of Theodor Fritsch. (Roots)

1912 Heinrich Class, the antisemitic chairman of the Alldeutscher Verband (Pan-German League), publishes Wenn ich der Kaiser wär! (If I was Kaiser!), appealing for the establishment of a dictatorship, the suspension of parliament, and denouncing the Jews. (Roots)

1912 April Theodor Fritsch writes a set of guidelines for the Reichshammerbund which urges collaboration with Catholics and a coordinated propaganda campaign amongst workers, farmers, teachers, civil servants, military officers and university students. (Roots)

1912 May 24-25 Theodor Fritsch, twenty prominent Pan-Germans, antisemites, and disciples of Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels and Guido von List found two groups to indoctrinate German society. Karl August Hellwig, a List Society member since 1908, now heads the Reichshammerbund, which has grown into a confederation of all existing Hammer groups. Hermann Pohl, from Magdeburg, becomes head of the Germanenorden, a secret twin-organization. (see photo, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)

1912 July Hermann Pohl publishes the first Germanenorden newsletter, which records that lodges have been ceremonially established at Breslau, Dresden and Königsberg that spring. Lodges in Berlin and Hamburg are already active prior to this time. Brothers in Bromberg, Nuremberg, Thuringia and Düsseldorf, he writes, are still recruiting and plan to found new lodges in the near future. (Bundesarchiv; Roots)

1912 October 4 Theodore Roosevelt is shot by an assassin in Milwaukee, but insists on giving his speech before being taken to the hospital.

1912 November 5 Woodrow Wilson is elected President of the U.S., defeating the Republican incumbent, William Howard Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt who has split the Republican vote by running on the independent Bull Moose ticket.

1912 December The Germanenorden newsletter claims 316 members in six major German cities have already joined the new organization: 99 in Breslau, 100 in Dresden, 42 in Königsberg, Hamburg 27, Berlin 30, and 18 in Hanover. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1912 Philipp Stauff moves to Berlin where he soon publishes a directory of Pan-German and antisemitic groups entitled Das deutsche Wehrbuch (German Defense Book) for Heinrich Kraeger, who with Alfred Brunner, will found the Deutsch-Sozialistische Partei in 1918. (Between 1912 and 1914, Stauff will publish Semi-Gotha and Semi-Alliancen, genealogical handbooks which purport to identify Jews amongst the German aristocracy. These and his other writings soon involve Stauff in a number of on-going legal suits.) (Roots)

1912 American Indian, Jim Thorpe, wins both the decathlon and the pentathlon at the Olympic Games in Stockholm. George S. Patton places fifth in the pentathlon.

1912 Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili takes the alias "Stalin" from the Russian word "stal" (steel). Between 1902 and 1912, Stalin had been arrested many times, but escaped repeatedly to continue working as a Bolshevik organizer. To obtain funds for the Bolsheviks, he staged a number of robberies.

1912 Lenin rewards Stalin by naming him to the Bolshevik Central Committee. From there, Stalin rapidly gains influence and power among the Bolsheviks and becomes the first editor of Pravda, the party newspaper.

1912 David Mitford, Lord Redesdale, the father of Unity Mitford, names his family property in Canada: Swastika. His father, Bertram Mitford, had not only written the introduction to Houston Stewart Chamberlain's famous book, The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, but was also a close, personal friend of the Wagner family. Richard Wagner's son, Siegfried, kept a photo of Bertram Mitford on his desk until his death. (The House of Mitford)

1912 Levick Kaganovich and his family move to the U.S. Levick had been like a father to Lazar Kaganovich. His son, Morris, was Lazar's best friend.

1912 Lazar Kaganovich joins the Bolshevik party in Mozyr and is designated as a party organizer.

1912 Johannes Baum founds the New Thought publishing house. Although initially concerned with translations of American material, this firm will play a vital role in German esoteric publishing during the 1920s. (Spirits in Rebellion; Roots)

1912 Phillip Stauff becomes a committee member of the List Society and a generous patron. (Roots)

1912 A U.S. federal committee investigates J.P. Morgan and his various business operations. Many believe that his mergers and consolidations have created unfair monopolies and developed restrictive trade practices.

1912 Archduke Otto von Habsburg is born.

1912 Rudolf Steiner breaks with the Theosophists and soon founds the Anthroposophical Society.

1912 The British luxury liner Titanic sinks after colliding with an iceberg on her maiden voyage, 1517 die, only 706 manage to survive.

1912 China becomes a republic.

1912 Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro form the Balkan League for protection against their longtime common adversary--Ottoman Turkey.

1912 The Balkan League makes war on Turkey, successfully ousting the Turks from the Balkans during what is called the First Balkan War.

1912 Benito Mussolini becomes editor of the Milan-based, Socialist party newspaper Avanti!

1912 Colonel Edward Mandell House publishes Philip Dru, Administrator, a book who's hero seizes the government of the United States with the backing of a secret cartel of rich and powerful financiers. Dru describes his new government as "...Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx," and begins to adopt several key Marxist programs such as a graduated income tax and a graduated inheritance tax. He also prohibits the "selling of ... anything of value," just as described by Marx. Colonel House will later become President Woodrow Wilson's top personal advisor.

1913 January A Germanenorden lodge is established at Duisburg with 30 brothers. Lodges in Nuremberg and Munich are established later in the year, but are not as successful as those in Northern and Eastern Germany. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1913 Kaiser Wilhelm II and H.S. Chamberlain plot to steal the Helige Lanz (Holy Lance) from Austria at a Germanic art exposition in Berlin. General Helmuth von Moltke foils their plan by alerting the Austrians.

1913 Walter Riehl and Rudolf Jung draft a new program for the Austrian German Worker's party (DAP) at Iglau. (Forgotten Nazis)

1913 Drew Ali, a black leader, founds a Moorish Science Temple in Newark, N.J., and establishes a religious tradition that will lead to the founding of the Black Muslims and other Islamic groups in the U.S.

1913 February 3 Wyoming approves the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, becoming the last of the 36 states needed to authorize a federal income tax.

1913 February 14-19 Philipp Stauff is involved in a series of spiritualist seances which claim to communicate with the long-dead priest-kings of the old religion. Guido von List later writes about these seances in depth. (Roots)

1913 February 25 The 16th Amendment becomes law in the United States. Earlier, the Supreme Court had found that an income tax whose monies are not reapportioned to the states is unconstitutional. The 16th amendment provides the necessary legal basis for a graduated federal income tax. (Schlesinger I)

1913 March King George I of Greece is assassinated and is succeeded by his son, Constantine I.

1913 March 4 Woodrow Wilson takes his oath of office as 28th President of the United States. Marshall becomes Vice President.

1913 March 31 J.P. Morgan dies in Rome, Italy. His son, J.P. (Jack) Morgan, Jr., takes over operation of his various business enterprises.

1913 April 27 The dead body of 14-year-old Mary Phagan is found is found in a pencil factory in Marietta, Georgia. Leo Frank, a 29-year-old Jew is convicted of the crime even though Miss Phagan left a note saying she had been assaulted by a Negro. After Frank's sentence was commuted by the governor, Tom Watson, a Georgia demagogue, denounced him as "King of the Jews." (See August 16, 1915)

1913 May Adolf Hitler leaves Vienna for Munich in Bavaria.

(Note: In 1959, Elsa Schmidt-Falk, who was in charge of a genealogical research group within the Nazi party in Munich during the 1920's, told Wilfried Daim that Hitler had regularly visited her and her husband at their Munich home. At these meetings, Hitler often mentioned reading Guido von List and quoted his books enthusiastically. She also claimed that Hitler told her that members of the List Society in Vienna had given him a letter of introduction to the President of the List Society in Munich. (Daim; Inge Kunz; Roots)

1913 May 24 Hitler moves to Schleissheimerstrasse 34 in Munich, lodging with the family of a tailor named Papp. He registers with the police as a painter and artist.

1913 May 30 Fearing a spread of hostilities in the Balkans, the major powers intervene to terminate the war with the Treaty of London, a preliminary peace treaty, under which Turkey agrees to surrender its Balkan territories and create the state of Albania. Peace in the Balkans lasts less than a month.

1913 May 31 The 17th Amendment is passed, establishing the popular election of U.S. Senators. This amendment dramatically alters America's republican form of government and further reduces the power of the individual states.

1913 June Nineteen Reichshammerbund branches have by now been established throughout Germany. (Roots)

1913 June A second war begins in the Balkans, when Bulgaria makes surprise attacks against Serbia and Greece in the hope of occupying the contested districts of Macedonia won from Turkey before the great powers had intervened. Bulgaria is quickly defeated and overrun by Romania, Turkey, Greece and Serbia.

1913 August 10 The Treaty of Bucharest awards Serbia and Greece possession of those parts of Macedonia they had previously claimed. Romania also received territory from Bulgaria.

1913 September 6 Philipp Stauff closes a letter to Lanz von Liebenfels with the salute "Armanengruss und Templeisensieg." Lanz had first written Stauff in 1909. (Balzli; Roots)

1913 September 29 Rudof Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, apparently drowns after he mysteriously disappears from the mail steamer Dresden while crossing the English Channel. Legend has it that he was carrying secret plans for a new engine that ran on nothing but pure water.

1913 September 29 Under the Treaty of Constantinople, Turkey recovers the greater part of the province of Adrianople from Bulgaria.

1913 October 3 Congress enacts the Underwood-Simmons Tariff Act which lowers tariffs on 958 articles, including food-stuffs, clothing and raw materials. Rates on cotton are cut 50% and on woolens over 50%. Congress will enact the graduated income tax to make up the difference in revenues. (See October 22, 1914) (Schlesinger I)

1913 December 23 The Federal Reserve Act, already passed by the U.S. Congress, is approved by President Wilson.

1913 Rudolf Glauer, now calling himself Rudolf von Sebottendorff, moves to Berlin, claiming to have been adopted by Baron Heinrich von Sebottendorff in Turkey in 1911. The Baron's family in Germany recognizes the adoption and seems genuinely fond of him. (Roots)

1913 "Unionist" gunrunners cause bloodshed at Londonderry in Ireland.

1913 Danish physicist Niels Bohr publishes his atomic theory.

1913 Stalin is exiled to Siberia by the Czarist government. He will not return to Russia until 1917.

1913 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels in Ostara I, #69, interprets the holy grail as an electrical symbol pertaining to the "panpsychic" powers of the pure-blooded "Aryan" race. The quest of the "Templeisen" (Templars) for the grail was a metaphor, Lanz said, for the strict eugenic practices of the Templar Knights designed to breed god-men. (Roots)

1913 Dr. Eugen Fischer's book Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardisierungsproblem beim Menschen (The Bastards of Rehoboth and the problem of miscegenation in Man) is published. In it he writes about the people of mixed blood in German South-West Africa: "We should provide them with the minimum amount of protection which they require, for survival as a race inferior to ourselves, and we should do this only as long as they are useful to us. After this, free competition should prevail and, in my opinion, this will lead to their decline and destruction." (Science)

1913 Antonius von der Linden begins publishing Geheime Weissenschaften (Secret Science, 1913-1920) consisting of reprints of esoteric texts from the Renaissance scholar Agrippa von Nettesheim. (Roots)

1913 Medical missionary Albert Schweitzer builds a hospital at Lambarene in Africa.

1913 Sigmund Livingstone among others forms the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and a civil-rights statute is enacted in New York at the request of several other Jewish organizations.

1913 Russian revolutionary Joseph Stalin is exiled to Siberia by the Czarist government.

1913 American Charles Callahan publishes Washington: The Man and the Mason. It contain a letter wriiten by George Washington in 1798 to Reverend G.W. Snyder, acknowledging Washington's belief in the existence of the Illuminati and the revolutionary principles of Jacobinism in the United States. It is "too evident to be questioned," Washington writes. (View document)

1913 Mexican President Francisco Madero is killed in a military coup led by Victoriano Huerta.

1913 Rosa Luxemburg publishes her chief work, Accumulation of Capital (English translation, 1951), presenting her theory of imperialism.

1913 Adolf Hitler establishes contact with certain proto-Nazi circles in Munich, even before World War I. (Mein Kampf)

1914 January 11 A Germanenorden initiation ceremony held in the Berlin Province features racial tests by Berlin phrenologist Robert Burger-Villingren, inventor of the "plastometer," a device used for determining the relative "Aryan purity" of a subject by measurement of the skull. (Roots)

1914 January 12 Adolf Hitler is ordered to report for Austrian military service.

1914 January 19 Hitler writes to the Austrian Consulate pleading for leniency in regard to his failure to report for military service.

1914 February 5 Hitler is rejected by the Austrian army as unfit for duty.

1914 February 9 Detlef Schmude, one of Jorg Lanz von Liebenfel's earliest and most enthusiastic supporters in Germany, founds the second priory of the Order of the New Templars (ONT) at Hollenberg near Kornelmünster. (Roots)

1914 May 20 A letter from Arthur Strauss to Julius Rüttinger says that a Reichshammerbund group was founded in Munich that spring by Wilhelm Rohmeder, chairman of the Deutscher Schulverein and a member of the List Society since 1908. (Bundesarchiv; Roots)

1914 June King Peter I of Serbia, in poor health, appoints his son, Alexander as regent of Serbia.

1914 June 28 Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary is assassinated at Sarajevo, capital of the Austrian province of Bosnia, by a Serbian assassin, Gavrilo Princip. Princip has ties to both Britain and Russia.

1914 July The Master of the Leipzig Geramanenorden lodge politely proposes that Hermann Pohl retire from his office as head of the order. (Roots)

1914 July 23 Austria-Hungary presents a warlike, 48-hour ultimatum to the Serbian government, demanding a virtual protectorate over Serbia. Serbia accepts all but one of the demands, but still its response is unsatisfactory to Austria-Hungary.

1914 July 28 Austria-Hungary, refusing to submit the disputed terms to international arbitration, declares war on Serbia. Within a week most of Europe will at war.

WORLD WAR I

1914 July 29 Austrian forces invade Serbia and begin an artillery bombardment of Belgrade, the Serbian capital.

1914 July 29 Russia mobilizes its troops near the Austrian border.

1914 July 31 The London Stock Exchange, at this time the most influential in the world, announces its closing due to war. The U.S. follows suit and for several weeks all other important exchanges will also close. (Schlesinger I)

1914 August 1 Fighting begins on the German-Russian frontier and Germany declares war on Russia.

1914 August 2 General Helmuth von Moltke is appointed commander of all German armies in the field.

1914 August 3 Germany declares war on France.

1914 August 3 Hitler petitions King Ludwig III of Bavaria for permission to enlist in the Bavarian army.

1914 August 3 The French firm of Rothschilds Freres cables J.P. Morgan & Co. in New York suggesting the floatation of a loan of $100,000,000, a substantial part of which is to be left in the United States to pay for French purchases of American goods. (America Goes to War,Charles C. Tansill. Little, Brown. Boston, 1938)

1914 August 4 Germany invades Belgium. A specially trained task force of about 30,000 men crosses the frontier and attacks Liege, one of the strongest fortresses in Europe. Some of the fortifications are captured in a daring night attack led by General Erich Ludendorff.

1914 August 4 Great Britain declares war on Germany.

1914 August 5 British ships dredge up and cut the German trans-Atlantic cables to America. Thereafter, the bulk of the war news will be routed through London and the British censors.

1914 August 5 The U.S. makes a formal statement announcing it will remain neutral in the European wars, but offers its services as a mediator in the mushrooming conflicts. (Schlesinger I)

1914 August 6 Austria-Hungary declares war against Russia. Italy temporarily remains neutral, claiming its obligations to the Triple Alliance are void because Austria had initiated the war.

1914 August 8 French troops under Gen. Paul Pau advance across the frontier to Mulhouse in Alsace.

1914 August 12 Austrian troops numbering 200,000, commanded by Gen. Oskar Potiorek, cross the Sava and Drina Rivers and invade Serbia.

1914 August 14 A full-scale French offensive, the Battle of Lorraine, begins southeast of Metz. Following a planned withdrawal, the Germans counterattack, throwing the French back to the fortified heights of Nancy.

1914 August 14 Kaiser Wilhelm II leaves Berlin, choosing to live at Pless, in Silesia, or near the Western front for the remainder of the war.

1914 August 15 U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan writes to J.P. Morgan telling him that loans to belligerents goes against the U.S. policy of neutrality. (See October 15) (Schlesinger I)

1914 August 15-20 Serbian Marshal Putnik is victorious over the Austrians at Cer Mountain.

1914 August 16 The last fortifications at Liege, pounded into submission by giant howitzers, surrenders. The German First Army under Gen. Alexander von Kluck and the Second, commanded by Gen. Karl von Bulow, pour through the Liege corridor and across the Meuse.

1914 August 16 Adolf Hitler enrolls in the 1st Company of the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry.

1914 August 16 Austrian troops are driven back by the numerically superior Serbian army, inadequately equipped, but battlewise from their Balkan Wars experience. They are commanded by Marshal Radomir Putnik.

1914 August 17 The Russian Northwest Army Group begins to advance into East Prussia. From the east came Gen. Pavel K. Rennenkampf's First Army; from the south Aleksandr Samsonov's Second Army. Opposing are German Gen. Max von Prittwitz and Gen. Gaffron's Eighth Army. Their mission one of elastic defense and delay until the bulk of the German army can be shifted from the Western Front.

1914 August General Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the German general staff, hampered by poor communications with his armies, overestimates the extent of the initial German victory. Confident that the French armies are on the brink of destruction, he detaches two corps from Kluck's army to the Eastern front, where the Russians are threatening East Prussia.

1914 August 17 The center of Rennenkampf's advance is mauled by General Hermann K. von Francois's German I Corps near Stalluponen.

1914 August 18 President Woodrow Wilson issues his "Proclamation of Neutrality," temporarily keeping America out of the war.

1914 August 20 Brussels is occupied by the Germans. The Belgians, personally commanded by King Albert I, retreat to Antwerp.

1914 August 20 Advancing French troops collide with a numerically superior German force in the Battle of the Ardennes.

1914 August 20 Rudolf Hess joins the 1st Bavarian Infantry Regiment and is soon transported to the battlefields of France. (Missing Years)

1914 August 20 At Gumbinnen in East Prussia, Prittwitz's forces are thrown back by Rennenkampf, who has attacked from the east. Prittwitz, fearing envelopment by Samsonov's army, withdraws to the Vistula River, thus ceding all of East Prussia. Prittwitz phones Moltke at Coblenz, reporting his decision and requesting reinforcements to hold the Vistula line. Moltke immediately relieves Prittwitz, appointing in his place 67-year-old Gen. Paul von Hindenburg who had retired in 1911. Gen. Erich Ludendorff, the hero of Liege, is named Hindenburg's chief of staff.

1914 August 20 Pope pius X dies, just one day after issuing a futile plea for peace.

1914 August 20 Britain, in its Order of Council, enlarges the list of goods it unilaterally considers contraband and thereby subject to search and seizure. British ships immediately begin confiscating the contraband cargoes, which include even cotton, now used in making munitions. (Schlesinger I)

1914 August 21 The newly landed British Expeditionary Force (BEF) under Field Marshal Sir John French moves into Belgium to support Lanrezac's advance.

1914 August 21 Serbian Marshall Putnik defeats the Austrians at the battle of Sabac (August 21-24).

1914 August 22 Two German armies strike Gen. Charles Lanrezac southwest of Namur, on the Sambre River, forcing him to retreat on the 23rd.

1914 August 23 The Belgian defenders of Namur are overwhelmed by Bulow's troops after a brief siege.

1914 August 23 The BEF near Mons is struck by the full weight of Kluck's German First Army. Learning of the fall of Namur, Lanrezac orders a general retreat, leaving the outnumbered British with an unprotected left flank and forcing them to withdraw during the night.

1914 August 23 In the Galician Battles (August 23-September 11), Russian forces under Gen. Nikolai Ivanov repelled an Austrian offensive, seizing all of Austrian Galicia except the key fortress of Przemysl.

1914 August 23 Japan declares war on Germany and soon besieges Tsingtao, the only German base on the China coast.

1914 August 23 Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrive to take command on the Eastern Front.

1914 August 24 After four days of furious fighting, the devastated French fall back in the Ardennes and reorganize west of the Meuse.

1914 August 24 Main German armies enter France.

1914 August 24 Samsonov's troops encounters the Germans near Frankenau and severe fighting rages the entire day between Frankenau and Tannenberg.

1914 August 26 In East Prussia, the Germans counterattack from north, east, and west. Samsonov's uncoded radio messages are intercepted and Ludendorff learns the locations of all Russian units.

1914 August Alexander I becomes nominal Commander-in-Chief of the Serbian army.

1914 August St. Petersburg's name is changed to Petrograd in order to eliminate the German ending "burg".

1914 August 27 At Le Cateau French's BEF fights off a double envelopment by the full strength of Kluck's army. The survivors successfully disengaged at nightfall.

1914 August 28 A British raid into the Heligoland Bight results in the war's first naval battle. Four German ships are sunk.

1914 August 29 Russian forces in East Prussia but are defeated at the Battle of Tannenberg. Hindenburg and Ludendorff direct the movements that encircle General Samsonov's Second Russian Army. By nightfall the encirclement is complete. Samsonov, who disappeared during the night, evidently committed suicide. 35,000 Russians are killed, and 90,000 taken prisoner. German losses are 10,000 to 14,000.

1914 August 29 Hoping to relieve German pressure on the BEF at Le Cateau, Joffre orders the French Fifth Army, itself pressed hard by the German Second Army, to make a 90-degree shift westward to attack the left flank of the German First Army at Guise. The initial attack, however, is inconsequential.

1914 August Gen. Louis Franchet d'Esperey, commanding the French I Corps, halts the German advance, achieving the first French tactical success of the campaign. Bulow calls on Kluck for aid the next day.

1914 August Kluck responds to Bulow's call for assistance by shifting his direction of march to the southeast, thus discarding the remnants of the Schlieffen Plan. This change would cause him to pass east of Paris. He knew nothing of General Maunoury's concentration in the fortified area of the capital. Belatedly, Moltke sends a message to Kluck, agreeing to the move east of Paris, but ordering Kluck to guard the right flank of the Second Army. For Kluck to have obeyed this order would have meant halting his army for two days, a move he believes will permit the French either to escape or to rally. Intent on driving the French out of Paris, Kluck continues southward across the Marne, just east of Paris, his right flank wide open.

1914 September 4 General Wilson sets in motion a plan to envelop the exposed German right flank. Gen. Maunoury's Sixth Army, temporarily under the regional command of Gen. Joseph S. Gallieeni, the military governor of Paris, begins an advance from Paris toward the Ourcq River, where Kluck's right flank lies open.

1914 September 5 The First Battle of the Marne begins. Joffre's plan is almost ruined when right-flank units of Kluck's army detect the French Sixth Army advance from Paris and counterattack. Kluck then launches an attack toward Paris in the Battle of the Ourcq. By turning west, however, Kluck creates a gap to his left between his army and the Second, under Gen. Karl von Bulow.

1914 September 6 After two days of furious fighting, the German offensive bogs down only twenty-five miles from Paris.

1914 September 6-15 The Battle of the Masurian Lakes.

1914 September 7-9 Kluck then turns his entire army westward in savage counterattacks, halting the French and forcing them to fall back. Only fresh reinforcements rushed from Paris, some in taxicabs, permits Maunoury to stem the German advance.

1914 September 8 Maubeuge, on France's northern border, falls to the Germans.

1914 September 9 Lt. Col. Richard Hentsch, a trusted staff officer sent by Moltke to assess the situation and issue orders if necessary, discovers that von Bulow's Second Army had been pushed back by the French Fifth, and that the BEF is moving into the gap between the German First and Second Armies, Hentsch then orders both armies to retreat to the Aisne River. Kluck retreats to prevent his army from being encircled.

1914 September 9-14 Russian troops are expelled from East Prussia, after the German Eighth Army defeats the Russian First Army in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes.

1914 September 10 Assuming the BEF is no longer a threat, Kluck shifts westward, widening the existing gap between his army and that of Bulow, which is still advancing to the south. Exploiting this gap, French commander Franchet d'Esperey, in a vigorous night attack, takes Marchais-en-Brie from the Germans. This is probably the turning point of the battle. Bulow, personally defeated, is about to retreat. Kluck's First Army is making headway in the northwest against Maunoury's left, but the BEF's northward advance into the gap threatens Kluck's left and rear. Moltke, realizing that his offensive has failed, then orders a retreat to the Noyon-Verdun line. (Allied losses are about 250,000; German casualties nearly 300,000.)

1914 September 14 General Moltke, blamed for the failure at the Marne and with violating the Schlieffen Plan, is relieved by by the Kaiser and ordered to report to Berlin. He is replaced by Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn.

1914 September 15 The first trenches are dug.

1914 September 15 The German victory at Masurian effectively knocks out the Russians as an important consideration in Allied strategy. (Schlesinger I)

1914 September 17 The German "Race to the Sea" begins.

1914 September 22-26 Fierce battles are fought in Picardy.

1914 September 22 The German cruiser Emden bombards Madras, India.

1914 September 22 The German U-9 sinks three British cruisers in quick succession off the Dutch coast.

1914 September 26 U.S. Secretary of State Bryan protests Britain's Order of Council and the confiscation of cargoes from U.S. ships. (See August 20)

(Note: The U.S. has begun to profit from the war and is sending cargoes to all belligerents including Germany, which is getting its goods funneled through neutral countries.) (Schlesinger I)

1914 September 27 Heavy fighting at Artois until October 10.

1914 September 28 A general Austrian-German advance begins in Galicia. Hindenburg moves to assist the defeated Austrians and prevent the Russian invasion of Silesia. Four German corps of the Eighth Army are transferred by rail to the vicinity of Krakow.

1914 September 30 Before Grand Duke Nikolai, the Russian supreme commander, can move through Poland into Silesia, the heart of Germany's mineral resources, Hindenburg attacks their left flank.

1914 October 9 The Belgian fortress of Antwerp falls.

1914 October 9 Germans troops under Hindenburg reach the Vistula River south of Warsaw.

1914 October 12 The first battle for the Belgian city of Ypres begins.

1914 October 12 Hindenburg outnumbered more than three to one, halts the Polish offensive.

1914 October 15 The U.S. declares it will not prohibit shipments of gold or the extension of credit to belligerents. (See August 15)

1914 October 15 The British cruiser HMS Hawk is torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat.

1914 October 17 Hindenburg skillfully withdraws, leaving a ravaged Polish countryside behind him.

1914 October 18 A German U-boat raid on Scapa Flow, although unsuccessful, results in the temporary transfer of the British Grand Fleet to Rosyth on the Scottish coast while antisubmarine nets are installed at Scapa.

1914 October 21 Hitler is assigned to the Western Front and soon becomes a regimental orderly and dispatch runner.

1914 October 22 The Revenue Act passes the U.S. Congress. It imposes the first income tax on incomes over $3,000 to offset loss of tariff money brought about through enactment of the Underwood-Simmons Act of 1913. (See October 3, 1913) (Schlesinger I)

1914 October 22 The U.S. formally withdraws its demand that Britain keep to the letter of the Declaration of London and cease confiscating American cargoes. The British are now willingly paying for the confiscated goods, and Americans are making a good profits without loss of life to their crews. Thereafter, Britain contains the German fleet in harbor and dries to a trickle the flow of goods to the Central Powers. Smarting under the impact of the blockade, Germany is forced to increase its U-boat activity. (Schlesinger I)

1914 October 27 The British battleship Audacious sinks after striking a German submarine-laid mine off the Irish coast.

1914 October 29 Turkey, encouraged by the Germans, declares war against the Allies, announcing its entrance into the war with a surprise bombardment of the Russian Black Sea coast.

1914 November 1 Hindenburg is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian-German Eastern Front. Ludendorff remains his chief of staff.

1914 November 1 Adm. Graf von Spee's China Squadron, two heavy and three light cruisers, sinks two British heavy cruisers without losing a single ship in the Battle of Coronel, off the coast of Chile. Some time later the British battle cruisers Invincible and Inflexible, under Vice Adm. Sir Frederick Sturdee, sought out Spee, who had taken his squadron around Cape Horn into the South Atlantic. Spee had planned to raid the British wireless and coaling station at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, but discovered Sturdee's squadron there, refueling. The surprised Germans fled and were pursued and destroyed; approximately 1,800 Germans--including Admiral Spee--perished on the sunken ships.

1914 November 2 Britain declares the entire North Sea a military area. Neutral ships bound for neutral ports now become subject to search and seizure. (Schlesinger I)

1914 November 3 General Moltke is officially replaced as German Chief of Staff.

1914 November 5 A reinforced Austrian army begins a third offensive in Serbia.

1914 November 5 Great Britain responding to Turkey's recent alliance with Germany annexes Turkish Cyprus.

1914 November 7 The Japanese capture Tsingtao, the only German base on the China coast. Japan also occupies Germany's Marshall, Marianas, Palau, and Caroline Island groups.

1914 November 9 The German cruiser Emden is sunk in action with the Australian cruiser Sydney in the Cocos Islands.

1914 November The first battle of Ypres comes to and end, concluding the so-called "race to the sea" after the German defeat at the First Battle of the Marne.

1914 November 22 Hermann Pohl writes to Julius Rüttinger, Master of the Franconian Germanenorden province, who is serving at the front. Pohl tells him that the order is in financial difficulty because half of the brethren are serving in the armed forces. "A great number of the brothers have already been killed in action." (Roots)

1914 December American Magazine runs an article saying that Ray Stannard Baker reported in 1909 that the Christian churches in America had "awakened as never before to the so-called Jewish problem"

1914 December 2 Adolf Hitler is awarded the Iron Cross, second class, for bravery under fire.

1914 December 2 A reinforced Austrian army succeeds in occupying Belgrade.

1914 December 3 Marshal Putnik's Serbian troops counterattack after receiving much needed ammunition from France.

1914 December 8 The Battle of the Falkland Islands.

1914 December 11 Serbians troops recapture Belgrade.

1914 December 14 England breaks the German war code, so that "By the end of January 1915, (British Intelligence was) able to advise the Admiralty of the departure of each U-boat as it left for patrol..." (Simpson)

1914 December 15 Putnik's troops recapture Belgrade and soon drive the Austrian invaders from Serbia. Austrian casualties in this savagely fought campaign are approximately 227,000 out of 450,000 engaged. Serbian losses are approximately 170,000 out of 400,000.

1914 December 17 Britain declares a protectorate over Egypt, previously subject to Turkey, and begins moving troops there to defend the Suez Canal.

1914 December 25 The French battleship Jean Bart is torpedoed by an Austrian submarine in the Straits of Otranto.

1914 Giacomo della Chiesa becomes Pope Benedict XV, succeeding Pius X.

1914 Benito Mussolini, editor of the Milan Socialist party newspaper Avanti!, is at first opposed to Italy's involvement in the war but soon reverses his position and calls for Italy's entry on the side of the Allies. Expelled from the Socialist party for this stance, he founds his own newspaper in Milan, Il popolo d'Italia which will later become the party newspaper of the Fascist movement. Mussolini will serve in the Italian army until wounded in 1917.

1914 Jean Monnet obtains a lucrative monopoly contract for the shipment of vital war materials from Canada to France, making a fortune as a war profiteer.

1914 Lazar Kaganovich moves to Kiev, takes a factory job and begins to organize a Bolshevik union of sales employees. After several strikes, Lazar is fired. He then finds work as a leather dresser across town and continues to organize, though more cautiously.

1914 Guido von List publishes GLB 6 (Die Ursprache der Ario-Germanen und ihre Mysteriensprache) his so-called "masterpiece" of occult linguistics and symbology. (Roots)

1914 Albert Einstein returns to Germany to occupy the most prestigious and best-paying post a theoretical physicist can hold in central Europe: professor at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft in Berlin, but does not reapply for German citizenship. He is one of only a handful of German professors who remained a pacifist and did not support Germany's war effort. Although he held a cross-appointment at the University of Berlin, from this time on, he will never again teach regular university courses, but remains on the staff until 1933.

1914 The Panama Canal is completed, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

1914 U.S. Marines land at Veracruz, Mexico, and President Huerta resigns.

1915 January 3 The Turks plan a wide envelopment of the Russians at the Battle of Sarikamis In the Caucasus between Russia and Turkey. The Russians counterattack, smashing the Turkish army.

1915 January 14 Turkish commander Djemal Pasha secretly sets out across the Sinai Peninsula from Beersheba with an army of 22,000, intending to seize the Suez Canal.

1915 January 19-20 Bombing attacks on Britain by Zeppelin dirigibles, under the control of the German navy, result in few casualties, causing more anger than panic. During the year, 18 more raids will take place.

1915 January 23 A German battle cruiser squadron under Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper moves out to raid the English coast and harass the British fishing fleet.

1915 January 24 British Admiral David Beatty's battle cruiser squadron attacks Hipper off the Dogger Bank. Hipper wisely flees, but Beatty, with superior speed, catches him, sinking one cruiser. Both flagships are damaged.

1915 January 30 Colonel Edward M. House, Wilson's good friend and advisor, sails to Europe on the Lusitania to try to mediate a peace settlement. Both sides still feel they can get what they want and are unwilling to settle the conflict so quickly. (Schlesinger I)

1915 January 31 The Central Powers, reinforcing their armies in the east, launch a great offensive under Hindenburg in the Battle of Bolimov, a feint aimed at Warsaw to distract Russian attention. Poison gas shells are used for the first time, but are not highly effective in the freezing temperatures, and the Russians do not report the gas attack.

1915 January Winston Churchill orders a mostly British, Allied fleet to force the Dardanelles, then steam on to Constantinople (Istanbul) to dictate peace terms.

1915 February Hitler writes a long, autobiographical letter to his lawyer and friend, Ernst Hepp. (Hepp Letter)

1915 February The German submarine blockade of Great Britain begins.

1915 February 2 Advance elements of Djemal Pasha's army strike across the Suez canal in pontoon boats, but are repelled. No further Turkish assaults are made against the canal, but the threat holds back reinforcements from Gallipoli.

1915 February 4 Germany proclaims a war zone around the British Isles in retaliation for the blockade of its ports. Germany intensifies its submarine campaign against Allied merchant ships and attacks neutral ships.

1915 February 8 The new German Tenth Army hits the Russian right. The Russians are driven back into the Augustow Forest, barely escaping encirclement. 90,000 Russian prisoners are taken by the end of the month.

1915 February 10 President Wilson warns Germany that the U.S. will hold it "to a strict accountability" for "property damaged or lives lost." German submarine warfare is taking a heavy toll on neutral shipping, including American.

(Note: U-boat captains are in a difficult position because they cannot safely surface to allow enemy crews to board liferafts before being sunk. The fragile U-boats themselves are easily sunk by small-caliber deck guns.)

1915 February 19 A Franco-British fleet under British Admiral Sackville Carden begin a systematic reduction of the Turkish fortifications lining the Dardanelles.

1915 February 19 A German submarine sinks a Norwegian ship in British waters.

1915 February 25 The outer Turkish forts are silenced and Allied vessels enter the Dardanelles.

1915 March 10 A British attack at Neuve Chapelle fails after nearly achieving a breakthrough.

1915 March 11 Britain declares a blockade of all German ports.

1915 March 18 Turkish fortifications on the Dardanelles are attacked by sixteen British and French battleships. After the bombardment silences the Turkish shore batteries, three battleships are sunk in a minefield and three others are disabled.

1915 March 22 The Austrian garrison at Przemysl, Galicia, surrenders after a siege of 194 days. 110,000 troops are taken prisoner by the Russians.

1915 March 30 President Wilson protests the blockade of German ports and asks the British to allow neutrals to continue their trade as usual. Britain refuses.

1915 April 22 The second Battle of Ypres in Belgium begins when the Germans disrupt a planned Allied offensive. A German poison gas attack, the first on the Western Front, demoralizes Allied troops and creates a large gap in their lines, but the Allies retrieve the situation after a bitter struggle. (About 5,000 cylinders of chlorine gas was used by the Germans.)

1915 April List convenes an HAO meeting in Vienna. A number of well-known, Austrian public figures gather to hear Guido von List's Easter address. (Roots)

1915 April 25 Sir Ian Hamilton lands a force of British and Anzacs (Australia-New Zealand Army Corps) troops on the narrow Gallipoli Peninsula. The Turks ring the tiny beachheads with entrenchments, and the British find themselves locked in trench warfare much like that on the western front.

1915 April 26 The Allied powers sign the secret Treaty of London with Italy, which pledges to enter the war against Austria in exchange for territorial concessions. Although Italy fulfills its obligation, it receives only part of the territories promised when peace is concluded (1918-19).

1915 May-June The Allies renew their offensives in the north, but are repulsed in the Second Battle of Artois. Costly and unsuccessful assaults during the first half of the year have exhausted the Allies, who spend the rest of the summer resting, reorganizing, and reinforcing, as do the Germans. Both sides come perilously close to expending their ammunition reserves and now wait for munitions production to catch.

1915 May In Mesopotamia, British commander Gen. Sir John Nixon, lured by the prospect of capturing the legendary Baghdad, sends forces under Gen. Charles Townshend up the Tigris.

1915 May 1 A German U-boat torpedoes the American tanker Gulflight, causing three deaths. Germany quickly offers to make reparations and promises not to attack again without warning, unless the enemy ship tries to escape. Germany refuses to abandon submarine warfare, the only maritime warfare it can successfully carry out.

1915 May 1 The German Ambassador, Count von Bernstorff, issues a warning in the New York newspapers stating that it is unwise to travel into a war zone on vessels carrying cargoes vital to the Allies.

1915 May 7 A German submarine torpedoes and sinks the British passenger liner Lusitania off Kinsale Head, Ireland. 1,198 are lost, including 124 Americans. According to the Germans, the ship is carrying munitions, although the British deny this. Roosevelt calls it "murder on the high seas." (See May 1)

1915 May 10 Count von Bernstorff offers his condolences for the tragic loss of life upon the sinking of the Lusitania, but this only serves to rub salt into the wounds. (Schlesinger I)

1915 May 13 Secretary of State Bryan sends a note to Germany demanding disavowal of the attack upon the Lusitania and immediate reparations. Unfortunately, Bryan then proceeds to informs the Austrian Ambassador that the note "means no harm, but had to be written in order to pacify excited public opinion." The German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmerman, quickly learns of Bryan's indiscretion and claims to have called the American "bluff." Bryan is later forced to resign and the Germans never make a disavowal or pay reparations. (See June 8) (Schlesinger I)

1915 May 23 Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary. The Italian army, commanded by General Luigi Cadorna, is about 875,000 strong.

1915 May 25 The second Battle of Ypres comes to an end. The British suffer approximately 50,000 casualties, the French 10,000, and the Germans about 35,000.

1915 May 30 Colonel House confides in his diary, " I have concluded that war with Germany is inevitable..." adding that he will persuade President Wilson to act.

1915 May 31 Townshend, in Mesopotamia, overwhelms a Turkish outpost near Qurna in an amphibious assault, and begins to move inland.

1915 Summer Five hundred German housewives stage a protest against the war in Berlin.

1915 June 3 Austrian-German armies retake Przemysl in Galicia.

1915 June 8 Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigns on the grounds that as a pacifist he cannot sign a strongly worded second Lusitania note to the Germans that has been written by President Wilson and other members of the Cabinet. Bryan says "a ship carrying contraband should not rely upon passengers to protect her from attack -- it would be like putting women and children in front of the army." (Schlesinger I)

1915 June 9 Wilson sends the second Lusitania note to the Germans, demanding an end to their procrastination over reparations for sinking the unarmed passenger ship. Wilson refuses to recognize the previously non-existent "war zone" set up by Germany around the British Isles.

1915 June 17 The League to Enforce Peace is organized at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It is a prototype for the future League of Nations. William Howard Taft is made president.

1915 June 22 Lemberg is occupied by Austrian-German forces.

1915 June 23 Two Italian armies, each of approximately 100,000 troops, attack toward Gorizia during the First Battle of the Isonzo. They batter in vain against the heavily fortified Austrian defenses.

1915 July 2 Erich Muenter, a German instructor at Cornell University, explodes a bomb in the U.S. Senate reception room.

1915 July 3 Erich Muenter shoots J.P. (Jack) Morgan, Jr., for representing the British government in war contract negotiations. Muenter is quickly arrested and jailed. (Schlesinger I)

1915 July 6 Erich Muenter commits suicide while in police custody.

1915 July 15 Dr. Heinrich Albert, head of German propaganda in America, accidentially leaves his briefcase on a subway in New York. A secret service agent retrieves it and exposes the existence of an extensive espionage network and subversive activities across the nation. German consuls, embassy staff, officials of the Hamburg-American Steamship Line and many German-Americans are implicated.

1915 July 15 Rudolf von Sebottendorff marries Berta Anna Iffland, the divorced daughter of Friedrich Wilhelm Müller, a wealthy Berlin merchant. The marriage takes place in Vienna. (Roots)

1915 July 21 President Wilson sends a third Lusitania note to the Germans. It warns that any future infringement of American rights will be deemed "deliberately unfriendly." (Schlesinger I)

1915 July 25 A U-boat sinks the American cargo ship Leelanaw off the coast of Scotland.

1915 July 27 Wireless communications are set up between Japan and the U.S.

1915 July The Warburg Bank sends a telegram to the Imperial Navy Cabinet warning of the mounting anti-German mood in America after the sinking of the Lusitania. (Warburgs)

1915 August 5 Gen. Max von Gallwitz's new German Twelfth Army captures Warsaw.

1915 August 6 Hamilton attempts new landings at Gallipoli after the arrival of reinforcements, but because of the fear of German submarines, no battleships are available to provide artillery support and the operation fails. Russia is permanently cut off from its allies.

1915 August 10 General Leonard Wood sets up a military training camp in Plattsburg, New York. It will train 1,200 volunteers who pay for their own travel expenses, food and uniforms. By the summer of 1916, 16,000 men will be in unofficial military training.

1915 August 16 Leo Frank is taken from his prison hospital by a mob and lynched on the outskirts of Marietta, Ga.

1915 August 19 The British liner Arabic is sunk, with the loss of four more American lives.

1915 August 25 Brest-Litovsk falls and the entire Russian front is in complete collapse.

1915 September A circular of the Franconian Germanenorden clarifies its aims, rules and rituals. The principal aim of the order is the monitoring of the Jews and their activities by the creation of a center to which all antisemitic material would flow for distribution. Subsidiary aims include mutual aid of brothers in respect to business introductions, contracts and finance. Lastly, all brothers are committed to the circulation of völkisch journals, especially the Hammer, their "sharpest weapon against Jewry and other enemies of the people." (Roots)

(Note: The articles of the Germanenorden state that all nationals, male or female, of flawless Germanic descent are eligible for admission. Application forms request details about the color of the applicants hair, eyes and skin. The ideal coloration was blond to dark blond hair, blue to light brown eyes, and pale skin. Details regarding the parents, grandparents and spouse are also required. A guide to recruitment states that physically handicapped or "unpleasant looking" people were barred.) (Roots)

1915 September 1 Germany announces cessation of unlimited submarine warfare. The Germans, fearing U.S. involvement in the war on the side of the Allies, agrees to pay indemnities and guarantees that submarines will not sink passenger liners without warning.

1915 September-October The Allies again launch unsuccessful offensives in the Second Battle of Champagne and Third Battle of Artois. Casualties are more than 200,000 French, nearly 100,000 British, and 140,000 Germans. Sir Douglas Haig replaces French as commander of the BEF.

1915 September 5 Czar Nicholas II takes command of the Russian armies. Many consider it a grave mistake.

1915 September 6 On the Eastern Front, the German and Austrian "great offensive" has conquered all of Poland and Lithuania. Russia has lost 1 million men to date.

1915 September 18 The German occupation of Vilna climaxes a colossal 300 mile advance. Russian Grand Duke Nikolai skillfully keeps his armies intact, withdrawing in fairly good order, while evading German envelopment.

1915 September 24 Grand Duke Nikolai is unceremoniously relieved of command in Poland by the Czar and soon takes command in the Caucasus.

1915 October 6 Two armies, one Austrian and one German, drive south across the Serbian Sava-Danube border.

1915 October 11 Two Bulgarian armies strike west, one on Nis, the other on Skopje.

1915 Oct 12 British nurse, Edith Cavell, charged with espionage is executed by a German firing squad.

1915 October 13 The largest Zeppelin raid of the war kills 59 people in London.

1915 October 14 Britain and France declare war on Bulgaria.

1915 October 15 Sir Ian Hamilton is relieved at Gallipoli and replaced by General Sir Charles Monro, who soon directs a masterful evacuation.

1915 October 15 U.S. bankers arrange a $500 million loan to the British and French.

1915 October 15 Admiral Henning von Holzendorff visits Max Warburg at his home to ask his opinion on the economic impact of intensified U-boat warfare. Warburg tells him that unrestricted U-boat warfare will only draw America into the war. (Warburgs)

1915 October 18 The Italians, reorganized, reinforced, and supported by 1,200 guns strike once more at Gorizia and are again repulsed in the Third Battle of the Isonzo.

1915 October 21 Siegmund von Sebotendorff dies in Wiesbaden. His funeral is attended by Rudolf von Sebottendorff and his wife. (Wiesbaden Zeitung, November 23; Roots)

1915 November 7 The Italian liner Ancona, carrying 27 Americans, is sunk without warning by an Austrian submarine.

1915 November 13 Norman Hapgood in Harper's Weekly says that a sharp line separates Jews from Gentiles in America and concludes that antisemitic prejudice is becoming more distinct. "Americans do not deprive Jews of any rights," he wrote, "but they do not on the whole like them."

1915 November 22 Townshend attacks Ctesiphon, in Mesopotamia, but after 4 days of bitter fighting withdraws to Kut.

1915 November 25 The almost dormant Ku Klux Klan is revived in Atlanta, Georgia, by Colonel William J. Simmons.

1915 November Late in the month, the remnants of the Serbian army, accompanied by a horde of civilian refugees, reaches the Adriatic, pursued by the Austrians.

1915 November 30 Sabotage is suspected in an explosion at the DuPont munitions plant in Wilmington, Delaware.

1915 December Violent anti-war demonstrations break out in Berlin.

1915 December In an Allied conference at Chantilly, Joffre succeeds in obtaining agreement from Britain, Russia, Italy, and Romania that coordinated Allied offensives will be launched on the Western, Eastern, and Italian fronts, about June, when Russia should be ready.

1915 December 4 "To get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas," Henry Ford begins fitting out a "Peace Ship" on which he plans to travel to Europe to end the war. (Schlesinger I)

1915 December 6 Töpfer, Rüttinger's successor in the Nuremberg Germanenorden province, writes Julius Rüttinger complaining that the brothers are now weary of the ritual, ceremony and banquets, which Pohl seems to regard as the main purpose of the Order. (Roots)

1915 December 7 President Wilson asks for a standing army of 142,000 and a reserve of 400,000.

1915 December 7 General Townshend at Kut, in Mesopotamia, is besieged by the Turks.

1915 December 10 After suffering extremely heavy casualties, the bulk of the Allied troops and supplies at Gallipoli are evacuated by this date.

1915 December 31 Appalling losses have been suffered during 1915 on both sides: 612,000 Germans, 1,292,000 French, and 279,000 British. The year ends with no appreciable shift in the battle lines scarring the landscape from the North Sea to the Swiss Alps. Russian casualties on the Eastern Front are more than 2 million men, about half of whom had been captured. Combined German and Austrian casualties exceed 1 million.

1915 Sir Douglas Haig replaces Sir John French as the Commander-in-Chief of British forces.

1915 Albert Einstein, after a number of false starts, publishes his General Theory of Relativity, the definitive form of his general theory.

1915 Radical, antisemitic poet and journalist Dietrich Eckart returns to Munich after being gassed at the front.

1915 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels coins the word Ariosophy. Its earliest mention is in Ostrara I, 82. (Roots)

1915 The Allied governments retain J.P. Morgan & Co. as their agent to handle purchases of war supplies in the United States. Thomas Lamont, of the House of Morgan, appoints Edward R. Stettinius, Sr. to oversee this vast operation. Stettinius soon becomes a partner, heading a special department that apportions British and French orders of war materiels among U.S. steel mills, powder plants, tool works and dozens of other industries.

1916 January 7 Germany notifies the U.S. State Department that it will abide by strict international rules of maritime warfare.

1916 January 8-9 The remaining 35,000 Allied troops at Gallipoli are secretly withdrawn without alerting the Turks. Allied casualties for the entire campaign are estimated at 252,000, with the Turks suffering about 251,000.

1916 January 10 General Francisco "Pancho" Villa, in an attempt to embroil the U.S. in the turmoil in Mexico, forces 18 American mining engineers off a train and shoots them in cold blood.

1916 January 11 General Yudenich, one of the most capable Russian commanders, advances from Kars toward Erzerum in the Caucasus.

1916 February 13 General Yudenich reaches Erzerum and breaks through its ring of forts in a 3-day battle (February 16).

1916 February 21 Following an enormous bombardment, the crown prince's German Fifth Army attacks the fortified but lightly garrisoned area around Verdun. The assault gains considerable territory, capturing a key position, Fort Douaumont. Joffre prohibits any further retreat and sends Gen. Henri Philippe Petain with reinforcements to defend the region.

1916 January 24 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that a federal income tax is constitutional.

1916 March Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and 17 other Social Democrats are expelled from the party's Reichstag delegation for their radiacal extremism.

1916 March 6 The second German attack at Verdun, launched on the western face of the salient, is eventually checked by French counterattacks. For the remainder of the month, attacks and counterattacks litter the battlefield with corpses. The watchword for the defense becomes France's motto for the rest of the war: Ils ne passeront pas! ("They shall not pass!")

1916 March 9 Pancho Villa leads a raid into New Mexico, killing 17 Americans.

1916 March 11 The Italians launch the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo. Like its predecessors, this battle is a succession of inconclusive conflicts.

1916 March 12 Russian General N. N. Baratov reaches Karind and advances on Baghdad.

1916 March 18 The Russians, responding to French appeals, launch a two-pronged drive in the Vilna-Naroch area as a counter to the German Verdun assault in the west. The Russian assault soon breaks down in the mud of the spring thaw, costing 70,000 to 100,000 casualties and 10,000 prisoners. German losses are about 20,000 men.

1916 March 24 German U-boats torpedo another passenger ship, the Sussex, and several more Americans are killed, despite Germany's guarantees of 1915.

1916 April Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and their associates found the radical Independent Socialist Party, commonly referred to as the Spartacus League.

(Rosa Luxemburg, while in prison (1916-18) for revolutionary activity writes the so-called Spartacus Letters.)

1916 April 9 The third German offensive at Verdun strikes both sides of the salient, but is checked by May 19.

1916 April 18 General Yudenich captures Trebizond (Trabzon), facilitating Russian logistical support

1916 April 20 The Lafayette Escadrille, a French squadron made up of American volunteers, flies in action for the first time on the Western Front.

1916 April 29 In Mesopotamia, General Townshend's besieged and starving force at Kut-el-Amara capitulates, surrendering 2,070 British and 6,000 Indian troops to the Turks. The British had already taken 21,000 casualties in a series of unsuccessful rescue attempts.

1916 Spring Prescott Bush, the father of future President George Bush, and Roland "Bunny" Harriman are chosen for membership in the elite Yale secret society known as Skull and Bones.

1916 May 9 President Wilson orders mobilization of U.S. troops along the Mexican border. This will lead Carranza, the Mexican president, to order U.S. troops out of Mexico.

1916 May 10 Germany announces abandonment of its extended submarine campaign. During this period Great Britain, seeking to maintain a blockade, illegally seizes American vessels with such frequency, that Wilson threatens to provide convoys for all American merchant ships to guarantee their neutrality rights.

1916 May 15 The Austrians begin a long-planned offensive in the Trentino area, catching the Italians unprepared.

1916 May 30 The German High Seas Fleet under Adm. Reinhard Scheer puts to sea, led by Hipper's scouting fleet--40 fast ships with a nucleus of five battle cruisers. Following well behind is the main fleet of 59 ships.

1916 May 30 Alerted by German radio chatter, the British Grand Fleet under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe heads toward the Skagerrak. Leading is Beatty's scouting force of 52 ships, including 6 battle cruisers and 4 new super-dreadnoughts. Following behind is Jellicoe's main fleet of 99 vessels. Overall, the British have 37 capital ships: 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battle cruisers; the Germans had 27: 16 dreadnoughts, 6 older battleships, and 5 battle cruisers.

1916 May 31 At about 3:30pm, The Battle of Jutland, the most important naval engagement of the war begins. Fewer than four hours later the British have lost three battle cruisers, three cruisers, and eight destroyers; with 6,784 casualties. The Germans have lost only one old battleship, one battle cruiser, four light cruisers, and five destroyers; with 3,039 casualties. The Battle of Jutland is the end of an era: the last great fleet action in which both opponents slug it out within eyesight of one another. Yet neither side can claim a victory, and the German High Sea Fleet will not put to sea for the remainder of the war.

1916 June 1 Turkish commander Halil Pasha repulses a Russian attack at Khanikin in Mesopotamia.

1916 June 4 The Austrian spring offensive against Italy brings yet another appeal to Czar Nicholas for help. General Aleksei A. Brusilov, the commander of the Russian Southwestern Army Group, attacks along a 300- mile-long front. Well-planned and well executed, The Brusilov Offensive devastates the Austro-German line in two places and drives forward.

1916 June 5 British Minister of War, Lord Kitchener, dies when HMS Hampshire is sunk.

1916 June 5 An Arab revolt breaks out against the Turks in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia. The revolt spreads to Palestine and Syria under the leadership of British archaeologist T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), a brilliant tactician who joins forces with Husayn Ibn Ali. Lawrence, with a force of only a few thousand Arabs, threatens the Turks' entire line of communications through Syria to the Taurus Mountains.

1916 June-September The Brusilov Offensive, although successful, demoralizes the Russians, and costs them one million men, significantlycontributing to the hardships and resentments that lead to the Russian Revolutions of 1917.

(Note: Austrian losses were even greater, and their defeat by the Russians was the single most important element in the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire.)

1916 June-July Renewed German assaults at Verdun almost break the French line, but the French hang on to their positions until demands for replacements on the Eastern Front drain 15 German divisions from Verdun.

1916 June 10 The Austrian drive in the Trentino area is halted by difficult terrain and arrival of Italian reinforcements. An Italian counteroffensive and the desperate need to rush troops to the Eastern Front causes the Austrians to withdraw to defensive positions. Italian casualties reach more than 147,000; Austrian 81,000.

1916 June 12 Rudolf Hess is wounded at Verdun, but manages to continue fighting despite his injury.

1916 June 14 President Wilson leads a "preparedness" parade in Washington, D.C.

1916 June 16 Brusilov, receiving little or no aid from the two other Russian army groups on the front, is battered by a German counteroffensive.

1916 June 16 President Wilson is renominated for president at the Democratic Convention in St. Louis, Missouri. Thomas R. Marshall is nominated for vice president. Wilson campaigns on the slogan "He kept us out of war," while skillfully preparing the way for entrance on the side of the Allies. (Schlesinger I)

1916 June 18 General Helmuth von Moltke dies, a broken and disillusioned man.

1916 June 20 Frau Eliza von Moltke, the widow of General Moltke, begins "speaking in tongues" and soon begins writing hundreds of pages of what she claims are the General's supernatural "prophesies," delivered from beyond the grave. Frau Moltke soon names Adolf Hitler as the future leader of Germany, while Hitler is still an unknown messenger on the Western Front. Frau Moltke says it will be General von Ludendorff who will bring Hitler to power and the well-known English writer, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who will name Hitler as the long-awaited German Messiah. (Frau Moltke, Spear)

1916 June 21 President Carranza orders his troops to attack American troops still on Mexican soil. 18 Americans are killed or wounded. The Mexicans warn that a repetition will occurr unless Americans leave Mexico. Wilson refusesuntil order is restored along the border.

1916 June 24 Joffre launches his long-planned Allied offensive on the Somme with a week-long artillery bombardment.

1916 July A reconstituted Serbian army of about 118,000 men arrives by ship in the Balkans, and with additional reinforcements rises to more than 250,000.

1916 July The Germanenorden's newsletter begins featuring a swastika superimposed on a cross on its cover. All future issues will carry this same symbol. (Roots)

1916 July Allied forces begin active operations in Albania

1916 July 1 The British infantry, following the artillery barrage on the Somme, are mowed down by German machine guns as they attempt their assault. By nightfall the British have lost about 60,000 men, 19,000 of them dead--the greatest single, 1-day loss in the history of the British army.

1916 July 2 Despite the appalling British losses of the first day, Gen. Henry S. Rawlinson's British Fourth Army and Gen. Edmund Sllenby's Third Army continue with a series of small, limited attacks. Falkenhayn, determined to check the advance, begins shifting reinforcements from the Verdun front.

1916 July 13 The second German line in the Somme is cracked, but little advantage is gained.

1916 July 25 General Yudenich routs the Turkish Third Army, and then turns on the Turkish Second Army.

1916 Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph dies.

1916 Allen W. Dulles enters U.S. diplomatic service.

1916 August Italy declares war against Germany.

1916 August Kemal, the Turkish hero of Gallipoli and now a corps commander, captures the Caucasian cities of Mus and Bitlis.

1916 August In Persia, Halil Pasha retakes Kermanshah.

1916 August General Sir Frederick S. Maude becomes commander in Mesopotamian.

1916 August 3 German Gen. Kress von Kressenstein, with 15,000 Turkish troops and German machine gunners, makes a surprise attack on the British Sinai railhead at Rumani, but is repelled.

1916 August 6 General Cadorna again strikes the Austrian Isonzo front. In this Sixth Battle of the Isonzo the Italians take Gorizia, but no breakthrough is achieved. Psychologically, the operation boosts Italian morale, lowered by the heavy losses in the Trentino.

1916 August 17 Bulgarian-German attacks begin the Battle of Florina in the Balkans.

1916 August 19 Falkenhayn is relieved of command and replaced by General Paul von Hindenburg. Soon he and General Erich von Ludendorff will take full control of both the war and civilian affairs. Kaiser Wilhelm II becomes a mere figurehead.

1916 August 27 The Romanian government, impressed by the early success of the Brusilov Offensive, declares war on Germany and Austria-Hungary.

1916 August 27 The Allied-Serbian forces in the Balkans are driven back to the Struma River line.

1916 August-September Romanian armies advance into Transylvania, where they were repulsed by Falkenhayn, now commanding the Ninth Army.

1916 September Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff visits Hermann Pohl, leader of the mysterious Germanenorden in Berlin. Pohl tells Sebottendorff he first became interested in the esoteric study of the runes through Guido von List, and that he is convinced racial miscegenation, especially with Jews, was responsible for obscuring the "Aryan's" knowledge of the mystical powers of the runes. Pohl says he believes this gnosis can be revived once the race has been purified of foreign contamination. (Sebottendorff; Roots)

1916 September 10 French Gen. Maurice Sarrail,technically in command in the Balkans, launches an abortive counteroffensive while bickering with his British subordinates.

1916 September 15 Gen. Haig, commander of the BEF, launches another major offensive in the Somme. British tanks, secretly shipped to the front and used in combat for the first time, spearhead the attack. Although a surprise to the Germans, the tanks are underpowered, unreliable, too slow, and too few in number to gain a decisive victory (out of 47 brought up, only 9 completed their assigned tasks). As at Verdun, the casualties were horrendous: British losses are about 420,000; French about 195,000; German nearly 650,000.

1916 Sept 20 Brusilov, slowed by ammunition shortages, reaches the Carpathian foothills. The offensive ends when German reinforcements, rushed from Verdun, bolster the shattered Austrians, who are in danger of being knocked out of the war.

1916 October-November The French, now under command of General Robert Nivelle, retake Forts Douaumont and Vaux.

1916 October 7 Hitler is wounded in combat and is taken to an army hospital at Beelitz.

1916 October 8 During a provincial meeting of the Germanenorden at Gotha in Thuringia, members from Berlin urge the Gotha assembly to remove Hermann Pohl as Chancellor. Pohl is incensed and declares himself Chancellor of a schismatic Germanenorden Walvater of the Holy Grail. Pohl succeeds in carrying with him the already established lodges in Silesia (Breslau), Hamburg, Berlin and the Osterland (Gera). Pohl's supporters in Berlin are G.W. Freese and Bräunlich, who founded new Berlin lodges in the city and at Gross-Lichterfelde. (Roots)

1916 October 20 General major Erwin von Heimerdinger becomes the new Chancellor of the original Germanenorden. Dr. Gensch becomes Treasurer and Bernhard Koerner, Grand Keeper of Pedigrees. Philipp Stauff and Eberhard von Brockhusen are principle officers of the Berlin province. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1916 November The Battle of the Somme comes to an end, costing the British more than 400,000 troops; the French 200,000; and the Germans about 450,000; with no strategic results (see June 24).

1916 November 3 Mackensen, commander of the German-reinforced Bulgarian Danube Army, crosses the Danube after driving north through the Dobruja.

1916 November 7 President Wilson is reelected. He has repeatedly promised the American people that if reelected he will keep them out of war.

1916 November 10 An Italian corps pushes an Austrian corps north and links with Sarrail's main body at Lake Ochrida in Albania.

1916 November 21 Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef dies.

1916 December From New York, Paul Warburg sends a letter to his brother, Max Warburg, in Germany, telling him that the Allies have nearly exhausted the market for American loans, but that unrestricted U-boat warfare would foster sympathy and expand the market. (The Warburgs)

1916 December 4 Romanian Gen. Alexandru Averescu, is disastrously defeated in the Battle of the Arges River (December 1-4).

1916 December 6 Bucharest, the Romanian capital, is captured.

1916 December 13 General Maude begins a movement up both banks of the Tigris River with 166,000 men, two-thirds of them Indian.

1916 December 18 The French front almost reaches the lines held prior to February, bringing the Verdun campaign to an end. Casualties in this bitterly fought battle are about 542,000 French and 434,000 Germans.

1916 December 18 President Wilson asks the warring powers to state their conditions for peace negotiations.

1916 December Shortly before Christmas, Pohl informs Sebottendorf that the Germanenorden has been reconstructed with Pohl, himself, as Chancellor. (Roots)

1916 December 31 Rasputin, a politically powerful Russian monk who is also a confidant and advisor to the Czar's family, is murdered by a group of noblemen lead by Prince Felix Yussoupov, the Czarina's cousin. Rasputin is poisoned, shot, clubbed and then thrown into the Neva River. Rasputin's real name was Grigori Yefimovich.

1916 December 31 General Joffre retires, and is succeeded by General Nivelle.

1916 December 31 The Romanian army, with belated Russian support, holds only one tiny foothold in their own country. The remnants of the Romanian armies have been driven north into Russia, and the bulk of Romania's wheat fields and oil wells fallen into German hands.

1916 Lazar Kaganovich, now a member of the Kiev Bolshevik Committee, makes a speech opposing the "imperialist war." He is quickly arrested and banished from Kiev. He then began a period of travelling and union organizing using various aliases.

1916 Lloyd George becomes prime minister of Britain's wartime coalition government.

1916 General Josef Pilsudski is imprisoned by the Germans after refusing to join the Central Powers.

1916 The Trans-Siberian railway, the longest continuous railroad line in the world, is completed.

1916 U.S. Marines land in Santo Domingo to quell unrest and will not leave until 1924.

1916 U.S. troops under General Pershing invade Mexico in retaliation for raids by Pancho Villa.

1916 Henry Ford spends $465,000 to finance a so-called "Peace Ship," and travels to Europe in an unsuccessful attempt to personally negotiate an end to the war. Ford later blames his failure on the Jews.

1917 January Leon Trotsky arrives in New York City and becomes an editor of the Russian socialist newspaper Novy Mir (New World). He spends only 10 weeks in America, but long enough to raise millions of dollars for a revolution in Russia.

1917 January The Hamburg Chamber of Commerce appeals to the Kaiser to start unrestricted submarine warfare. Max Warburg voices his opposition even though he knows his brothers and their associates in America will reap huge profits (See December 1916). (Warburgs)

1917 January 8-9 In the Battle of Magruntein, British forces clear the Sinai Peninsula of all organized Turkish forces. Sir Archibald Murray is then authorized to begin a limited offensive into Palestine, where the Turks have established defensive positions along the ridges between Gaza and Beersheba, the two natural gateways to the region.

1917 January 22 President Wilson appears before Congress and outlines a plan for a league of peace, an organization designed to bring about a federation of peaceloving nations.Wilson asks for a "Peace without victory," a concept that is unappealing to both warring factions.

1917 January 31 Germany announces it is resuming unrestricted submarine warfare, stating that neutral ships, armed or unarmed, that sail into a German war zone will be attacked without warning

(Note: On this same day, Max Warburg lunches at his club with Admiral Arndt von Holtzendorff, HAPAG's Berlin agent, and Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman. (Warburgs)

1917 Lazar Kaganovich first meets Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev at a meeting of leather tanners in Yuzovka and soon recruits him into the Bolshevik party. (Wolf)

1917 February 3 President Woodrow Wilson breaks off all diplomatic relations with Germany, less than a month after his inauguration for a second term, citing Germany's renewed submarine warfare as reason enough to intervene. That same day the the American steamship Housatonic is sunk without warning.

1917 February 22 In Mesopotamia, Sir Frederick Maude skillfully assaults Kut, forcing the Turks back toward Baghdad.

1917 February 23 Anticipating a major Allied offensive, the Germans begin withdrawing to a well fortified defensive zone known as the Hindenburg line, or Siegfried zone, about 20 miles behind the winding and overextended line from Arras to Soissons (to April 5).

1917 February 25 General Khabalov issues a police proclamation forbidding all assemblies in the streets of Petrograd and warning that his troops have been ordered to use their weapons to maintain order. Only hours later, 300 people are killed near Nicholas Station.

1917 February 24 The Zimmerman note, written by German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman to the German Ambassador in Mexico, is turned over to President Wilson by British intelligence, who had earlier intercepted and decoded the message. The note indicates that if Germany and the United States were to go to war, Germany would seek an alliance with Mexico -- offering the Mexicans Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona in return for their efforts. The British had held onto the note, waiting until the most propitious moment to present it to Wilson. It now becomes one of the most important factors in leading him to declare war on Germany. (Tuchman I)

1917 February 26 Wilson asks Congress for permission to arm merchant ships. Pacifist Senator La Follette leads a filibuster against the legislation.

1917 March 1 Bread riots in Russia are followed by more killings.

1917 March 5 President Wilson is inaugurated.

1917 March 8 Food shortages provoke more street demonstrations in Petrograd (February 23, O.S.), and garrison soldiers refuse to suppress them. Duma leaders demand that Czar Nicholas transfer power to a parliamentary government.

1917 March 9 President Wilson issues a directive for the arming of U.S. merchant ships after the Attorney General finds that such an order is within the power of the presidency.

1917 March 11 Revolution breaks out in Russia. (Sturdza)

1917 March 11 After several days of fighting along the Diyala River, General Maude enters Baghdad. He then launches three columns up the Tigris, Euphrates, and Diyala rivers, securing his hold on the city.

1917 March 12 The garrison and workers of Petrograd (St. Petersburg), capital of Russia, mutiny, beginning the Russian Revolutions of 1917. Food riots, strikes, and war protests turn into mass demonstrations. The army refuses to fire on the demonstrators. (February 27, O.S.)

1917 March 12 The American merchant ship Algonquin is sunk without warning.

1917 March 13 Heavy fighting breaks out in the streets of Petrograd.

1917 March 15 The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, a special Duma committee, establishes a provisional government headed by Prince Georgi Lvov, a liberal. Aleksandr Kerensky becomes the new Minister of Justice (March 2, O.S.).

1917 March 15 The Soviet defies the provisional government and issues the notorious "Order No. 1," depriving officers of disciplinary authority. The Russian army and navy collapses as threadbare, battle-weary soldiers and sailors murder or depose their officers.

1917 March 15 Czar Nicholas II abdicates in favor of his brother, Archduke Michael.

1917 March 16 Archduke Michael refuses to accept the crown and abdicates in favor of Prince Lvov's Provisional Government. The 300-year-old Romanov dynasty comes to an end (March 3, O.S.).

1917 March 17 The new Provisional government is almost universally welcomed. Civil liberties are proclaimed, new wage agreements and an 8-hour day are soon negotiated. Discipline in the army is relaxed, and elections are promised for a Constituent Assembly that would organize a permanent democratic order. The existence of two seats of power, the Provisional government and the Petrograd Soviet, however, creates a political rivalry representative of the differing aspirations within Russian society.

1917 March 18 The City of Memphis, Vigilante and Illinois, all American ships, are sunk without warning.

1917 March 21 Another American ship, the Healdon, is sunk off the Dutch coast.

1917 March 22 The U.S. recognizes the new Russian government formed by Prince Lvov and Aleksandr Kerensky.

1917 March 24 The Sixtus Letter - a secret letter sent by Karl I, emperor of Austria, attempts to negotiate a separate peace with England and France. Karl willingly offers to recognize France's "just demand" in regard to Alsace-Lorraine.

1917 March 26 An attack on Gaza, led by Gen. Sir Charles Dobell, fails because of defective staff work and bad communications. General Murray's report, however, presents this First Battle of Gaza as a British victory, and Murray is ordered to advance without delay to take Jerusalem.

1917 March 27 Leon Trotsky and a group of communist revolutionaries sail from New York aboard the S.S. Christiania Fiord, bound for Russia.

1917 March British naval authorities in Halifax, Novia Scotia, remove Trotsky and five of his companions along with millions of dollars in gold from the Christiania Fiord.

1917 Stalin returns to Petrograd after the March Revolution had overthrown the monarchy.

1917 April 2 President Wilson asks Congress to declare war on Germany. "The world," he says, "must be made safe for democracy."

1917 April 4 The U.S. Senate concurs with Wilson's request to declare war on Germany.

1917 April 5 Two telegrams reach the office of British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. One, from Berne, informs Balfour that Lenin and his group of Russian Communists are negotiating with the Germans for safe passage through Germany. The other, from Lord Halifax, informs him that, Trotsky and five of his associates have been seized in Nova Scotia and that Trotsky is now "the leader of a movement to start a revolution against the present Russian Government, the funds being subscribed by socialists and Germans." (Tuchman II)

1917 April 6 The U.S. House of Representatives approves Wilson's resolution against Germany and the United States declares war. The Zimmerman note along with the news that more American ships had been sunk by U-boats had finally aroused Americans out of their isolationism.

1917 April 9 The long-awaited Allied Offensive (the Nivelle Offensive) begins when British troops, following a heavy bombardment and gas attack, assault the German Sixth Army positions near Arras. British air superiority is rapidly achieved.

1917 April 9 In Russia, widespread popular opposition to the war causes the Petrograd Soviet to repudiate annexationist ambitions (March 27, O.S.).

1917 April British and American diplomats pressure for Trotsky's release even though he has promised to take Russia out of the war. An act which is almost certain to cost the lives of tens of thousands of Allied soldiers on the Western Front.

1917 April Trotsky is freed by the British and steams off to ferment a revolution in Russia with an American passport and millions of dollars in gold at his disposal.

1917 April 15 The British advance near Arras is finally halted.

1917 April 16 The French armies attack on a 40-mile front between Soissons and Reims to take the Chemin des Dames, a series of rocky, wooded ridges running parallel to the front. The Germans, fully aware of French plans as a result of Nivelle's confident public boasts, turn the assault into a disaster. The entire operation is a colossal failure, costing the French nearly 120,000 men in 5 days.

1917 April 16 Lenin, Zinoviev, Lunacharski and 30 other Bolsheviks, a number of them from New York City, arrive in Petrograd by train from Switzerland, via Germany, Sweden and Finland.

1917 April 17 Trotsky and his companions arrive in Petrograd from New York and soon join forces with Lenin.(Prince Michael Sturdza of Romania says Lenin arrived on the 17th and that Trotsky was already in Petrograd when Lenin arrived.) Stuart Kahan in The Wolf of the Kremlin says that Trotsky didn't arrive until early May, and went directly to the Tauride Palace where the Soviet was already in session.

1917 April 29 Almost the entire French army, disheartened and exhausted after the disastrous Nivelle offensive, rebels in mutiny.

1917 April German submarine warfare reaches its peak. Adoption of the convoy system greatly reduces Allied losses.

1917 May A coalition government is established in Russia that includes several moderate socialists in addition to Aleksandr Kerensky, who had been in the cabinet from the beginning. The participation of such socialists in a government that continues to prosecute the war and fails to implement basic reforms, however, only serves to identify their parties -- the Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and others -- with government failure.

1917 May 8 Aleksandr Kerensky is appointed minister of war and soon responds to pressure from the alarmed Allies by ordering Brusilov, now commander in chief, to mount an offensive on the Galician front.

1917 May 10 The Allied convoy system is officially adopted.

1917 May 12 The Italians once again attempt to battle their way over mountainous terrain in the Tenth Battle of the Isonzo. Casualties are huge: 157,000 Italian and 75,000 Austrians.

1917 May 13 Our Lady of Fatima, an apparition of the Virgin Mary, is allegedly seen by three Portuguese children near the village of Fatima in Portugal.

1917 May 15 Nivelle is replaced by General Philippe Petain, who quells the mutiny and restores the situation with a combination of tact, firmness, and justice. French counterintelligence completely blots out all news of the mutiny, even from the Germans.

1917 King George of England changes royal family name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor (1901-1917).

1917 May 16 Kerensky becomes Minister of War and begins a systematic disintegration of the Russian Army (Prakkase No. 1). It is Kerensky's persistence in fighting the war that dooms the provisional government. The Bolsheviks led by Lenin continue to undermine the war effort by spreading communist propaganda among the soldiers and the working class.

1917 May 18 The Selective Service Act, a draft and conscription law, is passed in the U.S. for all men between 21 and 30.

1917 June General Lord Edmund Allenby takes command of the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force, which will soon take the war to the Turks in Palestine.

1917 June 7 After a 17-day general bombardment, British mines, packed with over a million pounds of high explosives tears a huge gap in the German lines on Messines Ridge. General Sir Herbert Plumer's Second Army successfully occupied Messines. This clear-cut victory bolsters British morale.

1917 June 12 Britain and France force Constantine I to abandon the Greek throne to his son, Alexander.

1917 June 24 The American Expeditionary Force (AEF) and the First Division, an amalgam of existing regular army units, under Major. General John J. Pershing arrive in France. Pershing's calls for a million-man army overseas by May 1918.

1917 June 26 King Alexander of Greece reinstates Eleutherios Venizelos as prime minister.

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

1917 Summer By the summer of 1917 a social upheaval of vast proportions is sweeping over Russia. All over Russia, peasants are expropriating land from the gentry. Peasant-soldiers flee the trenches so as not to be left out, and the government can not stem the tide. New shortages consequently appear in the cities, causing scores of factories to close. Angry workers form their own factory committees, sequestering plants to keep them running and to gain new material benefits.

1917 July A mutiny is successfully put down at the German naval base at Kiel.

1917 July 1 Russian Commander-in-Chief Brusilov attacks toward Lemberg with the few troops still capable of combat operations. After a few minor gains, the Russian supply system breaks down, and Russian enthusiasm and discipline quickly disappears as German resistance stiffens.

1917 July 4 Colonel Charles E. Stanton, speaking at the tomb of Lafayette, the French hero of the American War of Independence, proudly states, " Lafayette, we are here."

1917 July 14 The U.S. House of Representatives appropriates $640 million for the military aviation program. The army begins the war with 55 planes and 4,500 aviators. By the end of the war more than 16,000 U.S. aircraft will be in service.

1917 July 16-17 Following a disastrous military offensive, Petrograd soldiers, instigated by local Bolshevik agitators, demonstrate against the government in what be comes known as the "July Days." (July 3-4, O.S.)

1917 July 16-18 The Bolsheviks make a premature attempt to seize power in Petrograd. Trotsky is arrested and Lenin is forced to go into hiding in Finland.

1917 July Stalin plays an important organizational role in the Bolshevik party after the first unsuccessful Bolshevik attempt to seize power during the "July days".

1917 July 19 General Max Hoffmann, commanding on the Eastern Front, begins a new German assault, crushing the demoralized Russian armies. The Germans halt their advance at the Galician border.

1917 July 20 Prince Lvov resigns and Kerensky becomes Prime Minister and head of the provisional government.

1917 July 25 Rudolf Hess is injured in his left arm at Oituz Pass in Romania, but stays with his unit. (Missing Years)

1917 July 31 The bloody Third Battle of Ypres begins when the British attack the Germans from the northeast. The low ground, sodden with rain, has been turned into a quagmire by a preliminary 3-day bombardment, and the British advance quickly bogs down. More than 250,000 British troops will be killed capturing the small village of Passchendaele.

1917 August Trotsky joins the Bolshevik Party, whose longtime loyalists (including Stalin) regard him as an interloper. Nevertheless, Trotsky soon wins a leading role with his spellbinding speeches and organizational energy.

1917 August Rudolf Hess is felled by a rifle bullet in his left lung during a charge by the 18th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment at Unguereana in Romania, and almost bleeds to death. (Missing Years)

1917 August 10 Herbert Hoover is put in charge of the food program set up by the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act. It is designed to increase food production and distribution.

1917 August 18 General Luigi Cadorna launches the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo with 52 Italian divisions and 5,000 guns.

1917 September Austria is reinforced in Italy by seven German divisions under General Otto von Below.

1917 September 1 General Oscar von Hutier's Eighth Army attacks Riga, northern anchor of the Russian front. As a holding attack on the west bank of the Dvina River threatens the city, three divisions cross the river to the north on pontoon bridges, encircling the fortress, while exploiting elements pouring eastward. The Russian Twelfth Army flees, and a small German amphibious force occupies Osel and Dago islands in the Gulf of Riga. The German victory at Riga leaves Petrograd unprotected.

1917 September 8 General Lavr G. Kornilov attempts to establish a right-wing military dictatorship in Russia. He is backed by the Cadets, traditionally the party of liberal constitutionalism.

1917 September 8-14 Kerensky puts down the conservative revolt led by General Kornilov and arrests the general. Kerensky quickly releases Trotsky and dozens of other terrorists from prison. (To Kornilov, the real enemy was socialism, personified by Kerensky. To Kerensky, the conservatives represented counterrevolution. Both factions despised and underrated Lenin because of his extremism.) (Sturdza)

1917 September 20 At Ypres, a series of British assaults inch forward against determined counterattacks. The Germans, for the first time, use mustard gas, scorching and burning the British troops.

1917 September The Bolsheviks gain a majority in the Petrograd Soviet and Trotsky is elected Chairman.

1917 September Adolf Hitler receives the Cross of Merit, third class.

1917 October The Austrians and Germans attack the Italian forces at Caporetto. More than 265,000 Italians are taken as prisoners of war.

1917 October Zinoviev votes with Lev Kamenev against seizing power, earning the undying enmity of party comrades and Bolshevik historians; nevertheless, Zinoviev is given command of the Petrograd party organization.

1917 October 22 Lenin secretly returns from Finland. After giving his instructions to the Bolsheviks at a secret session of the Bolshevik Central Committee, he once again goes into hiding.

1917 October 24 German troops under Gen. Otto von Below lead a powerful attack against the weak Italian defenses at Caporetto, forcing Cadorna to withdraw along the entire front (The twelfth Battle of Isonzo).

1917 October 25 The Military Revolution Committee of the Petrograd Soviet launches an successful insurrection. Lenin's influence is decisive, but the actual organizer is Trotsky. (Lazar Kaganovich, himself of Jewish descent, later said that the percentage of Jews in the party at this time was 52%, rather high he noted, when compared to the percentage of Jews (1.8%) in the total population.) (Wolf)

1917 October 27 The first American soldier fires a shot in World War I. (Schlesinger I)

1917 October 31 Allenby attacks in the Third Battle of Gaza (Battle of Beersheba). Allenby leaves three divisions demonstrating in front of Gaza and secretly moves against Beersheba. The surprise is complete, and an all-day battle culminates in a mounted charge at dusk by an Australian cavalry brigade over the Turkish wire and trenches into Beersheba itself, capturing the vital water supply.

1917 November 2 The Balfour Declaration - Arthur James Balfour, in a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild of England, affirms Britain's commitment to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1917 November 3 Three American soldiers are killed in action. They are the first official American casualties in World War I. By the end of the war 49,000 will be killed in action and another 230,000 wounded. Disease will take a greater toll than bullets, claiming 57,000 men. (Schlesinger I)

1917 November 5 The Rapallo Conference, a direct result of the disaster at Caporetto, sets up the Supreme War Council, the first attempt to establish overall Allied unity of command.

1917 November 6 After more than 3 months of fighting at Ypres and a total advance of 8 km (5 miles), the British offensive comes to an end with the capture of the ridge and village of Passchendaele. More importantly, it distracts German attention, from the collapsing French armies, thus helping to prevent a German victory in 1917. The British suffer more than 300,000 casualties, the French about 9,000, and the Germans about 260,000.

1917 November 6 Allenby strikes north, launching the Desert Mounted Corps across the country toward the sea. The Turks evacuated Gaza in time to avoid the trap, but are closely pursued by Allenby.

1917 November 6 Lenin reappears to direct the revolution in Petrograd (October 24, O.S.).

1917 November 7 Just before daybreak, the Bolsheviks seize the railway station, state bank, the power stations, and telephone exchange. In the evening they arrest the cabinet members meeting in the Winter Palace.

1917 November 7 The Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets proclaims the establishment of Soviet power.

1917 November 8 By evening, Petrograd is firmly in the hands of the Bolsheviks. A new Government headed by Lenin is quickly organized. Trotsky becomes Commissar for Foreign Affairs and Stalin Commissar for Minorities. They soon take the name: Council of the People's Commissars. Fighting in Moscow will continue for several more days.

1917 November 8 The Second All Russia Congress of Soviets proposes that all combatant nations begin immediate negotiations on concluding a just, democratic peace without annexations or indemnities. (Polyakov)

1917 November 8 Kerensky escapes to Finland, and then travels on to Paris. He will eventually settle in New York City.

1917 November 9 Lenin forms the world's first Communist government and quickly asks Germany for an armistice. (Compton's)

1917 November 12 The arrival of British and French reinforcements in Italy enables Cadorna to stabilize the Italian front at the Piave River. Italy suffers over 40,000 casualties, as well as 275,000 prisoners.

1917 November 13 General Allenby, closely pursuing the Turks, strikes again, driving them back to the north. Turning then toward Jerusalem, Allenby is detained by the appearance of Turkish reserves and the arrival of General von Falkenhayn, who reestablishes a front from the sea to Jerusalem.

1917 November 20 The British unleash the first large-scale tank attack. At dawn approximately 200 tanks, followed by wave after wave of infantry, plow into the Germans positions in front of Cambrai. German defenses temporarily collapse and the assault breaks through the Hindenburg line for 5 miles along a 6-mile front.

1917 November 20 A preliminary armistice is signed between Germany and Russia (according to Russian historian Yuri Polyakov, who also stated the Allies never replied to the Soviet peace proposal of November 8)

1917 November 25 A Constituent Assembly is elected in Russia. Few of his opponents appreciate Lenin's political boldness, audacity, and commitment to shaping a Communist Russia (November 12, O.S).

1917 November 26 The Russian revolutionary government abandons the war effort after tens of thousands of Russian soldiers desert in droves, lured by promises of "land, peace, bread."

1917 November 30 In France, Germans forces counterattack in the Cambrai salient.

1917 November 30 The U.S. Rainbow Division, commanded by Colonel Douglas McArthur and representing men from every state of the Union, lands in France.

1917 December 3 General Haig orders a partial withdrawal from the Cambrai salient. Nonetheless, Cambrai marks a turning point in tactics on the Western Front on two counts: (1) successful assault without preliminary bombardment and (2) the mass use of tanks.

1917 December 3 A truce is signed between the new Russian Bolshevik government and Germany, ending hostilities on the Eastern Front, and permanently erasing Russia from the Allied ranks.

1917 December 7 The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.

1917 December 8 Allenby assaults the Turkish and German positions, driving them from Jerusalem.

1917 December 9 Peace talks begin between Germany and Russia at Brest-Litovsk in Belorussia. (Polyakov)

1917 December 9 Jerusalem is occupied by Allenby's British cavalry.

1917 December 17 Lazar Kaganovich sets out for Petrograd where he has been appointed a delegate to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. (Wolf)

1917 December 20 The Soviet Cheka is established as an investigative agency and quickly transforms itself into a political police force committed to the extermination of all opponents of Soviet ideology. Its founding director was the mysterious Felix Dzerzhunsky, who is quoted as saying, "The Cheka is not a court. We stand for organized terror. The Cheka is obligated to defend the revolution and conquer the enemy even if its sword by chance sometimes fall upon the heads of the innocent."

1917 December 21 Sebottendorff, who has communicated regularly with Pohl throughout 1917, attends the dedication ceremony of the reorganized Germanenorden in Berlin at Pohl's invitation. Sebottendorff offers to publish a monthly Order periodical and is formally elected Master of the Bavarian province. (BHK; Roots)

1917 December Lazar Kaganovich meets Kliment Voroshilov and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, acquaintances of his two older brothers, Mikhail and Yuri, who are now living in Arzamas. Mikhail is also a close friend of Nikolai Bulganin, whom Lenin considers one of the Bolshevik's leading theorists. (Wolf)

1917 December During the Battle of Caporetto, on the Italian Front, Austria forces the Italians to retreat, losing 600,000 prisoners and deserters (October-December).

1917 Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli becomes Papal Nuncio in Germany (to 1929).

1917 The Allies station 15,000 British and Americans at Archangel. 8,000 more Americans occupy Siberia. These forces will remain in Russia even after the close of the war and will not leave until 1919.

1917 Chaim Weizmann becomes head of the World Zionist Organization. He will hold this office from 1917 to 1931 and again from 1935 to 1946.

1917 Edward R. Stettinius, Sr., is appointed as surveyor-general of all purchases for the U.S. government.

1918 January 1 Corneliu Codreanu and his followers in Romania resist attacks by bands of mutinous Russian soldiers looting and pillaging their countryside.

1918 January 8 President Wilson in an address to Congress lays out his famous Fourteen Points for peace, calling for, among other things, open diplomacy, armament reduction, national self-determination, and the formation of a League of Nations.

1918 January 28 The Bolsheviks found the Red Army.

1918 January Journalist Kurt Eisner plays a prominent role in anti-war strikes in Munich and is quickly jailed. (Roots)

1918 January The Bolsheviks sign an armistice with Germany at Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks take Russia out of the war, freeing tens of thousands of German troops to fight the Allies in the West.

1918 January Sebottendorff publishes the first issue of Runen in association with the Germanenorden. He also assumes financial responsibility for the Allegemeine Ordens-Nachrichten newsletter, for members only. (BHK; Roots)

1918 February 9 German Foreign Secretary von Kuhlmann issues an ultimatum at Brest-Litovsk, which the Russians consider as annexationist. This causes division within the Soviet leadership. (Polyakov)

1918 February 10 Bukharin leads the so-called Left Communist opposition to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which he says is a betrayal of the quest for international socialist revolution. He will later accepts Lenin's policies.

1918 February 11 President Wilson publicly announces his Fourteen Point Plan for an armistice, promising that there will be "no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damages." (Nicholson)

1918 February 18 The German command launches an offensive along the entire Russian front after the Soviets refuse Germany's terms for peace. 700,000 Austro-German troops are thrown against the newly formed Red Army and begin closing in on Petrograd, Moscow and Kiev. (Polyakov)

1918 February 23 In memory of the Red Army's first battles, this day is hereafter celebrated as Soviet Armed Forces Day.

1918 March After a long convalescence, Rudolf Hess volunteers for service as a fighter pilot. (Missing Years)

1918 March A Germanenorden newsletter states that the articles of the Order had been formulated after discussions with Karl August Hellwig of the Armanenschaft. The ritual is also ascribed to Armanenschaft ceremony, but the suggestion that brothers of the higher grades in the Germanenorden be called Armanen was said to have been vetoed by the Armanenschaft. (Roots)

1918 March 3 The Bolsheviks sign a separate treaty of peace with the Germans at Brest-Litovsk. Under its terms, Russia recognizes the independence of the Ukraine, Finland, and Georgia; gives up control of Poland, the Baltic states, and a portion of Belorussia; and cedes Kars, Ardahan, and Batumi to Turkey. The treaty will be nullifieded by the defeat of Germany in November 1918.

(Note: Trotsky unsuccessfully opposed the treaty, as annexationist, but retains Lenin's confidence.)

1918 March 7 During a meeting of 26 "independently organized" factory workers, a "Labor Committee for a Good Peace" is formed. Many historians consider it the predecessor of the National Socialist party. (See October 1918 and January 5, 1919)

1918 March 9 The warship Glory brings the first 200 British soldiers to Murmansk, beginning an armed invasion of Soviet Russia by the Allies. These troops are soon followed by even larger detachments of British, French and American forces. The whole of the Murmansk region is soon occupied and the Allies move on to Archangel. (Polyakov)

1918 March The Ukraine, which remains occupied by Germany throughout 1918, provides much of the grain that saves the German people from starvation.

1918 Leon Trotsky becomes commissar of war (to 1925). From the demoralized remnants of the Czar's armed forces he manages to organize the Red Army, a remarkable achievement, but his brusque style, his impatience with criticism and incompetence, and his decision to rely on "military specialists" won him few friends. Rank-and-file party comrades saw him as aloof and remote.

1918 Edward R. Stettinius is appointed U.S. assistant Secretary of War and is sent on a mission to France.

1918 March 21 At dawn, the German army launches another "great offensive" in the Second Battle of the Somme. After a 5-hour bombardment, specially trained German shock troops roll through a heavy fog, striking the right flank of the British sector between Arras and La Fere. The stunned British fall back, allowing the German Eighteenth Army to pass the Somme.

1918 March 23 A huge, long-range German cannon begins a sporadic bombardment of Paris from a position 65 miles away. This remarkable weapon seriously damages Parisian morale and eventually inflicts 876 casualties, yet with little effect on the war.

1918 April 3 The Allied Supreme War Council, in a meeting at Beauvais, appoints Ferdinand Foch as supreme commander of Allied forces, including the Americans. Foch Immediately sends reserves to aid the British at the Somme.

1918 April 5 Japanese troops landed from Japanese battleships anchored off Vladivostok overrun the city. They are soon followed by British troops. (Polyakov)

1918 April 9 During the Battle of Lys, German troops again strike the British sector, this time in Flanders, threatening the important rail junction of Hazebrouck and the Channel ports.

1918 April 9 The British are forced to withdraw from Ypres to Armentieres.

1918 April 12 General Haig, after announcing, "Our backs are to the wall," forbids further retreat and galvanizes British resistance at Lys.

1918 April 14 General Foch and Pershing soon make a joint plea to President Wilson to get more U.S. troops to Europe as soon as possible, even if untrained. The Allied situation is deperate.

1918 April 17 The German drive at Lys is halted after gaining only 10 miles including the Messines Ridge. Ludendorff achieves tactical success, but a strategical failure. There is no breakthrough, and the Channel ports are safe.

1918 April 21 German ace Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron, is shot down and killed.

1918 May Walter Riehl is elected chairman of the Austrian DAP (German Workers Party) and moves to Vienna.

1918 May 18 The French Ambassador to Russia informs the commander of a Czechoslovak corps, which had been formed in Russia from prisoners of war that the Allies desire them to remain in Russia to form the nucleus of an Allied army against the Bolsheviks. (Polyakov)

1918 May 50,000 well-equipped troops from the Czechoslak Corps deploy along the Trans-Siberian railway, and soon seize several key cities on the Volga and in Siberia. (Polyakov)

1918 May 27 Ludendorff attacks in great force along the Chemin des Dames as a diversion against the French, preparatory to a planned attack against the British in Flanders. German troops, preceded by tanks, route 12 French divisions (3 of them British), and by noon are crossing the Aisne. By evening they cross the Vesle, west of Fismes.

1918 May 28 General Pershing directs the first independent American offensive of the war at Cantigny, 50 miles northwest of the Marne. Although only a local operation, its success against veteran troops of Hutier's Eighteenth Army boosts Allied morale.

1918 May 29 The Soviet government passes a resolution on the introduction of mobilization for the Red Army. (Polyakov)

1918 May 30 Ludendorff's forces reach the Marne.

1918 May 30 The American Third Division holds the bridges at Chateau-Thierry, 44 miles from Paris, then counter attacks with the assistance of the rallying French troops, driving the Germans back across the Marne. The American Second Division checks the German attacks west of Chateau-Thierry.

1918 June 4 Ludendorff calls off the offensive after heavy losses. The American Second Division then counterattacks, spearheaded by its Marine Brigade.

1918 June 5 The U.S. Second Division begins a drive to uprooted the Germans from positions at Vaux, Bouresches, and Belleau Wood.

1918 June 9 A German advance begins on Compiegne.

1918 June 12 The German advance on Compiegne is halted by French and American troops.

1918 June 25 The Marine Brigade of the U.S. Second Division captures Bouresche and Belleau Wood. The Marines suffer 9,500 casualties, almost 55 percent.

1918 June 28 Lenin signs a decree of the Council of People's Commissars universally nationalizing large-scale industry, banks and transportation. (Polyakov)

1918 Summer Russian Constituent Assembly delegates begin fleeing to western Siberia and form their own "All-Russian" government, which is soon suppressed by a reactionary "White" dictatorship under Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak. Army officers in southern Russia organize a "Volunteer Army" under the leadership of Generals Lavr Kornilov and Anton Denikin and gain support from Britain and France. Both in the Volga region and the eastern Ukraine, peasants begin to organize against Bolshevik requisitioning and mobilization. Soon anarchist "Greens" are fighting the "Reds" (Bolsheviks) and Whites alike in guerrilla-type warfare. Even in Moscow and Petrograd, leftist Socialist Revolutionaries take up arms against the Bolsheviks, whom they accuse of betraying revolutionary ideals.

1918 July The Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets mobilizes the Red Army. (Polyakov)

1918 July President Wilson's Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, is introduced to Winston S. Churchill (then-Minister of Air and War) in London.

1918 July Some 313,000 U.S. troops arrive in France during July.

1918 July Baron Sebottendorff leases five large club rooms, accommodating 300 guests, at Munich's fashionable Four Seasons Hotel (Hotel Vierjahreszeiten). Meetings until this time had been held at his apartment on Zweigstrasse. (Roots)

1918 July 10 The first Soviet Constitution is adopted by the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets. (Polyakov)

1918 July 14-15 Germany launches the Second Battle of the Marne. The Allies, warned of the attack by deserters, aerial reconnaissance, and prisoners, batters the advancing Germans with artillery. East of Reims the attack is halted within a few hours by the French. West of Reims 14 divisions of the German Seventh Army cross the Marne, but American forces rebuffed the attack.

1918 July 16-17 Czar Nicholas II, his wife, their five children, their doctor and servants are murdered by the Bolsheviks near Ekaterinburg in Siberia. On the window sill of the Czarina's room is found a swasika believed to have been carved by the Cazrina herself.

1918 July 17 In the Marne, Allied aircraft and artillery destroy all German controlled bridges, disrupt supply and force the attack to halt. In the space of 5 months the Germans had suffered half a million casualties. Allied losses were somewhat greater, but American troops are now arriving at a rate of 300,000 a month.

1918 July 18 As Ludendorff prepares to pull back, Foch orders a counteroffensive at Soissons. The French, using light tanks and aided by U.S. and British divisions, assault the Marne from left to right, reaching the Vesle River and recapturing Soissons. Ludendorff calls off the proposed drive in Flanders.

(Note: Later the German Chncellor would write, "On the 18th even the most optimistic among us knew that all was lost. The history of the world was played out in three days.") (Schlesinger I)

1918 July Sebottendorff buys the Beobachter, a minor weekly newspaper in the Munich suburbs, for 5,000 marks from the estate of Franz Eher who had died in June. He soon renames it the "Munchener Beobachter" and publishes it, until May 1919, at the Germanenorden (Thule) offices in the Four Seasons Hotel. (Roots)

1918 August The Austrian DAP, led by Walter Riehl, changes its name to the German National Socialist Worker's Party (DNSAP) at a meeting in Vienna. (Forgotten Nazis)

1918 August British troops cross the Soviet-Persian (Iran) border near Artyk station and soon occupy Ashkhabad and several other cities in the Trans-Caspian region (Soviet Turkmenia). (Polyakov)

1918 August 1 Allied warships approach the mouth of the North Dvina River and attack Soviet coastal defense batteries as Allied aircraft fly over Archangel. (Polyakov)

1918 August 2 The Soviet city of Archangel is occupied by the Allies.

1918 August 4 Hitler receives the Iron Cross, first class. The actual details surrounding its award remain uncertain.

1918 August 8 British troops open a drive along the Somme near Amiens. The Germans, caught off guard by the well-mounted assault, begin a panicky withdrawal, which quickly turns into a full scale retreat. The Allies take 100,000 prisoners and Ludendorff bitterly declares August 8 as the "Black Day of the German Army." He later added: "The war must be ended!"

1918 August 10 General Pershing is permitted by the Allies to establish an independent American Army. He soon appoints Colonel George C. Marshall as his operations officer.

1918 August 18 A formal dedication of the Germanenorden rooms at the Four Seasons Hotel in Munich is attended by Hermann Pohl, G.W. Freese and a number of other Germanenorden Walvater brothers from Berlin and Leipzig. (Roots)

1918 August 21 The British and French begin the second phase of the Battle of the Amiens. Ludendorff orders a general withdrawal from the Lys and Amiens areas.

1918 August 25 A large investiture of novices to the Germanenorden takes place at the Four Seasons Hotel. Pohl gives a lecture on the "Sun Castles" of Bad Abling, which he believes possess esoteric national significance.

1918 August 30 The Anzacs penetrate across the Somme, disrupting Ludendorff's plan for an orderly withdrawal. The German situation rapidly deteriorates, necessitating a retreat to the final position -- the Hindenburg line.

1918 August 30 Lenin is seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by F. Kaplan, a female Social-Revolutionary. He will never completely recover. (Polyakov)

1918 August 30 General Pershing, having won his fight for a separate and distinct U.S. army operating on its own assigned front, moves toward the Saint-Mihiel salient. The Americans are supported by an Allied air force of about 1,400 planes -- American, French, Italian, and Portuguese -- under U.S. Colonel Billy Mitchell.

1918 September 1 Another Germanenorden meeting is held at the Four Seasons Hotel. Johannes Hering's diary records frequent meetings after this date and the lodge is convoked at least once a week for investitures, lectures and excursions. Since its ritual activities are supplemented by overt right-wing meetings, the term Thule Society has been adopted as a cover-name to spare it the unwelcome attention of socialists and pro-Republican elements. The rooms are decorated with the Thule emblem showing a long dagger superimposed over a shining swastika sunwheel. (Roots)

1918 September 2 The All-Russian Central Executive Committee recommends the introduction of a Red terror campaign in retaliation for the attack on Lenin. (Polyakov)

1918 September 5 The Council of Peoples Commissars proclaims the introduction of the Red terror campaign. "To secure our rear by means of terror is a direct necessity. It is necessary to secure the Soviet Republic against its class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps... All persons involved in White Guard organizations, plots and revolts are subject to execution by shooting..." (Polyakov)

1918 September 12 Pershing's U.S. First Army attacks both faces of the strategic Saint-Mihiel salient.

1918 September 14 Pershing's American forces begin taking the Saint-Mihiel salient.

1918 September 15 Baku is taken by Turkish troops and Azerbaijanian nationalists. 30,000 civilians are massacred.

1918 September 16 Pershing's assault on the Saint-Mihiel salient is completely successful, and the salient is entirely cleared.

1918 September 19 General Allenby begins the Jordan Valley offensive, and by dawn on September 20, the Turkish Eighth Army has ceased to exist. Allenby's decisive victory at Megiddo, which guarded the main pass through the Carmel Mountains, is one of the most brilliant operations in the history of the British army. During the next 38 days, Allenby's troops advance more than 360 miles, taking 76,000 prisoners (4,000 of them German and Austrian).

1918 September 21 British cavalry sweeps through Nazareth and turns east to reach the Jordan just south of the Sea of Galilee.

1918 September 22 British and Arabian troops under General Allenby defeat the Turkish forces in the Battle of Samaria.

1918 September 26 In the final major battle of the war, the Allies plan an offensive from Ypres to Verdun. Some 896,000 American troops join with 135,000 French soldiers in an attack on a sector between the Argonne Forest and the Meuse River. It is the largest battle fought up to this time, casualties will mount to 120,000. (Schlesinger I)

1918 September 26 The Americans sweep through Vauquois and Mont-faucon, but their drive slows down as the Germans rush in fresh reinforcements.

1918 September 27 Haig's British army group flings itself against the Hindenburg line; but the drive soon slows down, in the face of a skillful German defense.

1918 September 27 On Allenby's desert flank to the east, T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and King Faisal cut the railway line at Deraa, while Allenby continues to press on toward Damascus.

1918 September 28 General Ludendorff in a meeting with Hindenburg demands an armistice "at once." (Duffy)

1918 September 29 General Ludendorff declares that a true democratic constitutional monarchy is to be setup -- "overnight."

1918 September 29 Bulgaria asks for and receives an armistice.

1918 September 30 Prince Max von Baden is named head of the new German government.

1918 Autumn Thule (Germanenorden) Grand Master Rudolf Sebottendorff entrusts Karl Harrer, a Munich reporter, with the task of forming a worker's organization affiliated with the Thule Society. (BHK)

1918 Autumn The Battles of the Argonne and Ypres (September-October) panic the German leadership. (CRL)

1918 October Rudolf Hess reaches his new operational unit, the 35th Fighter Staffel. (Missing Years)

1918 October The Politische Arbeiter-Zirkel (the Political Worker's Circle) is founded in Munich. Its members include Karl Harrer as chairman, Anton Drexler, the most active member, and Michael Lotter as secretary. This tiny group with only three to seven members in regular attendance, meets weekly throughout the winter. Harrer lectures on subjects such as the causes of military defeat, the Jewish enemy and anti-English sentiments.(Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)

1918 October 1 General Allenby takes Damascus.

1918 October 2 General Allenby takes Beirut.

1918 October 2 Field Marshal von Hindenburg at a meeting of the Crown Council, presided over by Kaiser Wilhelm II, repeats Ludendorff's September 28 demand for an immediate armistice. Hindenburg tells the Kaiser that the German army cannot hold out for another 48 hours. (Duffy)

1918 October 3 Germany forms a parliamentary government with Prince Max von Baden as its head.

1918 October 3 Austria sues for peace. Food shortages in Vienna have become so severe that thousands are starving to death.

1918 October 4 General Pershing replaces a number of his assault divisions with rested troops from the Saint-Mihiel operation and renews the Argonne offensive. The U.S. First Army batters its way slowly forward in a series of costly frontal attacks, but the Argonne Forest is finally cleared. The French Fourth Army, on the left, advances to the Aisne River.

1918 October 4 The Germans ask the Allies for an armistice.

1918 October 6 The new German Chancellor, Prince Max von Baden, sends a message to President Wilson, requesting an armistice on the basis of Wilson's Fourteen Points.

1918 October The crews of two German battleships mutiny.

1918 October 13 Hitler is blinded in a gas attack near Werwick and is taken to an army hospital at Pasewalk near Berlin. After several weeks, his eyesight slowly returns. One of his doctors, Dr. Edmund Forster, is thought to have been the first psychiatrist to treat Hitler.

1918 October Kurt Eisner, one of the leaders of the Munich anti-war strikes of January 1918, is released from jail.

1918 October 16 Allenby's Desert Mounted Corps, spearheading the advance, reaches Homs.

1918 October 17 The British break through the German defenses on the Selle River. At the same time the Belgians and British under Belgian king Albert began to move again in Flanders.

1918 October 18 American pressure in the Meuse-Argonne causes a German retreat all along the line. The German army begins to crack.

1918 October 23 President Wilson insists that the United States and the Allies not negotiate an armistice with the existing military dictatorship of Germany.

1918 October 23 In Mesopotamia, a British force under Lt. Gen. A. S. Cobbe pushes northward from Baghdad to secure the Mosul oil fields before the Turkish collapse.

1918 October 24 Italian forces attack Austrian positions in Italy at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, but are quickly halted on the Piave River line.

1918 October 25 Allenby's troops takes Aleppo.

1918 October 26 General Ludendorff resigns his command, immediately before formal dismissal, to permit the desperate German government to comply with Wilson's demand. Hindenburg retains his post as German field commander, with Gen. Wilhelm Groener replacing Ludendorff as chief of staff.

1918 October 28 British and French troops gain a large bridgehead on the Piave River in Italy, splitting the front.

1918 October 29 Sailors of the German High Seas Fleet mutiny, seizing control of their ships to prevent a final desperate battle with the British Grand Fleet.

1918 October 29 Cobbe's cavalry engages the Turks at Sharqat.

1918 October 30 British and French advances against the Austrians reach Sacile, Italy.

1918 October 30 Turkey signs an armistice with the British at Mudros, ending the war in the Middle East.

1918 October 31 Pershing's First Army punches through most of the third and final German line in France.

1918 October 31 Italian reinforcements exploit the ever-widening gap at Sacile and Austrian resistance collapses.

1918 Autumn Sebottendorff claims to have increased the Bavarian membership in the Germanenroden to more than 1,500, with 250 members in Munich alone. (BHK)

1918 Autumn Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels leaves vienna and immigrates to Hungary. (Roots)

1918 November Sebottendorff and the Thule Society begin stockpiling weapons for Julius Lehmann's Pan-Germans.

1918 November Seventy Jews are killed in a pogrom in Lvov, Poland.

1918 November 1 The U.S. First Army advances, smashing through the last German positions northeast and west of Buzancy, thus enabling the French Fourth Army to cross the Aisne.

1918 November 1 Cobbe's British cavalry reaches Mosul in Mesopotamia. Despite provisions of the October 30 armistice, Cobbe is ordered to take the city. After some initial squabbling, the Turkish garrison of Halil Pasha marches out and the British remain.

1918 November 2 American spearheads, now in the open, race up the Meuse Valley.

1918 November 3 The German naval base at Kiel revolts.

1918 November 3 Trieste is seized by an Allied naval expedition in the Gulf of Venice.

1918 November 4 Austria-Hungary surrenders and hostilities come to an end.

1918 November 6 American spearheads reach the Meuse River before Sedan and sever the Mezieres-Montmedy rail line, a vital supply artery for the entire German front.

1918 November Poland is formally reconstituted, and a new republic is proclaimed with Marshal Josef Pilsudski as Chief of State and the commander of the Polish army.

1918 November 7 Kurt Eisner proclaims a republic in Bavaria. Eisner, a Bohemian Jewish journalist and the leader of the Independent ('minority') Social Democrats in Munich has just been released from jail in October. (Roots)

1918 November 8 Hundreds of thousands of Berliners surge into the streets and charge the center of town shouting revolutionary slogans under red banners. The mob murders scores of army officers and occupies the Ministry of War and nearly all the important governmental buildings. Karl Liebknecht proclaims a Soviet republic from the balcony of the Berlin Palace.

1918 November 8 Philipp Scheidemann, a Social Democrat and cabinet member, hastily proclaims a republic in order to prevent a Communist takeover, he says, by Karl Liebknecht and his extreme Spartacus League. Frederich Ebert, another Social Democrat, reportedly is outraged. A constitutional monarchy had already been agreed upon, not a republic.

1918 November 9 The Second Reich collapses and Chancellor Prince Max von Baden turns over the German government to Frederich Ebert, who shortly thereafter officially proclaims the new German socialist republic.

1918 November 9 Upon hearing this news, Hitler suffers a relapse and his blindness suddenly returns. He then claims to experience a supernatural vision, and recovers, he says, only after vowing to God that he will dedicate his life to politics. (Toland)

1918 November 9 In the evening, Thule Grandmaster Sebottendorff, delivers an oration to the Thule Society in Munich, stating: " Yesterday we experienced the collapse of everything which was familiar, dear and valuable to us. In the place of our princes of Germanic blood rules our deadly enemy: Judah. What will come of this chaos, we do not know yet. But we can guess. A time will come of struggle, the most bitter need, a time of danger... As long as I hold the iron hammer (a reference to his Master's hammer), I am determined to pledge the Thule to this struggle. Our Order is a Germanic Order, loyalty is also Germanic. Our god is Walvater, his rune is the Ar-rune. And the trinity: Wotan, Wili, We is the unity of the trinity. The Ar-rune signifies "Aryan," primal fire, the sun and the eagle. And the eagle is the symbol of the "Aryans." In order to depict the eagle 's capacity for self immolation by fire, it is colored red. From today on our new symbol is the red eagle, which warns us that we must die in order to live." Sebottendorff continues by exhorting the Thule members to fight "until the swastika rises victoriously out of the icy darkness" and closes his speech with a racist-theosophical poem by Philipp Stauff. (Roots)

1918 November 10 German Kaiser Wilhelm II flees to the Holland.

1918 November 10 The military High Command and the new German republic strike a deal. The generals promise to protect the republic if Ebert in return promises to prevent a socialist revolution. Ebert agrees.

1918 November 11 A German delegation, headed by a civilian, Matthias Erzberger, negotiates armistice terms with General Ferdinand Foch in his railway-coach headquarters on a siding at Compiegne, France. Agreement is finally reached at 5:00 AM. The terms specify that the German army must immediately evacuate all occupied territory and Alsace-Lorraine; immediately surrender great quantities of war materiel; surrender all submarines; and intern all other surface warships as directed by the Allies. In addition the Germans are to evacuate German territory west of the Rhine, and three bridges over the Rhine are to be occupied by the Allies. The armistice becomes effective immediately. Hostilities cease at 11:00 AM, November 11.

1918 November 12 An Allied fleet steams through the Dardanelles, and arrives off Constantinople (Istanbul) the next day, dramatizing the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

1918 November 14 German General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, after 4 years of continuous hide and seek, ends hostilities in Africa.

1918 November 16 British and French warships enter the Black Sea. They are followed through the Dardenelles and the Bosporus by troop ships. French and Greek troops land in Odessa under the cover of battleships.

1918 Autumn Sevastapol and several other Black Sea ports are seized by the Allies. Baku, Tbilisi and Batumi in Transcausasia are soon occupied. The French hold sway in the Ukraine, the British in Transcaucasia. Allied forces in the north and the Far East are reinforced. (Polyakov)

1918 November 17 Under the terms of the armistice, Allied troops begin reoccupying those portions of France and Belgium held by the Germans since 1914.

1918 November 21 The German High Seas Fleet sails into the Firth of Forth, between the lines of the British Grand Fleet. It later is shifted to Scapa Flow.

1918 November 23 General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck surrenders his command in Africa.

1918 November -December Hitler, still in the army, returns to Munich for duty with the 2nd Infantry Regiment. In a letter written three years later, Hitler wrote that he had returned to Munich on December 18, but may have confused this date with the date of his transfer to Traunstein. (See December 18, 1918 and Hitler letter: November 29, 1921)

(Note: Several months after Hitler became Chancellor in1933, Baron Rudolf Sebottendorff, Grand Master of the Thule Society in Munich, published a book entitled Before Hitler Came: The early years of the Nazi Party. It states: " Thule members were the people to whom Hitler first turned, and who first allied themselves with Hitler. The armament of the coming Fuehrer consisted of--besides the Thule Society itself --the Deutscher Arbeiterverein, founded in the Thule by Brother Karl Harrer at Munich, and the Deutsch-Sozialistche Partei, headed there by Hans Georg Grassinger, whose organ was the "Munchener Beobachter," later to be renamed the "Völkischer Beobachter." From these three sources Hitler created the Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei." (BHK; Roots)

1918 Winter Admiral Kolchak is proclaimed "Supreme Governor" of Russia by the White Guard and the remote city of Omsk in Siberia is declared to be Russia's "capital." Allied governments begin supplying arms, ammunittion and equipment to the Whites on a large scale.

1918 December Anton Drexler begins urging the other members of the Political Worker's Circle to found their own political party. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)

1918 December 4 President Wilson with a large contingent of historians, geographers, political scientists and economists sail for Europe. He is also accompanied by Secretary of State Lansing, General of the Army Bliss and his friend Colonel House. He does not take anyone from the now largely Republican Congress. (Schlesinger I)

1918 December 9 Allied troops cross the Rhine taking bridgeheads as agreed upon in the armistice. The British at Cologne, the Americans at Koblenz, and the French at Mainz.

1918 December 18 Hitler is ordered to Traunstein for guard duty at prisoner of war camp.

1918 December Baron Sebottendorff plans to kidnap Kurt Eisner at a rally in Bad Abling. (Roots)

1918 December Mutinous sailors occupy the Berlin Palace grounds and hold the city commander hostage, eleven sailors are killed during his rescue.

1918 December 27 Eberhard von Brockhusen writes a letter to General Heimerdinger asking to be relieved of his office as Grand Master of the loyalist Germanenorden. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1918 December 30 Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxenburg change the name of the Spartacus League to the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).

1918 An estimated 85,000 Jews are killed in the Ukraine between 1918 and 1920. (Atlas)

1918 American poet Ezra Pound becomes acquainted with British Major C.H. Douglas while in London and later becomes obsessed with his economic theories. Douglas believes the quest for foreign markets puts nations on a collision course and therefore wars are inevitable. The primary villains, he said, are international bankers, many of whom are Jews.

1918 Oswald Spengler publishes the first volume of his The Decline of the West. Spengler held that history follows definite laws of growth and decay that are observable in the careers of all cultures. Tracing the unfolding of these laws in his own era, he predicted that Western culture, already well into its twilight, would experience further decline as a future of rationalism, mass manipulation, and material expression succeeded the profound art, religion, and philosophy of the past. In later nationalistic political tracts Spengler contended that Germany, with its Prussian authoritarian tradition, could dominate this future.

1918 The Habsburg monarchy in Austria collapses forcing Emperor Karl von Habsburg and family into exile.

1918 Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia become republics in the aftermath of World War I.

1918 Achille Ratti, the future Pope Pius XI, becomes Pope Benedict XV's representative (the Papal Nuncio) to Poland. His proximity to the Polish-Soviet War will reinforce his horror of Communism.

1918 General Ludendorff flees to Sweden.

1918 Alfred Brunner, Heinrich Kraeger and others found the Deutsch-Sozialistische Partei.

1918 An influenza pandemic (Spanish flu) begins and kills more than 21 million people, worldwide, during the next 2 years.

1918 Civil war breaks out between the Red and White armies in Russia.

1918 More than 500 Jews are killed in Poland between 1918 and 1919. (Atlas)

1919 January 1 Karl Maria Wiligut (Weisthor) is discharged with the rank of colonel from the Austrian army, after serving almost 40 years. (Roots)

1919 January 5 The German Worker's Party (DAP) party is formally founded in Munich at the Furstenfelder Hof tavern by Anton Drexler and others. Drexler's constitution is accepted by 24 men, mostly from the locomotive works where Drexler is employed, and he elected chairman. Drexler is also an active member of the Thule Society (Germanenorden). (Drexler, 12 March, 1935; Michael Lotter, 19 October, 1935; Roots)

1919 January 6 Theodore Roosevelt dies at Sagamore Hill, his Oyster Bay, N.Y., home.

1919 January 7- 14 William H. Buckler, U.S. Embassy counselor in London, is sent by President Wilson to confer with Maxim Litvinov and other Soviet (Bolshevik) emissaries in Stockholm.

1919 January 15 Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht are murdered by German troops after an abortive Spartacus uprising in Berlin. Liebknecht is shot in the back while in custody, and Luxemburg's body is later found in the Landwehr Canal.

1919 January 18 The peace conference at Versailles (the Paris Peace Conference) officially opens, attended by 70 delegates, representing 27 victorious Allied powers. Neither Germany nor the new Russian Soviet republic are represented. The principal participants are the leaders of the four great powers: Woodrow Wilson of the United States, Georges Clemenceau of France, David Lloyd George of Britain, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy.

(Note: Germany is prepared to negotiate on the basis of Wilson's Fourteen Points, but since its representatives are not allowed to attend the conference, it matters little. The Germans are at the mercy of the armistice which will be renewed each month for the next six months. The blockade (including foodstuffs) remains in place during that time and conditions deteriorate severely in Germany, creating a residue of bitterness which will begin to raise havoc only a decade later.) (Schlesinger I)

1919 January 21 Wilson submits Buckler's report of his meeting with Litvinov to the Big Five in Paris. Buckler wrote that "agreement with Russia can take place at once, obviating conquest and policing and reviving normal conditions as disinfectant against Bolshevism."

1919 January 25 The Versailles conference unanimously adopts a resolution to establish the League of Nations. After a committee is appointed to draft the League's Covenant, peace terms are hammered out by the Supreme Council, consisting of the heads of government and foreign ministers of the five principal Allied powers: the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, and Japan.

1919 January-February Hitler returns to Munich from Traunstein and is again quartered in the List Regiment barracks.

1919 Edward R. Stettinius Sr. resigns from government service and rejoins J.P. Morgan and Company as a full partner, He remains in Europe and continues to coordinate massive purchases. Stettinius and Henry P. Davison, another Morgan partner in New York, establish the Foreign Commerce Corporation to engage in financing trade to rebuild Europe after the war.

1919 February The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission admits executing 5, 496 "political criminals," including 800 persons convicted of nonpolitical offenses, although the number was probably much higher. (Polyakov)

1919 February General Ludendorff returns from Sweden.

1919 February Rudolf Hess returns to Munich, depressed and embittered at the "treason" of the government in Berlin, and soon begins running errands for Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff's secretive anti-Marxist, antisemitic Thule Society. (Missing Years)

1919 February 6 A new National Assembly meets at Weimar and begins drawing up a new constitution; hence the name Weimar Republic.

1919 February 12 Karl Radak, a member of the German Bolshevik delegation is arrested in the Bolshevik propaganda office in Berlin. Police discover an outline plan for a general Communist offensive to take place in the spring. According to this plan, The Red Army was to march through Poland into Germany to join up with a simultaneous German Communist insurrection. (Topitsch)

1919 February 13 The chairman of the Catholic Center Party deputation in the National Assembly declares that the party can not approve of the revolutionary upheaval that has overthrown the monarchy. In time the Center party will become one of the mainstays of the Weimar Republic.

1919 February 15 1700 Jews are killed in a pogrom at Proskurov in the western Ukraine. (Atlas)

1919 February 21 Kurt Eisner, the Socialist Prime Minister of Bavaria, is assassinated by Count Anton Arco-Valley, a young man of alleged Jewish descent, who was resentful at his exclusion from membership in the Thule Society. It was said that he shot Eisner as a demonstration of his nationalist commitment. (Roots)

1919 February 22 Bavarian Cardinal Michael Faulhaber refuses to order the ringing of bells and the showing of flags of mourning after the assassination of Eisner by Count Arco-Valley, a Catholic. (Lewy)

1919 February 22 U.S. Ambassador William C. Bullit and the radical journalist Lincoln Steffens, leave Paris for a meeting in Russia with the Bolsheviks.

1919 February 28 Eberhard von Brockhusen writes another letter to General Heimerdinger of the Germanenorden, again asking to be relieved of his office as Grand Master of the loyalist branch. (Roots)

1919 March 2 Philipp Stauff (alias Dietwart) writes to Brockhusen saying that the latter's resignation as Grand Master of the loyalist Germanenorden had been accepted. This does not seem to be the case as Brockhusen continues in office for quite some time. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1919 March 10 U.S. Ambassador Bullit arrives in Petrograd and is accompanied to Moscow by Grigori Chicherin and Maxim Litvinov.

1919 March 14 Lenin presents Ambassador Bullit with a Soviet peace plan drafted by Maxim Litvinov.

1919 March 23 Mussolini and other Italian war veterans in Milan found a revolutionary, nationalistic group called the Fasci di Combattimento, named for the ancient symbol of Roman power, the Fasces. The Fascist movement soon develops into a powerful "radicalism of the right," gaining the support of many landowners in the lower Po Valley, industrialists, and army officers. Fascist blackshirt squads carried on a local civil war against Socialists, Communists, Catholics, and Liberals.

1919 March 30 British Prime Minister Lloyd George informs Lord Riddell, "The truth is we have got our way... the German navy has been handed over, German merchant shipping has been handed over, and the German colonies given up. One of our chief trade competitors has been crippled and our Allies are about to become her biggest creditors. This is no small achievement." (Versailles Twenty Years After)

1919 Easter Lanz von Liebenfels, now living in Budapest, is almost executed on Easter Sunday by a Communist firing-squad during the Hungarian revolution. It seems significant that his linking of antisemitism and anti-Bolshevism date from this period. (Roots)

1919 April A coalition government established by Social Democrats led by Johannes Hoffman is forced to flee from Munich for Bamberg.

1919 April Eighty Jews are killed in a pogrom at Vilna in Poland.

1919 April 4 Max Hofweber, a comrade of Rudolf Hess at the training airfield at Lechfeld, introduces him to Dr. Karl Haushofer, beginning a long and intimate friendship. (Missing Years)

1919 April 4 An article in the Jewish Chronicle of London states: "The conceptions of Bolshevism are in harmony in most points with the ideas of Judaism." Soon afterward, Victor Marsden the London Morning Post's reporter in Russia wrote that 477 of the leading 545 Bolshevik officials were Jews. Once again, conservatives and antisemities used these words to stir up anti-Jewish sentiments.

1919 April 6 A group of anarchist intellectuals in Munich, inspired by the example of Bela Kun in Hungary, proclaims what it calls the Bavarian Soviet Republic.

1919 April 13 After a right-wing uprising is crushed, a more serious band of Communists seizes power in Munich. Leadership is taken over by the Russian emigres Eugen Levine-Nissen, Tobias Axelrod, and Max Levien. All three are of Jewish descent and had been bloodied in the 1905 Russian revolution. During the reign of terror that follows, schools, banks and newspapers are closed due to looting and violence. (Roots)

1919 April 15 Hoffmann and his Social Democrats, who had failed to build a counter-revolutionary army at Bamberg, request the aid of Von Epp and several other Free Corps groups. Their anti-Republican sentiments had already led to their being banned in Bavaria.

1919 April 26 As Free Corps troops surround Munich, the Communists break into the Thule Society offices and arrest its secretary, Countess Heila von Westarp. Later that day, Thule members Walter Nauhaus, Prince Gustav von Thurn und Taxis, Baron Teuchert, Walter Deicke, Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, and Anton Daumelang are also captured. Rudolf Hess narrowly escapes capture by turning up late for a meeting, and watches helplessly as his friends are taken away. (Missing Years)

1919 April 29 The German delegation headed by Graf Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, the German foreign minister, arrives at Versailles.

1919 April 30 The seven hostages from the Thule Society are taken to the cellar of the Luitpold Gymnasium, a Red Army post since mid-April, and executed; supposedly in reprisal for the killing of Red prisoners by Whites at Starnberg.

1919 April Dietrich Eckart and Rudolf Gorsleben are arrested by the Communists. Only Eckart's quick-witted answers during interrogation prevent their execution along with the other Thule hostages. (Roots)

1919 May Sebottendorff moves the "Munchener Beobachter" offices from the Four Seasons Hotel to the premises occupied by H.G. Grassinger's local branch of the Deutsch-Sozialistische Partei (DSP), another antisemitic nationalist group founded in 1918. Henceforth Grassinger is the newspaper's production manager and the paper becomes his party's official organ.(Roots)

1919 Spring Guido von List and his wife leave Austria and travel to Germany, intending to stay with Eberhard von Brockhusen at Langen in Bradenburg. Brockhusen is a devoted List Society member and Grand Master of the loyalist Germanenorden. (Roots)

1919 May 1 Free Corps troops enter Munich and take it from the Communists after two days of heavy fighting. The famous Erhardt Brigade arrives at the city singing their marching song, which began with the words: "Hooked cross (swastika) on steel helmets..."

1919 May 1 Rudolf Hess is wounded for a fourth time, this time in the leg, while manning a howitzer during street battles fought by General Franz von Epp's ragtag army to liberate Munich. (Missing Years)

1919 May 4 Slovak General Milan R. Stefanik dies in a mysterious plane crash over Bratislavia. Stefanik is soon succeeded by Edouard Benes, a Czech.

1919 May 6 The Treaty of Versailles is finally ready to be presented to Germany, after three and a half months of argument and comprise. Except for the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, which is unanimously agreed upon, all of the important treaty provisions regarding German territory are compromises:

(1) Allied occupation of the Rhineland is to continue for at least 15 years, and possibly even longer, and the region is to remain perpetually demilitarized, as is a strip of territory 30 miles deep along the right bank of the Rhine. Three smaller frontier regions near Eupen and Malmedy are to be ceded to Belgium. Parts of the German provinces of Posen and West Prussia are to be given to Poland to provide that revived nation with access to the Baltic Sea. The Baltic seaport of Gdansk (Danzig) is to become a free state, linked economically to Poland. This leaves East Prussia completely separated from the rest of Germany by what is called the "Polish Corridor" to the Baltic.

(2) All of Germany's overseas possessions are to be occupied by the Allies but are to be organized as "mandates," subject to the supervision and control of the League of Nations. Britain and France divide most of Germany's African colonies, and Japan takes over its extensive island possessions in the South Pacific.

(3) The treaty also requires Germany to accept sole responsibility and guilt for causing the war. Kaiser Wilhelm and other unspecified German war leaders are to be tried as war criminals. (This provision will never be enforced.)

(4) Several other military and economic provisions are designed not only to punish Germany for its alleged war guilt, but also to insure France and the rest of the world against any future German aggression: The German army is limited to 100,000 men and is not allowed to possess any heavy artillery, the general staff is abolished, the navy is to be reduced. No air force will be permitted, and the production of all military planes is forbidden.

(5) Germany is to payfor all civilian damages caused during the war. This burden, combined with payment of Reparations to the Allies of great quantities of industrial goods, merchant shipping, and raw materials, is expected to prevent Germany from being able to finance any major military effort even if it is inclined to evade the military limitations.

1919 May 7 Rudolf Hess officially joins a volunteer unit of General von Epp's Freikorps. (Missing Years)

1919 May 7 Members of the German delegation are summoned to the Trianon Palace at Versailles to learn the new Allied treaty terms. After carefully reading the new treaty, Brockdorff-Rantzau denounces it, reminding them that President Wilson's Fourteen Points had clearly provided the basis for the armistice negotiations, and are as binding on the Allies as on Germany. He also insists that the economic provisions of the treaty will be impossible to fulfill.

(Note: In many respects the Treaty of Versailles was indeed unfair to Germany, which technically was not a defeated nation. She was a signatory to an armistice, not a surrender. Even some of those who had fought against Germany were disturbed by the severity of the treaty.) (Duffy)

1919 May 8 Provisional President Friedrich Ebert and the German government publicly brand the terms of the Versailles Treaty as "unrealizable and unbearable."

1919 May 8-15 After refusing to sign the treaty, the German delegation take it with them back to Berlin for further government consideration. Chancellor Philipp Scheidemann also denounces the treaty. The Allies, however, continue to maintain their naval blockade of Germany, and thousands of German civilians continue starving to death.

(Note: It soon became obvious that Germany has no choice but to sign. The suffering and misery the German people were forced to endure creates a hatred so deep and instinctual that it will haunt the German national psyche for decades to come.) (See June 28)

1919 May 17 Guido von List dies of a lung inflammation in a Berlin guest house before he can reach Brockhusen's home. He is later cremated in Leipzig and his ashes are placed in an urn at the Vienna Central Cemetery. (Roots)

1919 May 24 Philipp Stauff writes an obituary of Guido von List for the "Munchener Beobachter," a völkisch newspaper edited by Rudolf von Sebottendorff. This publication will soon become the official party newspaper of the Nazi party and will remain so until May 1945.

1919 May 30 Dietrich Eckart gives a lecture to the Thule Society at the Four Seasons Hotel. The Thule rooms were a haven for many völkish activists from November 1918 to May 1919. Thule guests included Gottfried Feder, Alfred Rosenberg, and Rudolf Hess, all to achieve prominence in the Nazi Party. (Hering, typescript 21 June 1939, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz. A list of Thule members is included in Sebottendorff, BHK)

1919 May 30 Colonel Edward Mandel House, President Wilson's chief advisor, meets in Paris with a group of American and British industrialists to discuss the founding of an institute for International affairs.

1919 May Friedrich Krohn, a member of the DAP, the Thule Society, and the Germanenorden since 1913, writes a memorandum entitled "Is the Swastika Suitable as the Symbol of the National Socialist Party?," which proposes the left-handed swastika (i.e. clockwise in common with those used by the Theosophists and Germanenorden) as the symbol of the German DAP. Krohn evidently preferred the sign in this direction because of its Buddhist interpretation as a talisman of good fortune and health, while its right-handed (anti-clockwise) counterpart symbolized decline and death (most of Guido von List's swastikas, as well as the Thule Society's, were right-handed). Hitler, who was not yet a member of the DAP, later chose the right-handed version (May 20, 1920). (Roots)

(Even more interesting is Krohn's use of the term National Socialist in the title of his memorandum. At that time, only the Austrian Nazis (DNSAP) were known to have been using this name.) (see August 1918 and December 1919)

1919 Summer Sebottendorff, now living in Constance, Switzerland, summons his sister, Dora Kunze, and his mistress, Kathe Bierbaumer. Soon afterward he converts the "Munchener Beobachter" into a limited liability company, the Franz Eher Verlag Nachf. Bierbaumer was given 110,000 of the 120,000 marks of capital stock issued and Kunze the remaining 10,000. (Roots)

1919 Summer General Heimerdinger abdicates the Chancellorship of the loyalist Germanenorden in favor of the Grand Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg. Mecklenburg used the alias "Irmin." (Irminism was the religion professed years later by Karl Maria Wiligut (alias K.M. Weisthor of Himmler's SS staff.) (Roots)

1919 June 21 German Chancellor Scheidemann and Prime Minister Brockdorff-Rantzau resign.

1919 June 21 The German High Seas Fleet, interned by the Allies at Scapa Flow, the British naval base in the Orkney Islands, stages a dramatic protest. German sailors scuttle all 50 of their warships in the harbor.

1919 June 22 Sebottendorff attends his last Thule Society meeting. Many members hold him negligently responsible for the loss of the Thule membership lists to the Communists who killed the Thule Society hostages in April. (Roots)

1919 June 28 The new German chancellor, Gustav Bauer, sends another delegation to Versailles. After informing the Allies that Germany is accepting the treaty now, only because of the need to alleviate the hardships on its people caused by the "inhuman" blockade, the Germans sign.

(Note: If Germany had refused to sign, Allied Commander-in-Chief Marshal Foch had instructions to occupy all of Germany. Article 23 of the treaty, the so-called "War Guilt Clause," was the suggestion of John Foster Dulles, later Secretary of State under President Dwight Eisenhower.)

(Note: The final treaty does not follow closely Wilson's Fourteen Points, upon which Germany had agreed to negotiate peace. Hitler will ater will distort this fact to claim that Germany had been betrayed, not defeated.) (Schlesinger I)

1919 Jean Monnet, an acquaintance of Colonel Edward Mandell House, is appointed as Deputy Secretary of the new League of Nations. After WWII Monnet will become known as the "Father of Europe."

1919 July Sebottendorff leaves Munich and resigns as Grand master of the Thule Society.

1919 July 6 Brockhusen writes Bernhard Koerner pleading for a constitutional reform of the loyalist Germanenorden. (Bundesarchiv; Roots)

1919 July 10 The Treaty of Versailles is ratified by the German National Assembly.

1919 July 14 With the signing of the peace treaty, the embargo of trade with Germany is lifted and the U.S. resumes business relations. (Schlesinger I)

1919 July 25 The Treaty of Versailles is ratified by the British Parliament.

1919 July 26 Brockhusen writes to Koerner, accusing Stauff of slandering him. (Bundesarchiv; Roots)

1919 August Hitler is assigned to conducts political indoctrination classes at Lechfeld.

1919 August 4 Romanian troops occupy Budapest, contrary to the wishes of the government, and after two weeks of fighting, defeat Bela Kun's Hungarian Communists.

1919 August 11 The Weimar Constitution is announced. (Eyes)

1919 Autumn The Protocols of the Elders of Zion begin circulating in Germany, Europe and America. (Segel)

1919 September Walter Riehl sends copies of the Austrian Nazi program to Anton Drexler, chairman of the German DAP. Riehl suggests that Drexler change the name of his German organization to coincide with that of Riehl's Austrian Nazi party (DNSAP). (Forgotten Nazis)

1919 September 3 President Wilson, instead of negotiating the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations Covenant with the Senate, departs on a tour of the country to rouse public support in favor of the project. He is already quite ill and proceeds against the warnings of his doctors.

1919 September 10 Representatives of the now tiny republic of Austria sign the Treaty of Saint-Germain, just outside Paris. The once great Habsburg empire had completely disintegrated in October and November 1918. Austria recognizes the independence of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Hungary; it also recognizes the award of Galicia to Poland, and of the Trentino, South Tyrol, Trieste, and Istria to Italy. Austria is forbidden to unite with Germany, as many in both countries had envisioned.

1919 September 12 Adolf Hitler attends his first meeting of the German Worker's Party (DAP). Hitler has been ordered by Captain Karl Mayr, his immediate superior, to attend the meeting as a spy for the army. (Mayr, autobiography)

1919 September 15 Brockhusen writes another letter to Heimerdinger revealing a deep dismay at postwar conditions and a hatred for the Poles. Brockhausen it seems had kept his office as Grand Master of the loyalist Germanenorden. (Bundesarchiv; Roots)

1919 September 16 Hitler's first known, political writing on the "Jewish Problem," a letter addressed to Adolf Gemlich (identity unknown) shows that Hitler's belief in a worldwide Jewish-Marxist conspiracy was already well developed.

1919 September 20 Hitler is ordered by his superior, Captain Mayr, to join the German Worker's Party (DAP), even though he is still in the army and such an act is technically illegal. Captain Mayr later wrote that it was General Ludendorff himself who had come to him and personally suggested that Hitler should be allowed to join the party and build it up. (Mayr, autobiography) (See September 12)

Note: Other sources state that Hitler joined the DAP between September 16 and 19, 1919. There seems to be confusion on the actual date. (See Hitler's first party membership cards)

1919 September 25 President Wilson suffers a stroke in Colorado. For five weeks, he is delicately balanced between life and death. Outside his family, only his doctor, his secretary Joseph Tumulty, and infrequently, Bernard Baruch are permitted to see him. (Schlesinger I)

1919 October 10 The Allied Supreme Council, which had imposed a blockade on Soviet Russia, tells neutral countries how to bring economic pressure on "Bolshevik" Russia and to ensure strict observance of such a policy. British and French ships continue "to alter the course" of all ships heading for Soviet ports and citizens of Entente countries are not only forbidden to visit Russia, but even to communicate by letter, telegram or radiogram. (Polyakov)

1919 October 15 Rudolf Hess resigns from General von Epp's Freikorps. (Missing Years)

1919 October 16 A speech by Hitler at the Hofbrauhauskeller in Munich marks the beginning of his political career.

1919 November George Herbert Walker, the grandfather of former U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush, organizes the W.A. Harriman & Co. private bank and becomes its president and chief executive officer.

1919 November 1 President Wilson is again in control of his faculties, although he never fully recovers. There is no provision in the law for declaring a president unable "to discharge the powers and duties of the said office."

1919 November 18 Field Marshal Hindenburg, possibly seeking to conceal his role in the armistice, publicly mentions the "stab in the back" while testifying before the Committee of Inquiry of the German National Assembly. Hindenburg claims that the army had been close to victory, but had been betrayed by civilian authorities and socialists in the government.

1919 November 19 The U.S. Senate rejects the act required to ratify the Versailles Treaty (55 to 39), including the provisions for the League of nations. President Wilson's hopes for a world governing organization are crushed.

1919 November 27 Bulgaria signs a treaty with the Allies at Neuilly, a suburb of Paris. Bulgaria recognizes the independence of Yugoslavia, and agrees to cede territory to Yugoslavia, Romania, and Greece.

1919 December The Interstate National Socialist Bureau of the German Language Territory is founded at a meeting in Vienna. Representatives come from Germany, the Sudetenland and Polish Silesia. Dr. Walter Riehl of the German National Socialist Workers Party (DAP) is named Chairman. (Forgotten Nazis)

1919 December Hitler drafts new regulations for the DAP committee, giving it full authority and preventing any "side government" by a "circle or lodge." This was obviously aimed at Karl Harrer, the Thule Society and other groups such as the Germanenorden. (Roots)

1919 French and British scientists seek to exclude German scientists from international meetings. Albert Einstein -- a Jew traveling with a Swiss passport -- remains an acceptable German envoy. His political views as a pacifist and a Zionist pitted him against conservatives in Germany, who had branded him a traitor and a defeatist. The public success accorded his theories of relativity evoked savage attacks during the 1920s by anti-Semitic physicists such as Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard.

1919 General Edmund Allenby is promoted to field marshal and is made a peer. He takes the title of Viscount Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe. Megiddo is the old battlefield of Armageddon in Palestine. (See September 19, 1918)

1919 Ignace Paderewski, the famous pianist and patriot, becomes the first Premier of Poland.

1919 Polish armed forces capture much of Lithuania and the Ukraine. Polish leader Jozef Pilsudski aims to establish a Polish-Lithuanian-Belorussian federation allied with an independent Ukraine. It will soon lead to the Polish-Soviet War of April-October 1920.

1919 Violent antisemitic attacks in Hungary kill 300 Jews.

1919 Lady Astor, an American originally named Nancy Witcher Langhorne, wins her husband's seat and becomes the first woman member of the British House of Commons. She will continue to serve until 1945.

1919 The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution establishes a national prohibition on the sale and possession of alcoholic beverages.

1919 Grigory Zinoviev, head of the Petrograd party organization, is appointed head of the Communist International (Comintern).

1919 British troops massacre demonstrators at Amritsar in India.

1919 Johannes Baum's New Thought publishing house moves to Pfullingen. (Spirits in Rebellion; Roots)

1919 Dietrich Eckart begins publishing the nationalist weekly "Auf Gut Deutsch," which attacks the Versaille treaty, Jewish war profiteers, Bolshevism, and Social Democracy. Among its earliest contributors are Gottfried Feder and Alfred Rosenberg. (Wistrich I)

1919 English aviators Alcock and Brown make the first nonstop transatlantic flight.

1919 The majority of Allied troops leave Russia. Several factors force them to leave: soldiers that refuse to fight against Soviet Russia and demand to be sent home, a mutiny in the French Black Sea squadron, the growing might of the Red Army, and the failure to achieve a quick victory. Yet another factor is the "Hands Off Soviet Russia" movement in the West. (Polyakov)

1919 Russian-American anarchist Emma Goldman is deported to the Soviet Union.

1920Russian language editions of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are published in Berlin, New York, Paris and Tokyo (1920-22). (Segel/Levy)

1920 January Karl Harrer resigns from office in the German DAP.

1920 Hitler meets Dietrich Eckart and Alfred Rosenberg for first time at the home of Houston Stewart Chamberlain in Bayreuth. (Pauwels)

(Note: Most other sources state that Hitler's first meeting with Chamberlain was in September 1923.)

1920 January 10 The Treaty of Versailles goes into effect and the League of Nations is officially established with headquarters at Geneva, Switzerland.

1920 January 14 French General Maurice Janin, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied troops in Siberia, orders the Czecho-Slovak Legion to kidnap Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, leader of the anti-Bolshevik resistance, and hand him over to the Bolsheviks at Irkutsk in exchange for one-third of the bullion of the Russian Imperial Treasury which is under Kolchak's control. This bullion will become the first national treasury of the newly created country of Czechoslovakia. (Sturdza).

1920 January 16 The 18th Amendment (prohibition of alcohol) goes into effect.

1920 January 28 Rudolf Hess is invited to tea at the home of Dr. Karl Haushofer for the first time. Hess was drawn into Haushofer's lectures on geo-politics and willingly acted as his unpaid assistant. (Missing Years)

1920 Philipp Stauff continues operation of the List Society at its new headquarters in Berlin. From his home at Moltkestrasse 46a in Berlin-Lichterfelde, Stauff publishes new editions of Guido von List's Ario-Germanic researches until 1922. (Roots)

1920 February 6 Grand Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg (Irmin) Chancellor of the loyalist Germanenorden dies of what is described as a heart attack. His funerary notice in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz is decorated with swastikas. (Irminism is the religion professed years later by Karl Maria Wiligut (K.M. Weisthor of Himmler's SS staff.) (Bundesarchiv; Roots)

1920 February 7 Admiral Kolchak and his Prime Minister, Victor Pepeliaev, are executed. General Janin is never charged.

1920 February 8 Winston Churchill writes in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, of London:

"From the days of Spartacus/Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, to those of Trotsky... this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization... has been steadily growing... There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one. It probably outweighs all others. With the possible exception of Lenin, the leading figures are Jews. Moreover the principal inspiration and driving power comes Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherine, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunachasski cannot be compared with the power (Petrograd) or of Krassin or Radek - all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more outstanding. And the foremost, if not indeed the principal part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases, by Jewesses."

1920 February 11 In Romania, Corneliu Codreanu and labor leader Constantin Pancu forcibly seize a factory from the Communists.

1920 February 20 The "Twenty-five Point Program" of the German DAP is officially adopted. (25 Point Program)

1920 February Walter Riehl designs a new Austrian DNSAP party flag using a swastika on a white field. (Forgotten Nazis)

1920 February 24 The German DAP gives the first public reading of its "Twenty-five Point" Program. Hitler later describes this event in Mein Kampf as "the first great public demonstration of our young movement." (25 Point Program)

1920 March 1 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that U.S. Steel is not an illegal monopoly.

1920 March 13 Gustav von Kahr assumes dictatorial powers in Munich.

1920 March 13 Berlin is seized in a right-wing Putsch. American-born journalist Wolfgang Kapp, 51 year-old founder of the Fatherland Party, receives support from irregular troops under Geneneral von Luttwitz, in a move to restore the monarchy. The disbanded troops, back from fighting “Bolshevik republicanism” in the Baltic provinces, are led by the Erhardt Brigade wearing swastikas on their helmets. The legitimate government escapes to the provinces, Kapp is made Chancellor and orders a general strike, he gets support from General Ludendorff but fails to gain foreign recognition. The army remains generally uncommitted, the Security Police oppose him and Kapp soon finds he has no authority. (See March 17).

1920 March 15 General Ludendorff moves to a small town in Bavaria near Munich.

1920 March 17 The Kapp putsch fails after only four days and Kapp flees Berlin. Hitler and Eckart arrive in Berlin too late to take part.

1920 March 19 The U.S. Senate again rejects the Versailles Treaty. The U.S. Senate also strongly objects to the U.S. entering the League of Nations.

1920 March 20 The "Munchener Beobachter" shareholders are listed as follows: Kathe Bierbaumer 46,000, Dora Kunze 10,000, Baron Franz von Freilitzsch 20,000, Theodor Heuss 10,000, Gottfried Feder 10,000, Franz Xavier Eder 10,000, Wilhelm Gutberlet 10,000, Karl Alfred Braun 3,500. (Freilitzsch and Heuss were members of the Thule Society and Feder was one of Hitler's earliest supporters) (Sebottendorff; Roots)

1920 March 29 Rudolf Hess is temporarily recruited by the local airfield at Schleissheim. (Missing Years)

1920 April 1 As part of the Red scare that is sweeping America, five members of the New York Legislature are expelled for being members of the Socialist Party. They will be legitimately reelected, but once again will be refused permission to sit in session. (Schlesinger I)

1920 April 6 Rudolf Hess flies an airplane to a Bavarian unit stationed in the Ruhr. (Missing Years)

1920 April 15 Italian-born anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are accused of murdering a paymaster and a guard at a shoe factory in South Braintree, Massachusetts, escaping with the payroll of nearly $16,000.

1920 April The Red Army, under the command of Mikhail Tukhachevsky, advances on Poland.

1920 April 25 War breaks out between Poland and the Soviets. The Polish-Soviet War is the result of both traditional Polish-Russian hostility and ideological factors. Lenin is convinced that Polish workers and peasants want a Polish Soviet Republic. He also hopes to push toward Germany, to establish socialism there, and to secure German military and economic assistance.

1920 April Adolf Hitler "officially" leaves the German army.

1920 April 30 Rudolf Hess resigns his commission in the German army at Munich. (Missing Years)

1920 May The Times of London publishes a long article on a recent English translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It part it says, "What are these Protocols? Are they authentic? If so, what malevolent assembly concocted these plans, and gloated over their exposition? Are they a forgery? If so, whence comes the uncanny note of prophecy, prophecy in parts fulfilled, in parts far gone in the way of fulfillment?... Have we, by straining every fibre of our national body, escaped a 'Pax Germanica' only to fall into a 'Pax Judaica'?" (Morais)

1920 May 1 Walter Riehl's Austrian Nazi party (DNSAP) introduces its new flag -- a swastika on a white field -- and flies it in public for the first time. (Forgotten Nazis)

1920 May 20 A right-handed (counterclockwise) swastika makes its first public appearance as the flag of the Nazi movement at the foundation meeting of the local Starnberg group. Hitler convinced Friedrich Krohn, who originally had proposed a left-handed design, to make the change. Krohn, however, was responsible for the color scheme of a black swastika in a white circle on a red background. (Roots)

1920 May 20 Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent begins publishing a series of articles on the "Jewish Problem." Most are largely based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

1920 June War veterans Heinrich Schulz and Heinrich Tillessen move to Regensburg, where they meet Loenz Mesch local leader of the Germanenorden. (Roots)

1920 June Rudolf Hess is said to have seen Adolf Hitler speak for the first time at the Sternecker-Bräu beerhall in Munich. Haushofer accompanied Hess to several National Socialist meeting in June. (Missing Years)

Note: Other sources say Dietrich Eckart personally escorted Hess to his first Nazi party meeting in May 1920, and afterward, introduced Hess to Hitler.

1920 June 4 Hungary signs the Treaty of Trainon at Versailles, reducing the country in area from 109,000 sq. miles to less than 36,000 sq. miles.

1920 June Marshal Pilsudski, fearing a Red Army counteroffensive from the eastern Ukraine, launches an attack on Kiev, but the Polish armies were soon pushed back to Warsaw.

1920 July 1 Rudolf Hess joins the Nazi party. Hess is said to have failed to persuade Haushofer to fall in behind the "tribune" (as he referred to Hitler during this period). (Missing Years)

1920 August 8 Hitler receives permission to rename the German Workers Party (DAP) -- it now becomes the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). It seems more than coincidential that it is so similar to Dr. Walter Riehl's German National Socialist Workers Party (DNSAP) in Austria. (Forgotten Nazis)

1920 August Hitler tells an audience in Salzburg, Austria, that "the same movement that started in Austria in 1904, has just now begun to gain a footing in Germany." This is an obvious reference to Walter Riehl's Austrian National Socialist Workers Party (DNDAP). (Forgotten Nazis)

1920 August Marshal Pilsudski's Polish armies defeats the Red Army on the Vistula, checking the spread of revolution into Central Europe and preventing Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.

1920 September 24 Hitler speaks at the German Nazi Party's first mass meeting; denouncing what he calls the "November Criminals" and calls for "vengeance for the perjured deed of November 9, 1918."

1920 October King Alexander of Greece dies.

1920 October Sebottendorff succeeds Ernst Tiede as editor of the "Astrologische Rundschau" (Astrological Review).

1920 October 5 The Soviets ask Poland for an armistice.

1920 October 12 A preliminary treaty of peace is signed in Riga between Poland and Soviet Russia. The Polish-Soviet War comes to an end.

1920 General Ludendorff introduces Hitler to Gregor Strasser.

1920 November Eleutherios Venizelos and his Liberal party are unexpectedly defeated in the Greek national elections.

1920 November 2 Bavaria is requested by the Inter allied Control Commission at Munich to disband its militia.

1920 November 15 The first Assembly of the League of Nations meets in Geneva, with 41 nations represented. More than 20 nations will later join, though there are numerous withdrawals.

1920 Winter Theodor Czepl visits Karl Maria Wiligut (Weisthor) in Salzburg and stays for seven weeks. He is said to have visited with Wiligut on at least two other occasions during this period. Czepl records his visits in detail in a memorandum prepared for the Order of the New Templars (ONT). (Mund; Roots)

(Note: Wiligut (Weisthor) identifies with a religion he calls Irminism, which he says is distinct from and the opponent of Wotanism. Irminists, he claims, celebrate Krist, a Germanic god, who Christianity had bowdlerized and then appropriated as its own saviour.) (Roots)

1920 December 5 A plebiscite restores Constantine I to the Greek throne.

1920 December 17 All shares of the "Munchener Beobachter" are now in the hands of Anton Drexler. (Sebottendorff; Roots)

1920 December 17 The Munchener Beobachter, (later renamed the "Völkischer Beobachter,") becomes the official organ of the NSDAP. Dietrich Eckart is its first editor and publisher. (Wistrich I)

1920 December 18 Rudolf Gorsleben delivers a speech entitled "The Aryan Man" to the Thule Society. Johnnnes Hering comments of Gorsleben's occult tendencies in his diaries, and later writes of his doctrine of "Aryan" mysticism. (Roots)

1920 Henry Ford publishes a collection of antisemitic articles from the Dearborn Independent,many based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in a book entitled The International Jew: The World's Foresmost Problem. (Morais)

(Note: Half a million copies of the book were put into circulation in America and it was translated into German, Russian and Spanish. The International Jews probably did more than any other work to make the Protocols world-famous.) (Cohn)

1920 Poland successfully fights to remain independent from the Soviet Union.

1920 Zinoviev, head of the Comintern, convenes a Congress of Peoples of the East at Baku in Azerbaijan, urging delegates from various Asian countries to wage a "holy war" against British imperialism.

1920 Averell Harriman and George Herbert Walker gain control of the Hamburg-Amerika Line in negotiations with Chief Executive Wilhelm Cuno and the Line's banker's M.M. Warburg. Cuno will contribute large sums to the Nazis during the early 1930's.

1920 During 1920, Hitler makes a number of speeches in Austria -- at Innsbruck, Hallein, Saint Polten and Vienna among others. These meeting were probably organized by Walter Riehl's Austrian Nazi party (DNSAP). (Forgotten Nazis)

1920 Admiral Miklos Horthy becomes regent of Hungary.

1920 Chaim Weizmann is named President of the World Zionist Organization.

1920 Hitler declares that "It is our duty to arouse, to whip up, an to incite our people to instinctive repugnance of the Jews." (Atlas)

1920 Mahatma Gandhi begins a campaign of noncooperation against British rule in India.

1920 A jurist, Professor Binding, and a psychiatrist, Professor Hoche, publish the book, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens (The sanctioning of the destruction of lives unworthy of being lived). (Science)

1921 January Hitler claims that he is reunited with his old friend and former sergeant, Max Amann, by accident, while walking along a Munich street.

1921 Walter Riehl's Austrian Nazi party (DNSAP) holds its first party meeting in Linz, Austria, Hitler's hometown. (Forgotten Nazis)

1921 Georg Ritter von Schoenerer dies.

1921 Karl von Habsburg, the deposed emperor of Austria-Hungary, founds the International Pan-European Movement.

1921 Hitler founds the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth).

1921 American Jews boycott Henry Ford for his alleged antisemitism.

1921 The SA (also called the Brownshirts) is formed from the ranks of Ernst Roehm's private army. (Grolier)

1921 January 16 Aristide Briand forms a new liberal cabinet in France.

1921 February 20 The first local branches of the National Socialist party are established.

1921 March The naval garrison at Kronshtadt, long a Bolshevik stronghold, rebels along with Petrograd workers in favor of "Soviet Communism without the Bolsheviks!" The protest is brutally suppressed.

1921 March 3 The Romano-Polish Treaty of Alliance is signed.

1921 March 4 Warren G. Harding is inaugurated 29th President of the United States.

1921 March 18 The Treaty of Riga is signed between Russia and Poland. The Polish-Russian frontier is defined and Poland receives a large slice of Russian territory.

1921 March 20 A plebiscite is held in Upper Silesia.

1921 March Great Britain and France recognize de facto the Soviet Government as the legitimate government of Russia.

1921 April 2 Albert Einstein arrives in New York to give a lecture at Columbia University on his new theory of relativity. It will open up a totally new way of thinking and will displace much of the scientifiic theory which has preceded it.

1921 April 18 Edward R. Stettinius Sr. writes a letter to Lucy Lee Brownlee and discloses to her that his son, Edward R. Stettinius Jr., "was elected recently a member of one of the select secret societies..." (Forbes). (This secret society was very likely connected with Yale's Skull and Bones.)

1921 April 20 Hitler receives a book from Dr. Babette Steininger, an early Nazi member, as a birthday present. The book is an essay by Tagore, an Indian mystic and nationalist. On the book's fly-leaf, a handwritten inscription from Steininger reads "to Adolf Hitler my dear Armanen-Brother." (Phelps)

1921 April 29 Italian Fascists seize the city of Fiume.

1921 May Heinrich Schulz and Heinrich Tillessen travel to Munich where they receive orders to kill Matthias Erzberger, the former Reich Finance Minister and hated signatory of the armistice, from a person who claims to have the authority of the Germanenorden. (Gotthard Jasper; Roots)

1921 June The German Nazi Party claims 3,000 dues-paying members.

1921 June Detlef Schmude, one of Jorg Lanz von Liebenfel's most ardent supporters in Germany, organizes the printing of the ONT rule at Magdeburg, in which he, Johann Walthari Wölfl, and Lanz sign as the Priors of Hollenberg, Werfenstein, and Marienkamp. (Regularium; Roots)

1921 July Rudolf Gorsleben becomes Gauleiter of the South Bavarian section of the radical antisemitic Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund, an early competitor of the Nazi Party for support in Southern Germany. (Roots)

1921 July 2 President Harding signs a joint resolution of Congress declaring an end to the war with Germany and Austria-Hungary.

1921 July 11 Hitler threatens to resign from the Nazi party if he is not given dictatorial powers. Hitler's ploy is successful and from this moment on, Hitler becomes the uncontested leader of the German Nazi party.

1921 July 14 Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are found guilty of murder.

1921 July 21 Former General William "Billy" MItchell orchestrates the sinking of the German battleship Ostfriesland in a demonstration of concentrated bombing. He is convinced of the superiority of air power over sea power.

1921 July 23 The Bavarian national guards deliver to the Allies more than half of their 250,000 rifles.

1921 July 26 A General strike in Rome. Street fighting and numerous conflicts between Communists and Fascists.

1921 July 29 The Council on Foreign Relations is founded in Washington D.C. It's British counterpart is the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

1921 July 29 Hitler is elected to the leadership of the Nazi Party.

1921 August Prescott Bush marries Dorothy Walker, daughter of George Herbert Walker.

1921 August 16 King Peter I of Serbia dies and his son, Alexander, becomes king of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.

1921 August25 The U.S. finally signs a peace treaty with Germany; almost three years after the end of the war.

1921 August 26 Mathias Erzberger, former Vice Chancellor and head of the Kaiser's foreign propaganda during the war, is assassinated by extreme nationalists.

1921 September 14 Hitler physically attacks Otto Ballerstedt and is later sentenced to a month in jail.

1921 September 29 Brockhusen's constitution for the Germanenorden is accepted, providing for a complex organization of grades, rings, and provincial "citadels (Burgen) supposed to generate secrecy for a nationwide system of local groups having many links with militant völkisch associations, including the Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Roots)

1921 September 30 The German Reichstag ratifies the American Peace Treaty.

1921 At the Tenth Party Congress, Lenin introduces his New Economic Policy, restoring some private property, ending restrictions on private trade, and terminating forced grain requisitions.The foundations for building Bolshevik socialism have been laid but the revolutionary period proper has come to an end.

1921 October 22 Karl von Habsburg (Hapsburg) tries to regain the Hungarian throne by flying from Switzerland with his wife Zita, but fails.

1921 November 4 Hundreds of Marxists attempt to disrupt a speech by Hitler at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich. Hess takes a leading part in the brawl and suffers a skull injury.

1921 November 4 Japanese premier Hara Takashi is assassinated in Tokyo by a radical right-wing student.

1921 November All capital stock in the "Munchener Beobachter" ("Volkischer Beobachter") is transferred to Adolf Hitler. (Sebottendorf; Roots)

1921 November 29 Hitler writes a long autobiographical letter to an unidentified doctor. (This may have been Dr. Walter Riehl, Austrian leader of the German National Socialist Workers Party (DNSAP). (See December 1921 and Biographies) (Autobiographical letter)

1921 December Hitler speaks at a meeting in Vienna organized by Dr. Walter Riehl's Austrian Nazi party (DNSAP).

1921 December Rudolf Gorsleben breaks with the Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund, forming a new alliance with Julius Streicher, who laters edits "Der Sturmer" under Nazi auspices, finding considerable aid and support in both Regensburg and Nuremberg. Gorsleben also works closely with Lorenz Mesch, Germanenorden leader in Regensburg, whose proteges Schulz and Tillessen had just assassinated Matthias Erzberger in May. (Roots)

1921 December 6 The "Irish Free State" is created as a self-governing dominion of Great Britain.

1921 December 13 The United States, Britain, Japan, and France sign the Four Power Treaty, pledging to consult one another if any of their Pacific island possessions is threatened.

1921 December 24 German Jewish politician Walter Rathenau writes in the Wiener Freie Presse (Vienna Free Press), " Three hundred men, all of whom are known to one another, guide the economic destinies of the Continent and seek their successors among their followers." Many antisemites, including General Ludendorff, promptly concluded that since Rathenau was a Jew, he must be one of the three hundred and that these were in fact the mysterious "Elders of Zion." (Morais)

Note: Nowhere in Rathenau's original article were Jews mentioned in any context.

1921 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels establishes another Order of the New Templars (ONT) priory at Marienkamp in Budapest, Hungary. Lanz regularly corresponds with ONT brothers in Germany, Austria, Great Britain, the United States and South Americas. (Roots)

1921 The Fascist party in Italy elects 35 members to parliament. Mussolini's oratorical skills, the postwar economic crisis, a widespread lack of confidence in the traditional political system, and a growing fear of socialism, all helped the Fascist party to grow to 300,000 registered members by 1921.

1921 Achille Ratti, the future Pope Pius XI, becomes cardinal-archbishop of Milan.

1921 The Reparations Commission fixes Germany's war reparations at 132 billion gold marks.

1921 Nesta H. Webster publishes World Revolution which links the French Revolution, the Illuminati, Jacobians, Freemasonry, the Jews and Communism. The book creates a sensation, and is widely read, both in Europe and America.

1921 Albert Einstein's receives the Nobel Prize for physics -- it was awarded not for relativity, but for his 1905 work on the photoelectric effect. His theories of relativity still remained controversial for his less flexibly minded colleagues.

1922 January 12 French Premier Briand resigns and is succeeded by Raymond Poincaré.

1922 January 22 Pope Benedict XV dies.

1922 January 29 The first public meeting of the National Socialist party is held in Munich.

1922 February Walter Riehl's Austrian Nazi party (DNSAP) holds its first large rally in Vienna. Adolf Hitler is one of the main speakers. (Forgotten Nazis)

1922 February The United States, Britain, Japan, France and Italy sign the Five Power Naval Armaments Treaty, which is hailed as the most successful disarmament pact in history. It provides for a 10-year hiatus in building warships of more than 10,000 tons and establishes a ratio of these ships each signatory could have.

1922 March Minister of State Schweyer tells the Bavarian Assembly, "...The expulsion of Hitler is being considered."

1922 March 28 Reich Chancellor Wirth denounces the Reparations Commission to the Reichstag, saying it is impossible to meet the demand of a tax levy of 60,000,000 marks before May 31.

1922 April 3 The General staffs of Germany and Russia sign a military agreement in Berlin.

1922 April 6 The Soviet delegation headed by Grigori Chicherin arrives in Genoa for a meeting with British, French, American Italian and German delegations.

1922 April 8 General Georg A.S. von Falkenhayn, former chief of the German general staff dies.

1922 April 10 The Genoa Conference begins.

1922 April 12 Hitler speaks to an audience in Munich. Although he had been delivering nationalistic speeches to small groups for several years, this is considered to be his first major public speech. (Read Speech)

1922 April 15 Secret negotiations between the German and Soviet delegations begin at 2AM. (Sturdza)

1922 April 16 Surprise conclusion of the Treaty of Rapallo between Germany and the Soviet Union.

1922 W.A. Harriman & Co. opens its European headquarters in Berlin with the aid of the Hamburg-based M.M. Warburg & Co. Government investigators later said it was during this time that Harriman first became acquainted with the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen. Harriman subsequently agreed to set up a bank for Thyssen (Union Banking Corporation) in New York City. The following year, Thyssen would become one of Hitler's largest financial backers.

1922 May 15 The German-Polish Convention is signed. Upper Silesia is returned to Germany and the minority rights of its Jews are guaranteed. (Atlas)

1922 May 19 The Genoa Conference collapses due to France's insistence that the Bolsheviks recognize and assume Russia's prewar debt.

1922 June Adolf Hitler once again is one of the main speakers at a meeting of Walter Riehl's Austrian Nazi party (DNSAP) in Vienna.

1922 June 24 German Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau, 55, is assasinated by antisemitic German nationalists in Berlin. Rathenau’s father helped found the German Edison Co. in 1883.

1922 August Grigorij Bostunic emigrates to Germany and in 1924 changes his name to Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch.

1922 August 16 Hitler addresses a mass meeting at Konigsplatz in Munich.

1922 August 22 Irish revolutionary statesman Michael Collins is killed in an ambush.

1922 August 29 Cardinal Michael Faulhaber tells a large gathering of Catholics in Munich that the revolution of November 9, 1918 was a case of "perjury and high treason." (Lewy)

1922 September Greece's defeat by Turkey forces in Anatolia forces Constantine I to abdicate as king of Greece. Constantine is succeeded by George II.

1922 October 15 King Ferdinand and Queen Marie are coronated at Alba Iula, Romania.

1922 A deadlocked Vatican conclave chooses Achille Ratti as pope (Pope Pius XI) on the eve of Mussolini's March on Rome. Facing a choice between the right and the left, the Vatican decides that fascism seems the lesser of two evils.

1922 October 28 After the Fascists march on Rome, Benito Mussolini secures a mandate from King Victor Emmanuel III to form a coalition government.

1922 October 30 King Victor Emmanuel III names Benito Mussolini prime minister.

1922 November English Egyptologist Howard Carter excavates Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

1922 Winter Japanese troops are finally driven from the Russian Far East and Vladivostok is retaken. (Polyakov)

1922 December Restrictions are imposed on the percentage of Jewish students allowed at Cluj University in Romania Other universities at Jassy, Bucharest and Czernowitz soon restrict Jewish attendance, and Jewish students are attacked. (Atlas)

1922 Detlef Schmude, one of Jorg Lanz von Liebenfel's most ardent supporters in Germany and the Prior of Hollenberg begins publishing a second Ostara series. The first issue "Die Ostara und das Reich der Blonden" reiterates the "Ario-Christian" canon with numerous quotes from Lanz: "racial history is the key to the understanding of politics," and "all ugliness and evil stems from interbreeding." (Roots)

1922 Karl von Habsburg, the deposed emperor of Austria,dies in exile.

1922 Zinoviev allies himself with Stalin and Lev Kamenev against Trotsky but disagrees ideologically with Stalin and is soon politically outflanked.

1922 Lenin renames the Cheka to soften its image. It now becomes the GPU (General Political Administration).

1922 Stalin becomes general secretary of the party's Central Committee. He now controls appointments, set agendas, and transfers thousands of party officials from post to post at will.

1922 Lenin writes a secret letter to Stalin, designating Armand Hammer as their official "path" to the resources of American capitalism. Hammer, the son of a Russian immigrant and founder of the American Communist Party, first found riches and notoriety as a businessman in the fledgling Soviet Union, where he used his operations to help launder money for the communist government. (Epstein)

1922 Mahatma Gandhi is imprisoned for his civil disobedience in India.

1922 Joseph Goebbels joins the Nazi Party, while trying to break into Journalism and the literary world.

1922 Between 1922 and 1933, there are 200 instances of grave desecrations in Jewish cemeteries at Nuremberg alone. (Atlas)

1923 January Inflation cripples the German economy. In 1918, the exchange rate, four marks to the dollar in 1918, is now more than 7,000 to the dollar.

1923 January 11 French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr.

1923 January 13 Announcement of passive resistence by Germans in the Ruhr. (Eyes)

1923 January 28 The first National Socialist Party Day is held in Munich. Munich will continue to be Hitler's primary headquarters until he comes to power in 1933.

1923 February Hitler publishes an article in the newspaper published by Walter Riehl's Austrian Nazi Party (DNSAP). (See August 1918)

1923 Dr. Fritz Lenz becomes Germany's first professor of racial hygiene.

1923 April Johann Walthari Wölfl, an Austrian industrialist who had become Prior of Werfenstein following Lanz von Liebenfels' departure for Hungary, begins issuing the Tabalarium, a monthly diary intended for a restricted circulation among ONT brothers. (Roots)

1923 March 4 The League of National Defense is founded by Professor Alexandru Cuza and Corneliu Codreanu in Romania.

1923 Spring Sebottendorff moves to Lugano, Switzerland, where he completes his occult treatise on the Baktashi dervishes and their relationship to alchemists and Rosicrucians. He will remain in Switzerland through 1924. (Roots)

1923 May Friedrich Franz von Hochberg, a Silesian count and cousin of the ruling Prince of Pless, is designated as Presbyter at the ONT Priory of Hollenberg. He uses the lodge name "Frowin." (Roots)

1923 May 1 Rudolf Hess and his "Student Battalion" fight their way into a Communist procession, seize the red hammer-and-sickle flag, and burn it. Hess is arrested and justifies his action by saying that public display of the flag which had led to the army's mutiny and Germany's military downfall was an outright provocation to any decent German. (Missing Years)

1923 A dialogue between Hitler and Eckart is published in Munich under the title Bolshevism from Moses to Lenin. It reflects their opinion that the Jews have represented the occult power of revolutionary subversion throughout history and are responsible for deflecting humankind from its natural path. (Wistrich I)

1923 July Inflation in Germany increases to more than 160,000 marks to the dollar.

1923 July 17 Philipp Stauff commits suicide. Many suspected foul play because of his continuing exposure of prominent Germans with Jewish roots. His widow, Berta, takes over the publishing house and the Society continues to serve as a meeting-place for prewar members, the Germanenorden, and newcomers throughout the 1920s. Eberhard von Brockhusen, Grand Master of the Germanenorden, continued as President of the List Society until his death in 1939. (Roots)

1923 July 24 Turkey signs the Treaty of Lausanne, recognizing the independence of the Arab Kingdom of Hejaz, the French mandate over Syria, and British mandates over Palestine and Mesopotamia.

1923 August 2 Warren G. Harding dies and Calvin Coolidge becomes 30th President of the United States.

1923 August 13 Gustav Stresemann becomes Chancellor of Germany.

1923 Hitler and Walter Riehl of the Austrian DNSAP split over strategy and tactics.

1923 September Ludendorff announces his support of Adolf Hitler before 100,000 people at Nuremberg.

1923 September 2 Hitler attends a rally of Nationalists parties in Nuremberg. (Shirer I)

1923 September 25 Hitler addresses a meeting of the heads of all the right-wing military formations and private armies in Munich. After a two and a half hour speech he is able to convince them that they would be more effective if they placed themselves under his over-all command. (Payne)

1923 September 30 Hitler visits the Wagner family and Houston Stewart Chamberlain at Wagner's home in Bayreuth. When he returned to Munich, he found a letter from Chamberlain praising him as a Messiah and comparing Chamberlain himself with John the Baptist. "At one blow you have transformed the state of my soul," Chamberlain wrote. "That Germany in her hour of need has produced a Hitler testifies to its vitality. Now at last I am able to sleep peacefully and I shall have no need to wake up again. God protect you!" (Olden)

1923 October Fritz Thyssen, one of Germany's richest industrialists begins the large-scale financing of Hitler and the Nazis Party. Thyssen one of Germany's richest men is in business with Averell Harriman and Prescott Bush, among others.

1923 October Communists take over the States of Saxony and Thuringia and plan to take over the entire country from these bases.

1923 November 8 The Munich Putsch -- Hitler, with the backing of General Ludendorff, attempts to take over the Bavarian government by force of arms. Hitler claims that his main purpose is to squash a plot by Bavarian separatist to secede from Germany

1923 November 9 At midday, Hitler and Ludendorff at the head of a large body of men are caught in a bottleneck as they march toward the center of town. The police open up with volleys of rifle fire and sixteen Nazis are killed. Hitler quickly flees the city and Ludendorff is arrested. The putsch collapses and those killed become Nazi martyrs. The flag they carry that day later becomes known as the "blood flag," and takes on a "sacred" and mystical symbolism. This is a day Hitler will never forget. (See November 9, 1933)

1923 November 11 Hitler is arrested and charged with treason. About midnight he is taken to Landsberg prison, where Count Anton Arco-Valley, the assassin of Kurt Eisner, was awakened and moved to another cell. His comfortable quarters were then given to Hitler. (Payne)

1923 November Detlef Schmude, ONT Prior at Hollenberg, writes to Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels attributing the postwar disorder to an ignorance of eugenics amongst the leadership of Germany and appealing for a dictator in the form of a "Starke von Oben" (Stong one from Above) as described by Guido von List. (Roots)

1923 November 20 Inflation in Germany peaks at 130,000,000,000 marks to the dollar. (WWIIDBD)

1923 November 23 The NSDAP is banned by the Bavarian government.

1923 December 23 Dietrich Eckart, after a brief imprisonment in Stadelheim prison, dies of heart failure, while Hitler is still in prison awaiting trial. Eckart is buried at Berchtesgaden. (Wistrich I)

1923 December Friedrich Franz von Hochberg (Frowin), Presbyter of the ONT priory at Hollenbeck states that the Order of the New Templars is his sole comfort "in this evil land of pygmies and Tschandale." (Roots)

1923 Designer Willy Messerschmitt opens an aircraft manufacturing plant at Augsburg, Germany. Three years later he will produce his first all-metal plane.

1923 Leo Schlageter, an insurgent against the French in the Ruhr, is executed. He quickly becomes a much celebrated Nazi martyr and hero. After 1933, The Catholic Church will often attempt to capitalize on Schlagter's Catholicism.

1923 General Miguel Primo de Rivera becomes dictator of Spain.

1923 Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch becomes a member of Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy movement.

1923 Trotsky, in a series of essays labeled as "The New Course," bitterly criticizes the growing bureaucracy of the party and argues for greater centralized planning. Much of his hostility is directed against Stalin, whom he is said to loathe. In response, Stalin states his own position as "socialism in one country," the antithesis of Trotsky's advocacy of a world revolution.

(Note:"Socialism in one country" and Hitler's National Socialism shared many common characteristics.)

1923 Physicist Hermann Oberth publishes The Rocket into Planetary Space, which inspires many young Germans, including Werner von Braun, with the idea of space travel.

1923 The first issue of "Der Stürmer," a viciously antisemitic newspaper, is published in Nuremberg. It's slogan is "The Jews are our misfortune." (Atlas)

1923 The Treaty of Lausanne establishes the boundaries of modern Turkey.

1924 January 21 Lenin suffers a fatal stroke. A triumvirate with Stalin, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev is formed after Lenin's death to exclude Trotsky from power.

1924 February 1 Great Britain extends de jure recognition to the U.S.S.R.

1924 February Trotsky is censured for what is called "factionalism."

1924 February 15 Cardinal Faulhaber tells to a meeting of students and academicians at the Lowenbrau Beer Cellar in Munich that Hitler knew better than his underlings that the resurrection of the German nation required the support of Christianity. This theme of the good and well-intentioned Fuehrer and his evil advisors continues periodically throughout Hitler's career.

1924 February 26 The trial of Hitler, Ludendorff and a number of other participants in the Munich Putsch begins in Munich.

1924 March Konrad Weitbrecht, a Swabian forester who led an ONT group in his region, receives a million Austrian crowns, collected by the brothers of the priories of Werfenstein and Marienkamp, for a seat in South Germany. (Roots)

1924 March 27 Romanian-Russian negotiations begin in Vienna after strong pressure from the French.

1924 Spring Detlef Schmude, Prior of Hollenberg, travels to Persia supposedly hoping to found an ONT colony at Tabriz. Count Hochberg (Frowin) assumes his duties as Prior during his eighteen-month absence. (Roots)

1924 April The Dawes Plan restructures German reparations and stabilizes the German currency. American banker Charles Dawes arranges a series of foreign loans totalling $800 million to consolidate gigantic German chemical and steel combinations into cartels, one of which is I.G. Farben. "Without the capital supplied by Wall Street" it is said, "there would have been no I.G. Farben in the first place, and almost certainly no Adolf Hitler and World War II." Three Wall Street houses, Dillon, Reed & Co., Harris, Forbes & Co., and National City handled three-quarters of the loans used to create these cartels. (Sutton)

(Note: Professor Carroll Quigley wrote that the Dawes Plan was: "largely a J.P. Morgan production.") (Quigley)

1924 April 1 Hitler is sentenced to five years in military prison at Landsberg Fortress. General Ludendorff is found not guilty and retires to his home in the country.

1924 Hitler reads the second edition of the textbook, Menschliche Erblichkeitslehre und Rassenhygiene (The principles of human heredity and race-hygiene), written by E. Baur, E. Fischer, and F. Lenz, while imprisoned in Landsberg, and subsequently incorporates racial ideas into his own book, Mein Kampf. (Science).

1924 April 2 The Romanian-Russian negotiations fall apart.

1924 June Italian Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti is murdered after denouncing Mussolini in the Chamber of Deputies. The crime is traced to a group of Fascist militants. Mussolini orders their arrest and disclaims any responsibility. Public opinion, however, seems to be against him and opposition deputies withdraw from parliament in a protest known as the Aventine Secession (a reference to the Plebs' withdrawal to the Aventine Hill in ancient Rome), and many predict the imminent fall of Mussolini's government.

1924 June 7-8 An ONT (Order of New Templars) Whitsun meeting is held at Werfenstein castle. It is attended by Johann Walthari Wölfl, the new Prior of Werfenstein, Lanz von Liebenfels' two brothers, Herwik and Friedolin, and twelve other members. Celebrations began at midnight with the consecration of fire and water. Under Wölfl's leadership, the Austrian ONT has flourished and the membership of some 50-60 brothers frequently contributed money, books, and ceremonial objects for the ornamentation of the priory. Whitsun meetings were also held in 1925 and 1926. (Roots)

1924 June 12 George Herbert Walker Bush is born in Milton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. He is the second of five children born to Prescott Sheldon Bush and Dorothy Walker, daughter of Harriman associate, George Herbert Walker.

1924 June 24 Dr. Karl Haushofer visits Hess and Hitler in Landsberg prison. Prison records show that between June 24 and November 12 he visited them eight times, always on Wednesdays and staying the whole morning and afternoon. (Missing Years)

1924 The Union Banking Corporation is formally established, as a unit in the Manhattan offices of the W.A. Harriman & Co., interlocking with the Fritz Thyssen-owned Bank Voor Handel en Scheepvaart (BHS) in the Netherlands.

1924 October 28 Following the British example of February 1, the French extend de jure recognition of the U.S.S.R. Romania and Yugoslavia refuse.

1924 November Karl Maria Wiligut (Weisthor) is involuntarily committed to a Salzburg mental asylum and will not be released until early 1927.

1924 November 8 Hitler, Lt. Colonel Hermann Kriebel, Dr. Christian Weber, Rudolf Hess and other putschers in Landsberg prison celebrate the first anniverary of the Munich putsch, with the prison band supplying the music. At exactly 8:34 PM, they comemorated the "historic moment" the trucks arrived carrying the Hitler Shocktroops. (Missing Years)

1924 November 9 At 1 PM, Hitler and his comrades in Landsberg salute their sixteen fallen friends who were shot down and killed in Munich the year before. (Missing Years)

1924 December 20 Hitler is released from Landsberg prison after serving less than nine months of his five-year sentence.

1924 The Geneva Protocol of 1924, which brands aggressive war as an international crime, fails because of British opposition.

1924 The Soviet GPU (General Political Administration), formerly the Cheka secret police, again changes its name. It becomes the OPGU so as to include the entire USSR. It's function remains the same.

1924 Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, a leading Soviet theoretician, becomes a full member of the Politburo.

1924 J. Edgar Hoover is appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation). (FBI)

1924 A letter to the British Communist party calling for a revolution is published in Britain. Allegedly written by Zinoviev, President of the Comintern, this so-called Zinoviev letter was probably a forgery used to generate anti-leftist feelings on the eve of the general election, but may have been authentic.

1924 A branch of the Catholic League for Patriotic Politics in Munich publishes an article in one of its publications, "Der Ruetlischwur," calling for a fight against what it calls the three forces of evil opposing Germany and the Catholic Church: Marxists, Jews, and Freemasons.

1924 Nesta H. Webster publishes Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, again linking the French Revolution, the Illuminati, Jacobians, Freemasonry, the Jews and Communism. This book, too, is widely read both in Europe and America.

1924 Joseph Goebbels becomes editor of the right-wing newspaper "Volkischer Freiheit" (Folkish Freedom).

1924 The Greek military declares a republic and King George II is exiled.

1924 The exclusionary Immigration Act of 1924 is passed by the U.S. Congress, limiting immigration by race and nationality, among other criteria.

1924 The Pierpont Morgan Library, the personal library of J.P. Morgan, is opened in New York City and made available to scholars.

1924 Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., leaves the University of Virginia without graduating.

1925 Mussolini eliminates his opponents by establishing a dictatorship by force and intimidation, converting Italy into a one-party corporate state

1925 January Stalin begins a plan to ease Grigory Zinovev and Lev Kamenev out of power and gain control for himself.

1925 January 2 Rudolf Hess is released from Landsberg prison. (Missing Years)

1925 February 27 Hitler revives the NSDAP and quickly takes control.

1925 March 26 Count Hochberg gives 500 gold marks to the Order of the New Templars (ONT) for the purchase of the small ancient earthwork of Wickeloh near Gross-Oesingen in Lower Saxony. (Roots)

1925 Hitler decides he needs a bodyguard of loyal party members to protect him from his opponents at public meetings and rallies. He appoints Julius Schreck, an old comrade and his chauffeur, to form the new unit. Schreck takes his new position very seriously and soon establishes strict guidelines for Hitler's "Protection Squad," which soon becomes known as the SS (Schutzstaffel). (Secrets)

1925 March 30 Rudolf Steiner dies. The Anthroposophy movement, which has been called a Christianized version of Theosophy, continues to flourish even after his death.

1925 Ernst Roehm, after coming into conflict with Hitler over the role of the SA, travels to Bolivia, where he will remain until 1930.

1925 April Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg becomes president of Germany.

1925 May 5 Dr. Karl Haushofer founds the Deutsche Akademie. Rudof Hess becomes an assistant on his staff and a close friend of Haushofer's son, Albrecht. Hess later abandons the idea of obtaining a doctorate. (Missing Years)

1925 Summer Johann Walthari Wölfl, the ONT Prior of Wefenstein, begins issuing the Librarium and the Examinatorium. The first contains short stories of the alleged medieval antecedents of the order, Burg Werfenstein and Lebensreform. The second features a question-and-answer synopsis of all order matters, enabling new brothers to quickly and comprehensively learn the order's history, traditions and ceremonial. (Roots)

1925 Summer Construction begins on a new ONT priory at Gross-Oesingen in Lower Saxony. (Roots)

1925 July 18 The first volume of Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler's personal political testament, is published in Munich. The book is dedicated to Dietrich Eckart and the sixteen Nazi "martyrs" who died in Munich on November 9, 1918.

1925 September 3 Edward R. Stettinius, Sr., dies. His son, Edward, Jr., is General Motors' manager of employment.

1925 September 5 The "Völkischer Beobachter" hails Houston Stewart Chamberlain's Foundations of the Nineteenth Century as "The Gospel of the National Socialist Movement."

1925 October A secular group around the occult-racist publisher Herbert Reichstein begins promoting the doctrine of Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels in Germany. (Roots)

1925 October The Treaty of Locarno is signed in Switzerland by Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Poland and Czechoslovakia. It guarantees the demilitarized status of the Rhineland and the common borders of Belgium, France, and Germany, all as specified by the Treaty of Versailles. Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia also sign border agreements. The "spirit of Locarno" is widely hailed as ushering in an era of international peace and good will.

1925 November 29 Rudolf Gorsleben founds the Edda Society, an "Aryan" study group, at Dinkelsbühl, in Franconia. Grand Master of the group is Werner von Bülow. Treasurer is Friedrich Schaefer from Mühlhausen, whose wife, Käthe, keeps open house for other occult-völkisch groups which gather around Karl Maria Wiligut (Weisthor) in the early 1930s. Rudolf Gorsleben was Chancellor of the Edda Society and published its periodical German Freedom, later Aryan Freedom. (Roots)

(Note: Mathilde von Kemnitz, a prolific völkisch writer, who will marry General Ludendorff in 1926, is an active member of the Edda Society.) (Mund; Roots)

1925 December 1 The Locarno Treaties are signed. These agreements are an attempt to settle security problems left unresolved at the end of World War I. The main treaty, which confirms Germany's western borders with France and Belgium, is signed by the powers directly concerned and is guaranteed by Britain and Italy. Germany signs treaties with its eastern neighbors, Poland and Czechoslovakia, but they are not given the same protection. France, however, concludes an agreement with the latter countries promising to help them if Germany breaks its commitment to settle any future disputes with them peacefully. The Locarno Pact makes Germany's entry into the League of Nations possible.

1925 Sebottendorff returns to Turkey. From 1926 to 1928, he acts as honorary Mexican consul in Instanbul (Constantinople). He later travels to the U.S. and Central America, 1929-1931. (Roots)

1925 The Geneva Protocol of 1925, bans poison gas as a means of warfare.

1925 Stalin forces Trotsky to resign as Minister of War.

1925 The silent-movie classic Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergei Eisenstein, is released in Russia.

1925 Jewish synagogues and schools are looted and the Jewish cemetery is desecrated at Piatra in Romania. (Atlas)

1925 Ossendovski, a Russian writer, publishes "Men, Beasts and Gods." The names Schamballah and Agarthi appear in public for first time.

1925 Monsignor Ludwig Kaas is appointed as advisor to Eugenio Pacelli, the Papal Nuncio in Berlin, by Cardinal Bertram. Kaas and Pacelli soon become close friends. (Arthur Wynen; Lewy)

1925 Jean Monnet becomes a partner in the Blair Foreign Corporation, a New York bank that made huge profits during the war.

1925 Joseph Goebbels is appointed Business Manager of the North Rhineland Gau of the Nazi Party. He soon edits several Nazi publications, including the bulletin NS-Briefe (National Socialist Letters).

1925 Ahmed Zogu proclaims Albania a monarchy and rules as King Zog.

1925 Reza Shah Pahlavi rules as Shah of Iran.

1926 January 1 Prince Michael of Romania is proclaimed heir to the throne by the Romanian Parliament after his father, Prince Carol, is deprived of his inheritance.

1926 January 6 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels purchases the ruined 13th century church of Szent Balazs, near the village of Szentantalfa on the northern shore of Lake Balaton, as the new seat for the ONT priory of Marienkamp. Hungarian ONT brothers Ladislaus and Wilhelm are appointed as the priory's keepers. (Roots)

1926 January Detlef Schmude returns to the ONT priory at Hollenberg after eighteen months in Persia. (Roots)

1926 January 26 Gregor Strasser calls a meeting of Nazi party leaders at Hanover.

1926 February 14 Hitler calls a meeting of nationalist leaders at Bamburg.

1926 April Joseph Berchtold, a businessman who holds the number-two spot in the Nazi party treasury office, is appointed by Hitler to replace Julius Schreck as head of the SS. Hitler tells him to operate under the guidelines that the party is not to interfere in the internal affairs of the SS, emphasizing that the SS is a completely independent organization within the Nazi movement. (Secrets)

1926 April 3 Lanz von Liebenfels and ONT brothers Ladislaus and Wilhem traveled to Szent Balazs and construction on the new priory of Marienkamp starts shortly thereafter. (Roots)

1926 April 15 Schmude dissolves the ONT priory at Hollenberg, complaining of the adverse economic circumstances in Germany. (Roots)

1926 April 24 The Treaty of German-Soviet Friendship and Neutrality extends the Rapallo Treaty of 1922.

1926 Edward R. Stettinius Jr. becomes special assistant to John Lee Pratt of General Motors.

1926 May 1 Prescott Bush joins W.A. Harriman & Co. as a vice-president, under the bank's president, George Herbert Walker, his father-in-law.

1926 May 1 Johann Walthari Wölfl, Priorof Werfenstein, receives authorization from Lanz von Liebenfels to begin the publication a third Ostara edition. (Roots)

1926 May General Pilsudski believing that the unstable Polish parliamentary system is endangering Poland, seizes power and forms an authoritarian government. He works for good relations with both Germany and Russia, but an alliance with neither.

1926 August Georg Hauerstein, Jr., son of Georg Hauerstein, a friend of Guido von List and an ONT brother associated with Detlef Schmude before the war, establishes a fund for the purchase of an ancient earthwork called the Hertesburg near Prenow on the Baltic Sea coast. ONT brothers from Hungary and Berlin palmist, Ernst Issberner-Haldane contribute. (Roots)

1926 September General Ludendorff marries Mathilde von Kemnitz and she soon begins spearheading the Ludendorff movement.

1926 September 8 Germany is admitted to the League of Nations and given a permanent seat on the Council.

1926 September 10 Germany enters the League of Nations. (Eyes)

1926 December 10 Hitler publishes the second part of Mein Kampf.

1926 Marshal Josef Pilsudski seizes complete power in a coup in Poland and rules dictatorially until his death.

1926 Pope Pius XI bans Roman Catholic participation in the Action Francaise movement, a radical right-wing political movement active in France from 1899 to 1944. (Founded by Charles Maurras (1868-1952), it espoused royalism, authoritarianism, nationalism, and antisemitism. Through its newspaper, "L'Action Francaise," and its student groups, called Camelots du Roi, the movement attacked the democratic institutions of the Third Republic.

1926 Allen W. Dulles joins the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell in New York.

1926 Hitler holds a Nazi "Party Day" rally at Weimar. He and many other speakers advocate driving the Jews out of all German life. (Atlas)

1926 The German Steel Trust, Germany's largest industrial corporation, is organized by Wall Street banker Clarence Dillion. In return for putting up $70 million, Fritz Thyssen, the majority owner, gives the Dillion Read Company two representatives on the board.

1926 Colonies of strange Hindu mystics settle in Munich and Berlin. (Pauwels)

1926 Felix Dzerzhinsky dies, and the OGPU, which he had founded as the Cheka in 1917, supports Stalin.

1926 Nikolai Bukharin becomes president of the Communist International (Comintern).

1926 Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-propellant rocket.

1926 Chiang Kai-shek organizes the Northern Expedition to unite China.

1926 Joseph Goebbels sides with Hitler against Otto and Gregor Strasser in a Nazi Party split. Gregor will remain Hitler's most powerful opponent in the Party.

1926 Goebbels is appointed Gauleiter of Berlin by Hitler.

1926 Eamon De Valera organizes the Fianna Fail party in the Republic of Ireland.

1926 Hirohito becomes emperor of Japan.

1926 A General Strike in Britain involves more than three million workers.

1927 February 1 Count Franz Friedrich von Hochberg writes a letter to Johann Walthari Wölfl which he publishes in the first issue of the new Ostara series. (Roots)

1927 February 11 Hitler and Goebbels speak at Pharus Hall in Berlin.

1927 February Johann Walthari Wölfl, Prior of Werfenstein, begins the publication the third Ostara series with an introductory issue by himself. Between 1927 and 1931, most of a hundred projected issues are published with illustrated covers in a more luxurious format than before the war. (Roots)

1927 March Joseph Berchtold resigns as head of the SS, and his deputy, Erhard Heiden, takes over its leadership. Heiden decides that since the number of SS members is limited to only 10% of the SA, there is no way they can outshout them. He therefore issues an order stating: "The SS will never take part at meetings. SS men will attend discussions for the purpose of instruction only. The SS man and SS commander will remain silent and never become involved in matters concerning party or SA members which do not concern him." Under Heiden, the SS soon adopts the slogan: "The aristocracy keeps its mouth shut." This unique attitude puzzles both the Nazi Party bosses and the SA leaders and establishes a mysterious aura around the SS that will remain intact throughout the years of the Third Reich. (Secrets)

1927 April 7 The first successful long-distance demonstration of television broadcasts an image of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.

1927 May 21 Charles Lindbergh flies solo nonstop from New York to Paris in 33.5 hours.

1927 May 26 Diplomatic relations between Great Britain and Russia are temporarily disrupted because of friction caused by Communist agitation, a clear violation of treaty agreements.

1927 June 24 The Legion of the Archangel Michael is founded in Romania.

1927 June 30 Henry Ford writes a letter to Louis Marshall, chairman of the American Jewish Committee, in which he repudiates The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a forgery . Ford also promises to cease publishing negative articles about the Jews in the Detroit Independent and to withdraw his book, The International Jew, from circulation.

1927 July Goebbel's newspaper Der Angriff (The Attack) is first published in Berlin.

1927 July 20 King Ferdinand of Romania dies and Prince Michael is proclaimed as King.

1927 August Standard Oil agrees to embark on a cooperative program of research and development with I.G. Farben to improve the quality and quantity of gasoline produced from German coal by the hydrogenation process, which had been discovered by a German scientist in 1909, but never fully developed. Germany had no native gasoline production capabilities and this was said to be one of the main reasons it lost World War I. (Borkin)

1927 August 21 Twenty thousand Storm Troopers attend the Congress of the National Socialist Party in Nuremberg.

1927 November 8 The ONT presbytery of Hertesburg is consecrated in a new wooden church built on the site of the ancient earthwork near Prerow on the Baltic Sea coast. This circle continues to be lead by Georg Hauerstein, Jr., who writes that its foundation is related to medieval Templar lore, as well as the mythical sunken city of Retha-Vineta, supposedly the cradle of the "ario-heroic" race. (Hauerstein; Roots)

1927 November 30 A Soviet delegation arrives in Geneva to take part in the deliberations of the preparatory commission on disarmament.

1927 December 20 Rudolf Hess marries Ilse Pröhl (Proehl) after a seven-year relationship. (Missing Years)

1927 December 31 The priory of Staufen at Dietfurt near Sigmaringen is formally consecrated by the Swabian ONT. Rituals are performed in a grotto chapel beneath the old fort, under the priorate of Count Hochberg, until the end of the 1930s. (Roots)

1927 Trotsky is stripped of all posts and expelled from the Communist Party.

1927 Lev Kamenev loses his offices and is expelled from the party. He will later be readmitted, and expelled twice again.

1927 Four synagogues are wrecked during anti-Jewish riots at Oradea in Romania. Prayer houses are plundered at Jassy, Targu Ocna and Cluj. (Atlas)

1927 German filmmaker Fritz Lang directs the futuristic film Metropolis.

1927 The KWG founds a KWI of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics in Berlin-Dahlem and nominates Professor E. Fischer as its director. (Science)

1927 The Iron Guard fascist organization is founded in Romania.

1927 Television is first publicly broadcast in Great Britain.

1928 Huey P. Long becomes governor of Louisiana.

1928 April 13 Hitler attempts to "clarify" the NSDAP program.

1928 May 20 General elections give the Nazi Party 3 percent of the vote. (Eyes)

1928 Summer ONT meetings at the priory of Marienkamp in Hungary record the investitures of Georg Hauerstein, Jr. and Friedrich Schwickert, an astrologer an onetime List Society member, as Presbyters. (Roots)

1928 August 27 The Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact is signed in Paris. Its signatories renounces aggressive war, and war as an instrument of national policy, but no sanctions are provided for violations.

1928 September 6 The Soviet Union concurs with the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

1928 Leon Trotsky is condemned to internal exile.

1928 November 25 Communist demonstrations break out in Bucharest.

1928 December Monsignor Ludwig Kaas, a Catholic priest and former professor of canon law at Trier, is elected Chairman of the Catholic Center Party.

1928 December 28 Theodor Eicke joins the Nazi party and enlists in the SA. Eicke works as a security guard for I.G. Farben.

1928 Harriman and Company becomes the chief organizer of a huge engineering program that will modernize Soviet heavy Industry. Harriman furnishes securities for all the Soviet purchases in the United States and collects generous commissions for his services.

1928 Henry Ford merges his German assets with those of I.G. Farben. (Sutton)

1928 Pope Pius XI dissolves the missionary society "The Friends of Israel" (Amici Israel), and issues a condemnation of antisemitism. (Lewy)

1928 Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean, west to east.

1928 Joseph Goebbels is elected to the Reichstag as a deputy for Berlin.

1928 Chiang Kai-shek captures Peking and the Kuomin-tang government is established in China.

1928 Stalin , who has driven the leftist opposition from most party posts, now, whether for political or economic reasons, adopts a number of leftist programs such as agricultural collectivization and rapid industrialization. He then smashes the party's right, led by the popular Nikolai Bukharin, for opposing measures that he himself had recently attacked.

1928 The first Five-Year Plan for economic reform begins in the Soviet Union.

1929 January 6 Hitler appoints Heinrich Himmler to replace Erhard Heiden as head of the SS. The organization has fewer than 300 members and their is an independent SS leader, Kurt Deluege, in Berlin(Secrets; The SS, Time-Life)

1929 January 6 Alexander I abolishes his country's constitution and institutes absolute rule. He then changes his title and calls himself king of Yugoslavia.

1929 January 15 Martin Luther King, Jr., American civil rights leader, is born in Atlanta. His father, Martin, Sr., is the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

1929 January 20 The Soviet OGPU (General Political Administration) orders that Trotsky be deported to the Turkish island of Prinkipo, once used by the Byzantine emperors to exile their opponents. He will live in Turkey (1929-33), France (1933-35), Norway (1935-36), and Mexico (1936-40).

1929 February 9 The Litvinov Protocol is signed in Moscow by Soviet Russia, Poland, Romania, Latvia and Estonia. It gives immediate validity to the Kellogg-Briand Pact between these five countries.

1929 February 11 The Lateran Treaty is signed by Benito Mussolini for the Italian government and Cardinal Pietro Gasparri for the papacy. It settles the vexatious question of the relationship between the Holy See and Italy. The papacy accepts the loss of the Papal States, while Italy recognizes the Vatican City as an independent state. A financial settlement is also involved.

1929 Spring Ernst (Teddy) Thalmann, leader of the Communist Party, provokes a series of riots in Berlin's working-class districts.

1929 June 7 The Young Plan is signed in Paris and afterward the Nazi finances quickly improve.

1929 August The German luxury liners Bremen and Europa are launched in Bremerhaven and Hamburg. They are the largest and fastest ships of their kind in the world.

1929 August 7 The"Völkischer Beobachter," no. 181, reports that during the annual Party gathering at Nuremberg Hitler had held up the ancient Spartan policy of selective infanticide as an archetype (a model) for Germany. "If Germany every year would have one million children," Hitler said, "and would eliminate 700 -800,000 of the weakest, the end result would probably be an increase in (national) strength."

1929 September Hitler moves into an elegant, luxury apartment on Munich's Prinzregentenplatz.

1929 September The New York Stock Exchange peaks at 216, the climax of a three-year "bull" market..

1929 September 27-28 The International Congress of Eugenics is held in Rome. Dr. C. B. Davenport, an American and president of the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations, sends Mussolini a memorandum, written by Professor Fischer (Berlin), on the importance of eugenics: "Maximum speed is necessary; the danger is enormous." (Science)

1929 October 3 Gustav Stresemann dies in Germany.

1929 October 7 Gheorghe Buzdugan, the most important personality in the Romanian Regency, dies.

1929 October 22 The president of New York's National City Bank states, " I know of nothing fundamentally wrong with the stock market or with the underlying business and credit structure." Nevertheless, there have been heavy withdrawals of capital from America after the Bank of England raised its interest to 6.5 percent. (Schlesinger I)

1929 October 23 After a steady decline in stock market prices since the peak in September, the New York Stock Exchange begins to show signs of a panic.

1929 October 24 "Black Thursday" -- the New York Stock Exchange crashes, quickly setting off a worldwide economic depression. Investors who had been "buying stock on margin," (generally 10%) were devastated when their "24-hour broker call loans " were all called in at the same time. This meant that the stock brokers and their customers had to dump their stocks in order to pay off their loans. When all the sellers offered their stock at the same time, prices plummeted.

1929 October 24 Winston Churchill is personally brought to the New York Stock Exchange by Bernard Baruch. Some conspiracy-oriented historians are convinced that Churchill was brought to witness the crash firsthand because it was desired that he see the power of the banking system at work. (Galbraith)

1929 October 29 "Black Tuesday" -- the avalanche of selling crushes the stock market. This is the most catastrophic day in the market's history and becomes the forerunner of the Great Depression. Although it is well known that thousands of stockholders were forced to sell their stock, it is usually not questioned as to who actually bought-up all of the stock being sold at bargain prices.

1929 November 9 I.G. Farben and Standard Oil sign a cartel agreement that has two objectives: (1) The cartel agreement granted Standard Oil one-half of all rights to the hydrogenation process (producing gasoline from coal, developed by Farben) in all countries except Germany. (2) Standard and Farben agreed "never to compete with each other in the fields of chemistry and petroleum products. In the future, if Standard Oil wished to enter the broad field of industrial chemicals or drugs, it would do so only as a partner of Farben. Farben in turn, agreed never to enter the field of petroleum except as a joint venture with Standard." (Griffin)

1929 November 13 By this day, some $30,000,000,000 in value of listed stocks have been wiped out in the New York Stock Exchange.

1929 November 21 President Hoover, in an attempt to reassure the nation, meets with representatives of big business and trade unions in two separate confidential sessions at the White House. (Schlesinger I)

1929 December Heinrich Bruening, a financial expert supported by Monsignor Kaas, becomes leader of the Catholic Center Party, and its right-wing members assume control.

1929 December 2 Dr. C. B. Davenport asks Professor Fischer to become chairman of the committee on racial crosses of the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations. (Science)

1929 December 3 President in his annual address to Congress declares that confidence in America's business has been reestablished. The events of the following decade will do nothing to justify this statement. (Schlesinger I)

1929 Joseph Goebbels is appointed Reich Propaganda Leader of the Nazi Party.

1929 Jews and Arabs clash at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall. In Hebron, Arabs kill 67 Jews and begin driving Jewish families ot of the city and surrounding areas.

1929 Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli becomes a cardinal of the Catholic Church.

1929 Lazar Kraganovich becomes First Secretary of the Moscow Party Committee and a full member of the Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party.

1929 Bukharin, who had opposed Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture, thereby becoming the leader of the so-called Right Opposition, is deprived of all his posts.

1929 King Alexander institutes absolute rule in troubled Yugoslavia.

1929 The Workers Party of America is renamed and becomes the Communist Party of the United States.

1930 February 23 Horst Wessel, Professor Horbiger's right-hand man, is killed by Communists and is soon transformed into yet another Nazi martyr.

1930 May 18 Local Storm troopers (SA) attend religious services at the Cathedral of Regensburg, bringing with them their flags and banners.

1930 August 10 Rudolf Hess circles his M-23 Messerschmitt (painted with a black swastika) over a leftist meeting in Munich, drowning out the speakers. (Missing Years)

1930 August 23 Rudolf Gorsleben dies and Werner von Bulow takes over the Edda Society's periodical, soon renaming it Hagal All All Hagal, and later simply Hagal. (Roots)

1930 September 14 The Nazis become Germany's second largest party. 107 National Socialist deputies are elected to the Reichstag (20% of the vote). Social Democrats remain the largest party in the Reichstag.

1930 November 9 The Gauleiter (regional party leader) of the state of Hesse seeks permission to lay wreaths on this date at the graves of German soldiers killed in WWI and buried in Catholic cemeteries. His request is denied by the Church on the ground that political parties whose ultimate outlook on life conflicts with Church doctrine can not be allowed to hold such ceremonies on Catholic soil. (Lewy)

1930 November Bishop Schreiber of Berlin indicates that Catholics are not forbidden to become members of the Nazi party.

1930 December Theodor Eicke joins the SS (member No. 2921).

1930 December Dr. Hjalmar Schacht meets Hermann Goering at a dinner party, takes a liking to him, and agrees to meet with Hitler in January. (Children)

1930 December 14 A Catholic priest, Dr. Philipp Haeuser, delivers the principal address at the Christmas celebration of the Nazi party of Augsburg.

1930 December 31 Germania, the daily newspaper the Catholic Center Party, features an article saying of the Nazis: "Here we are no longer dealing with political questions but with a religious delusion which has to be fought with all possible vigor." (Lewy)

1930 The National Socialist Minister of the Interior of the government of the Land of Thuringia invites "race-investigator" H. F. K. Günther to a chair of social anthropology at the University of Jena, against the wishes of the faculty. Professor Lenz comments: "We are happy about the appointment itself, despite our reservations about the way in which it was made." (Science)

1930 Ernst Roehm returns to Germany from Bolivia after a five year absence and begins reorganizing the SA.

1930 Alfred Rosenberg publishes The Myth of the Twentieth Century, calling for the doing away with of the "Jewish" Old Testament, purging the New Testament of its "obviously distorted and superstitious reports," and for the creation of a German Church anchored not in abstract dogma and denomination, but in the forces of blood, race and soil.

1930 Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch publishes a book entitled Doktor Steiner-- ein Schwindler wie keiner, reviling Rudolf Steiner and the Anthroposophy movement as another agent of the Jewish world conspiracy.

1930 From 1930 on, Henrich Himmler busies himself with a number of projects designed to express the moral purpose and ideological mission of the SS.

1930 The Cult of Our Lady of Fatima is authorized by the Catholic church.

1930 Huey P. Long is elected to the U.S. Senate. Long will not resign as governor of Louisiana until his handpicked successor, Oscar (O.K.) Allen, is chosen to replace him in 1932.

1930 The London Naval Conference of 1930 extends the Washington agreement to cruisers and destroyers, and regulates submarine warfare. Britain, Japan, and the United States also accept a treaty limiting the size of battleships. (The Japanese will abrogate these treaties in 1934.)

1930 American astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh discovers the planet Pluto.

1930 Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli becomes Papal Secretary of State under Pope Pius XI.

1930 British engineer Frank Whittle patents a gas turbine engine for jet aircraft.

1930 Carol II is proclaimed king of Romania.

1930 Haile Selassie is declared emperor of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1930 The city of Constantinople is renamed Istanbul.

1931 January Hjalmar Schacht meets with Hitler and is impressed by Hitler's eloquence and absolute conviction. Before long, Schacht begins telephoning politicians, urging that the National Socialists be incorporated into a coalition government. (Children)

1931 January The general student committee of the University of Erlangen, dominated by the National Socialists, makes a request to the Ministry of Culture for the creation of a chair of race-investigation, race-science, race-hygiene, and genetics. (Science)

1931 January 1 The Nazi Brown House is opened in Munich.

1931 January 1 W.A. Harriman & Co. merges with Brown Brothers. Prescott Bush, father of future President George Bush, becomes the managing partner of the new firm: Brown Brothers Harriman, ultimately the largest and most politically important private banking house in America. The London branch of the Brown family firm continued to operate under the name -- Brown, Shipley.

(During the American Civil War (War of Southern Secession), the Brown family with offices in the U.S. and London shipped 75% of the South's slave cotton to British mills.)

1931 Montagu Collet Norman, Bank of England Governor and former Brown Brothers partner, whose grandfather had been boss of Brown Brothers during the Civil War, becomes known within the British aristocracy as one of Hitler's most avid supporters. Some historians suggest it was Montagu Norman who essentially managed the so-called "Hitler Project," an alleged Anglo-American plan to finance Hitler's rise to power as a foil against the Soviets.

1931 February 12 The eight Catholic bishops of Bavaria, organized in the Bavarian (Freising) Bishops Conference under the chairmanship of Cardinal Faulhaber, the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, strictly forbids all Catholic priests from taking part whatsoever in the National Socialist movement. Nazi party formations with flagsare also prohibited from attending services "since such parades in churches would make the people think that the Church had come to terms with National Socialism."

1931 March 5 The six bishops of Cologne compare the errors of National Socialism to those of Action Francaise, already condemned by Pope Pius XII.

1931 March 10 Membership in the Nazi party is ruled impermissable by the three bishops of Paderborn province.

1931 April Johann Warthari Wölfl, Lanz von Liebenfels' long-time follower, begins publishing Ostara-Rundschau (Panarische Revue) based on the concept of "Pan-Aryan" cooperation between the right-wing radical groups of the world. It included the addresses of the "Völkischer Beobachter" in Munich, as well as racist and patriotic associations in Italy, France, Great Britain and the United States. (Roots)

1931 April 22 Averell Harriman meets in Berlin with both Friedrich Flick and Wilhelm Cuno, chief executive of the Hamburg-Amerika Line and a close Warburg associate.

1931 May Credit-Anstalt, Austria's principal bank, fails due to French financial pressure. The collapse is seen by many as an attempt to prevent an anschluss (union) between Germany and Austria.

1931 Summer Otto Rahn visits the castle of Montsegur in France, spending three months carefully exploring the local caves and grottos in search of the Holy Grail.

1931 June 4 Himmler is first introduced to Reinhardt Heydrich at Waldtrudering, where Himmler is recovering from a recent illness. After a brief written examination outlining plans for a new SS intelligence unit, Himmler offers Heydrich a position on his headquarters staff. Himmler is greatly impressed by Heydrich's Nordic appearance. (Secrets)

1931 July The Darmstadter-National Bank in Germany fails.

1931 August 3-5 The Fulda Bishop's Conference, attended by all the Prussian bishops, the bishops of the Upper Rhenish province, as well as the Archbishop of Munich, fail to adopt a clear position on Nazi party membership.

1931 September 12 On the eve of the Jewish New Year, Nazi gangs in Berlin attack Jews returning from synagogue.(Atlas)

1931 September 18 Geli Raubal, Hitler's niece and lover, commits suicide in Hitler's Munich apartment.

1931 September 18 Japanese soldiers stationed in southern Manchuria are involved in a minor clash with Chinese troops. Japan uses the incident as an excuse to spread its forces throughout Manchuria, subduing the region.

1931 December German unemployment exceeds 5 million.

1931 December 31 The SS Engagement and Marriage order is announced. Under this regulation, no member of the SS is allowed to marry until his and his prospective bride's geneology has been analyzed by a new SS department, directed by Richard Walther Darré and eventually designated the Office of Race and Settlement. (The SS, Time-Life Books)

(Note: The order states: "Permission to marry will be granted or refused solely and exclusively on the basis of criteria of race and hereditary health." (Science)

1931 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels enthusiastically reviews a book proposing a Hollow Earth Theory. The founder of the Hollow Earth doctrine was Cyrus R. Teed (1839-1908) who claimed to have undergone a spiritual illumination in 1870, when he received by revelation the tenets of this doctrine, which he called Koreshianity (Koresh is Hebrew for Cyrus). In 1903 he established a community at Estero, Florida. The doctrine was brought to Germany by Peter Bender who read the sect periodical, The Flaming Spear, while a prisoner of war in France. (Roots)

1931 Spain is declared a republic and King Alfonso XIII abdicates.

1931 The Empire State Building in New York becomes the world's tallest building.

1931 In the third edition of his textbook (with E. Baur and E. Fischer), professor Fritz Lenz writes: "We must of course deplore the one-sided 'anti-Semitism' of National Socialism. Unfortunately, it seems that the masses need such 'anti' feelings... we cannot doubt that National Socialism is honestly striving for a healthier race. The question of the quality of our hereditary endowment is a hundred times more important than the dispute over capitalism or socialism, and a thousand times more important than that over the black-white-red or black-red-gold banners." (The banner of the Weimar Republic, which had replaced that of Imperial Germany, black-white-red.) (Science)

1931 The Star-Spangled Banner becomes the national anthem of the United States.

1932 January Japan establishes the puppet state of Manchukuo.

1932 February Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels writes a letter to a member of the (ONT) Order of the New Templars stating "Hitler is one of our pupils...you will one day experience that he, and through him we, will one day be victorious and develop a movement that makes the world tremble." (Ellic Howe; Roots)

1932 March The Romano-Soviet negotiations are held in Riga. The French have asked their allies Romania and Poland to come to a nonaggression agreement with their Russian neighbors.

1932 March 13 Hindenburg fails to win a majority in the Presidentiall elections. Hitler receives 11,339,446 votes (30.1%).

1932 March Theodor Eicke is arrested and accused of terrorism. Several dozen homemade bombs are found in his possession. After posting bail, Eicke flees to Italy, where he takes command of a group of SS exiles.

1932 April Romano-Soviet negotiations are broken off in Riga when the Russians attempt to introduce a clause alluding to Russia's pretensions upon a part of Romanian territory.

1932 April 10 Hindenburg is re-elected President in a runoff election with Hitler. Hindenburg receives a clear majority, but Hitler receives 13,418,547 votes (36.8%).

1932 April 13 The SA and SS are banned after plans for a coup are discovered.

1932 May 6 Paul Doumer, President of the French Republic, is assassinated by Dr. Paul Gourgoulov, a Russian emigre.

1932 May 30 President Hindenburg ousts Heinrich Bruning and appoints Franz von Papen as Chancellor. Papen, only hours before, had promised Monsignor Kaas that he would not undertake the formation of a new government. The Center Party quickly censures Papen.

1932 May 31 Franz von Papen becomes Chancellor and declares his exit from the Catholic Center Party. The Center Party, angry over Bruning's dismissal, soon begins negotiations with the National Socialists aimed at the formation of a coalition government. (Lewy)

1932 June-July Nearly 500 pitched battles take place between Nazis and Communists in Prussia alone. At least least 82 people were killed and 400 wounded. (The SS, Time-Life)

1932 June 3 President Hindenburg dissolves the Reichstag.

1932 June The government ban on the SA and SS is lifted.

1932 July The Reverend Wilhelm Senn, one of the first Catholic priests to join the National Socialist Party, is suspended by the Catholic Church. Senn has broken a promise to submit all future writings to the censorship of the Church. (An article written by Senn earlier in the year had declared Hitler and his movement to be "instruments of divine providence.") (Lewy)

1932 July 2 A committee of the Prussian State Health Council advises and recommends that a law on sterilization be brought in under the title:"Eugenics in the service of public welfare." The law was to permit the 'voluntary' sterilization of the same groups of persons (with the exception of alcoholics) as were later specified in the law of 14 July 1933. (Science)

1932 July 31 The National Socialists win 230 seats in Reichstag elections. The Socialists win 133, the Catholic Center 97, and the Communists, 89. The total vote for the National Socialists is 13,745,000 (37%).

1932 August 13 Hindenburg rejects Hitler's demand to be appointed Chancellor.

1932 August 13 Formal talks begin between Hitler, Bruning and the Catholic Center Party. The meetings drag on for weeks.

1932 August 21 The Third International Congress on Eugenics is held at the Museum of Natural History in New York. The Congress proceedings are dedicated to Averell Harriman's mother, who had paid for the founding of the race-science movement in America (see 1910).

1932 August 23 Dr. C. B. Davenport, speaking at the International Congress of Eugenics in New York, suggests Professor Fischer as his successor as president of the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations. Professor Fischer declines, due to other commitments, and Dr Rüdin (in Munich) is elected. (Science)

1932 August 30 Hermann Goering, with backing from the Catholic Center Party, becomes President of the Reichstag.

1932 September The Catholic Center Party deputies in the Reichstag vote for a Communist sponsored no-confidence motion against Papen's government.

1932 September 12 President Hindenburg again dissolves the Reichstag.

1932 October Sir Oswald Mosley founds the British Union of Fascists.

1932 November 6 New elections fail to break a parliamentary deadlock. The National Socialists lose 34 seats.

1932 November 9 Leon Nicole, leader of the Bolsheviks in Switzerland, and his assistant, a Russian Jew named Dicker, instigate an uprising that results in the deaths of 13 people. More than a hundred are injured.

1932 November 11 Johann Warthari Wölfl, a longtime follower of Lanz von Liebenfels, founds the Lumenclub in Vienna to reintroduce ONT (Order of the New Templars) ideas to a new right-wing public. (Roots)

1932 November 17 Papen and his Cabinet are forced to resign.

1932 November Thirty-nine prominent industrialists and businessmen petition Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as his new Chancellor. Hindenburg refuses.

1932 December 3 General von Schleicher is appointed Chancellor.

1932 December 8 Gregor Strasser resigns from his Nazi party offices.

1932 December 14 The Reverend Wilhelm Senn is reinstated by the Catholic Church.

1932 A famine in Russia brings mounting opposition to Stalin within his own party. Brutally suppressing the peasant resistance, Stalin refuses to slacken the pace of his collectivization.

1932 Eamon de Valera is elected president of the Republic of Ireland.

1932 Engelbert Dollfuss is elected chancellor of Austria.

1932 Presidential nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt pledges a New Deal.

1932 Karl Maria Wiligut, the Austrian occultist, flees his family and emigrates to Munich. He is 66 years old. (Roots)

1933 January 1 Hypnotist Erik Hanussen, predicts Hitler will come to power on January 30, 1933. (Waite)

1933 January 3 Hanussen's prediction is widely ridiculed by Hitler's enemies and the German press. (Waite)

1933 January 4 Hitler holds a secret meeting with Franz von Papen.

1933 January Heinrich Himmler, while traveling in Westphalia, is inspired (probably by Weisthor/Wiligut) to begin thinking about acquiring a castle in the area for use by the SS. (Hüser)

1933 January 23 Molotov makes a speech announcing ratification of nonaggression pacts with all of Russia's neighbors except Romania.

1933 January 28 General von Schleicher resigns as Chancellor.

1933 January 30 Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor by President Hindenberg. Franz von Papen becomes Vice-Chancellor. Only three of the eleven posts in the cabinet are held by National Socialists.

1933 January 30 Juedische Jugendhilfe (Jewish Youth Help), the agency overseeing Youth Aliya (immigration to Palestine), is founded.

1933 January 30 Brownshirts (SA) and Communists violently clash in the streets throughout Germany. The SA celebrates Hitler's accession to power with a torchlight parade through Berlin.

1933 January 31 Edouard Deladier becomes premier of France.

1933 January 31 Eamon De Valera wins in Irish Free State Elections.

1933 February Albert Einstein, lecturing in California at the time of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor, decides to take up residence in America. From this time until his death in 1955, he will hold an analogous research position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. (Grolier)

1933 Early in 1933, Hitler tells Hermann Rauschning that "One is either a German or a Christian. You cannot be both." (Rauschning)

1933 February 1 Hitler makes his first radio address to the German people after becoming Chancellor. Hitler declares that the members of the new government "would preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built up. They regard Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of our national life." (Lewy)

1933 February 1 Hitler obtains a decree from Hindenburg ordering dissolution of the Reichstag. New elections are called for March 5, 1933.

1933 February 1 Professor Fischer gives a lecture, entitled: "Racial crosses and intellectual achievement" in the Harnack House of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. (Science)

1933 February 1 Italy publishes the Fascist Ten Commandments. (Edelheit)

1933 February 2 Hitler bans all political demonstrations except those of the National Socialists.

1933 February 2 The Geneva Disarmament Conference begins.

1933 February 3 Hitler secretly addresses the top leaders of the German armed forces, setting out his aims for the new Germany he envisions.

1933 February 4 Hitler announces a new rule "for the protection of the German people" which allows the Nazis to forbid meetings of other political groups.

1933 February 5 Martial law is proclaimed over most of Romania.

1933 February 6 The Prussian state legislature is dissolved and its powers are transferred to the Reichskomissariat (State Commissariat), the ciivil administration of the German central government in Berlin. (Edelheit)

1933 February 6 Socialists in England, Germany, France, Poland, Italy, Norway and Holland call for cooperation between Social Democrats and Communists in the struggle against Nazism. (Edelheit)

1933 February 6 The Danish government prohibits strikes and walkouts.

1933 February 7 Communist leader Ernst Thaelman calls for reorganization of the German Communist Party (KPD) in preparation for clandestine operations in Germany. (Edelheit)

1933 February 8 Egypt's King Fuad meets with World Zionist Organization (WZO) president Nahum Sokolow.

1933 February 11 A large protest rally is staged in Tel Aviv by Hitahdut ha-Zionim ha-Revisionistim (HA-ZOHAR) (Union of Zionists-Revisionists) supporters. (Edelheit)

1933 February 12 Jews begin an exodus from Nazi Germany.

1933 February 15 An assassination attempt is made on the life of President-elect Roosevelt by Joseph Zangara, an Italian-born anarchist in Miami. Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak is mortally wounded in the attack.

1933 February 16 Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia reorganize the "Little Entente."

1933 February The Franco-Russian Non-Aggression Treaty is ratified.

1933 February 20 Hermann Goering sponsors a fundraiser for Hitler at his residence, a small palace, in Berlin. Attending are Gustav Krupp of Krupp steelworks, Albert Voegler of United Steel, Fritz Springorum, another steel magnate, and Georg von Schnitzler of I.G. Farben, among others. One of the 25 business titans at this meeting is Eduard Schulte, chief executive officer of Giesche, "one of the oldest industrial undertakings in the world and one of the most valuable in Europe." (N.Y. Times; Silence)

1933 February 21 The German Union of Red Fighters exhorts the Young Proletarians to disarm the SA and SS.

1933 February 22 Goering convinces the Prussian government to decree the gradual abolition of the interdenominational schools and reintroduce religious instruction in the vocational schools "for political reasons." (Lewy)

1933 February 22 The American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee and B'nai B'rith (Sons of the Covenant) form a joint conference committee to examine the German situation. (Edelheit)

1933 February 23 "Red Sailor," the official Communist organ, calls for violence. "Workers, to the barricades! Forward to victory! Fresh bullets in your guns! Draw the pins of the hand-grenades." (Toland)

1933 February 23 Japanese forces occupy China north of the Great Wall.

1933 February 24 Nazi police raid the Communist Party headquarters in Berlin. An official announcement says the police have discovered plans for a Communist uprising.

1933 February 24 The Stahlhelm (Steel Helmet), the SA and SS are officially granted auxiliary police status.

1933 February 25 Sir Arthur Wauchope, British High Commissioner of Palestine, rejects Arab demands that would make the sale of Arab lands to Jews illegal.

1933 February 26 During a seance in Berlin, Eric Hanussen predicts that a great fire will soon strike a large building in the Capital. An eagle, he said, will rise from the smoke and flames.

1933 February 27 A law is announced recognizing seven Catholic feast days as legal German holidays. (Lewy)

1933 February 27 A huge fire destroys the Reichstag, the seat of German government. Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch Communist, is arrested after he is found bare to the waist inside the Reichstag. During interrogation, the young radical confesses that he set the fire "As a protest," but denies any connection with the Communist Party and swears he alone had set the fires inside the Reichstag. Rudolf Diels, chief of the Prussian political police, tells Hitler that van der Lubbe's confession rings true, but Hitler refuses to believe the arsonist had acted alone and blames the Communist movement as a whole for the troubles that continue to plague Germany. Hitler and Goebbels work from midnight to dawn at the "Völkischer Beobachter"offices preparing the next day's edition, which accuses the Reds of a plot to seize power and setting fire to the Reichstag.

1933 February 28 Hindenburg signs the "Decree for the Protection of the People and the State," which has been quickly drafted by Hitler and his aides. This emergency decree suspends the civil liberties granted by the Weimar Constitution. Free speech, free press, sanctity of the home, security of mail and telephone, freedom to assemble or form organizations and the inviolability of private property are all abolished. It also allows the Nazis to put their political opponents in prison and establish concentration camps.

1933 February 28 The SA and SS quickly begin rounding up German Communists.

1933 March 1 Nazi Germany promulgates decrees covering "Provocation to Armed Conflict" and "Provocation to a General Strike."

1933 March 3 Hitler tells a large audience in Frankfurt that he "will not be crippled by any bureaucracy. I won't have to worry about justice, my mission is only to destroy and exterminate."

1933 March 4 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is inaugurated 32nd U.S. President. John N. Garner becomes Vice President.

1933 March 4 Esterwegen, a concentration camp, opens near Hannover. (Edelheit)

1933 March 4 The Austrian parliament is dissolved.

1933 March 5 The NSDAP receives 44% of the vote (288 seats) in the Reichstag elections. Although the Nazis had a sizable plurality over any other party, they still lacked an absolute majority. The Nazi-Nationalist coalition is required to give them a narrow majority of 52 %. Goebbels is in charge of the Nazi campaign during the elections.

1933 March 5 President Roosevelt soon announces a four-day "bank holiday" that enables the Federal Reserve to reflow income tax receipts into the banking system.

1933 March 5 The SA, Stahlhelm and Schutzpolizei (Protective Police) stage a victory parade in Berlin.

1933 March 6 Monsignor Kaas visits Vice Chancellor Papen, offering to put an end to their old animosities. (Lewy)

1933 March 6 An emergency decree proclaimed by the Nazis, For the Protection of the German People, restricts the opposition press and information services. (Edelheit)

1933 March 6 Marshal Pilsudski sends Polish troops into Danzig, breaking a 1921 agreement that it remain a free city.

1933 March 7 Prescott Bush's American Ship and Commerce Corporation notifies Max Warburg that Warburg is now the corporation's officially designated representative on the board of Hamburg-Amerika Line.

1933 March 7 Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss proclaims a dictatorship and soon after dissolves the Bundesversammlung as anti-government agitation increases following the Nazi success in Germany.

1933 March 8 Dollfuss suspends freedom of the press and prohibits parades and assemblies throughout Austria./P>

1933 March 9 The Bavarian government, headed by Heinrich Held of the Bavarian People's Party, is forced out of office. (Lewy)

1933 March 9 Heinrich Himmler becomes president of Munich's police.

1933 March 9 The U.S. Congress passes the Emergency Banking Relief Act, leading to the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). (Edelheit)

1933 March 9 Japan withdraws from the League of Nations.

1933 March 9/10 The SA sponsors a series of anti-Jewish riots throughout Germany. KPD headquarter and individual Communists are searched and attacked by the German police.

1933 March 11 The U.S. agrees to participate in a League of Nations commission to consider the Chinese-Japanese dispute.

1933 March 12 The SA stages several incidents along the German-French border.

1933 March 12 President Roosevelt delivers his first "fireside chat."

1933 March 13 Hitler appoints Joseph Goebbels Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. He quickly begins "coordinating" all aspects of cultural life, the press and communications under the control of the Nazi Party. Day after day, Goebbels drills home the messages of blood, race, and glory, all cleverly designed to appeal to the broadest segment of the German masses. Antisemitism was one of his highest priorities and most useful tools.

1933 March 13 Cardinal Faulhaber tells a conference of Bavarian bishops that Pope Pius XI had "publicly praised the Chancellor Adolf Hitler for the stand which the latter had taken against Communism." (Lewy)

1933 March 13 The SA organizes picket lines at court entrances in Breslau to prevent Jewish judges and lawyers access.

1933 March 14 The Communists (KPD) tries to establish an anti-Nazi coalition with the German Social Democratic Party (SPD).

1933 March 15 Brandenburg concentration camp opens near Berlin.

1933 March 16 Dr. Hjalmar Schacht is appointed president of the Reichsbank.

1933 March 17 Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler is established as a 120-man bodyguard contingent of the SS, under Sepp Dietrich. SS-Sonderkommandos (special detachments) are established in all major German cities. (Edelheit)

1933 March 17 Hitler declares himself a man of peace and international cooperation in a speech to the Reichstag.

1933 March 17 Poland protests the mistreatment of Polish Jew in Germany.

1933 March 18 Papen visits Cardinal Bertram, inquiring whether the Church would not revise its stand on Nazism. The Cardinal tells him, ""The act of revising has to be undertaken by the leader of the National Socialists himself." (Lewy)

1933 March 18 Nazis arrest and beat Jews in Oehringen.

1933 March 19 The Jewish War Veterans of America initiates an anti-Nazi boycott.

1933 March 20 Negotiations begin between Hitler and Frick on one side and the Catholic Center Party leaders, Kaas, Stegerwald and Hackelsburger, on the other. The question is: under what conditions would the Center Party vote for an Enabling Act desired by Hitler? (The consent of the Catholic parties was necessary if this act was to receive the required two-thirds majority vote.) (Lewy)

1933 March 20 Himmler announces the opening of a new concentration camp at Dachau, nine miles north of Munich.

1933 March 20 Goering issues orders to the police authorizing the use of force against hostile demonstrators.

1933 March 20 The Reichstag gives Hitler full leadership powers.

1933 March 20 The Jews of Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) declare an anti-Nazi boycott. (Edelheit)

1933 March 20 The American Jewish Committee and B'nai B'rith jointly condemn Germany for denying German Jews their basic rights.

1933 March 21 Hitler and Hindenburg attend elaborate ceremonies opening the new Reichstag in Potsdam. Hitler and Goebbels intentionally fail to attend special Catholic services. An official communique explains that they feel obliged to absent themselves because Catholic bishops in a number of recent declarations had called Hitler and members of the NSDAP renegades of the Church, who should not be admitted to the sacraments. "To this day, these declarations have not been retracted and the Catholic clergy continues to act accordingly to them." ("Augsburger Postzeitung")

1933 March 21 The German Comunist Party (KPD) is eliminated, giving the Nazis an absolute majority in the Reichstag. Several Communists are imprisoned at a munitions plant near Oranienburg, nine miles north of Berlin. This camp will close in 1935.

1933 March 21 Germany establishes special courts for political enemies.

1933 March 22 Negotiations between Hitler, Frick and the Center Party are concluded. Hitler promises to continue the existence of the German states, not to use the new grant of power to change the constitution, and to retain civil servants belonging to the Catholic Center Party. Hitler also pledges to protect the Catholic confessional schools and to respect the concordats signed between the Holy See and Bavaria (1924), Prussia (1929) and Baden (1931). Hitler also agrees to mention these promises in his speech to the Reichstag before the vote on the Enabling Act. (Lewy)

1933 March 22 Konzentrationlager (KL) Dachau, a concentration camp for political prisoners, opens near Munich. SA and SS members are deployed as auxiliary policemen to guard the prisoners.

1933 March 22 The Gestapo searches Albert Einstein's apartment in Berlin. (Edelheit)

1933 March 22 Rabbi Stephen S. Wise testifies before the U.S. House of Representative's Immigration Committee.

1933 March 22 A "Stop Hitler, Now" rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City is attended by 20,000 people.

1933 March 23 Goering opens the first session of the new Reichstag and raises the problem of the anti-Nazi boycott.

1933 March 23 Hitler makes his policy statement to the Reichstag, promising to work for peaceful relations with the Catholic Church.

1933 March 23 In the evening session of the Reichstag, Monsignor Kaas announces that the Catholic Center Party, despite some certain misgivings, will vote for the Enabling Act.

1933 March 23 With Catholic Center Party support, the Enabling Act is passed by the Reichstag, transferring the power of legislation from the Reichstag to the cabinet. The Enabling Act gives Hitler the power to pass his own laws, independent of the President or anyone else; making Hitler more powerful than any Kaiser in German History.

1933 March 23 Spain outlaws Fascist propaganda.

1933 March 24 Monsignor Kaas leaves Berlin for a brief visit to Rome, supposedly to discuss problems in the former German territory of Eupen-Malmedy. (Lewy)

1933 March 24 The World Alliance for Combatting Antisemitism calls for a boycott of German goods and services, to last until the Nazis stop persecuting German Jews. (Edelheit)

1933 March 25 Cardinal Bertram writes a list of proposed instructions to the clergy. He has now joined the group of bishops who favor withdrawing the various prohibitions imposed on the Nazi party. (Lewy)

1933 March 25 The Bavarian Ministry of Justice replaces Jewish judges in disciplinary and criminal cases.

1933 March 25 Goering publicly denies mistreatment of Jews and political opponents.

1933 March 27 Max Warburg writes a letter assuring Harriman and his associates at Brown Brothers Harriman that the Hitler government is good for Germany. "I feel perfectly convinced that there is no cause for any alarm whatsoever," Warburg concludes. (Warburgs)

1933 March 27 The American Jewish Congress sponsors a mass anti-Nazi demonstration in New York City.

1933 March 28 The German Catholic episcopate, organized as the Fulda Bishop's Conference, withdraws its earlier prohibition against membership in the Nazi party and admonishes the faithful to be both loyal and obedient to the new Nazi regime. (Lewy)

1933 March 28 A large protest rally is held in Tel Aviv against the persecution of German Jews by the Nazis.

1933 March 29 Austrian Nazis stage a giant demonstration and riot after the Dollfuss government forbids the wearing of uniforms by members of any political party. Hitler retaliates by imposing a tax of 1,000 marks on any German who visits Austria, thus ruining Austria’s tourist business.

1933 March 29 Max Warburg's son, Erich, sends a cable to his cousin, Frederick M. Warburg, a director of the Harriman railroad system, asking him to "use all your influence" to stop all anti-Nazi activity in America, including "atrocity news and unfriendly propaganda in foreign press, mass meetings, etc." (Warburgs)

1933 March 30 Cardinal Faulhaber agrees to accept the text proposed by Bertram on the 25th. Thus this important proclamation appears with the backing of all the German bishops. (Lewy)

1933 March 30 Ambassador Diego von Bergen who has returned to Berlin from the Vatican is received by Hindenburg, as well as Hitler.

1933 March 30 President Hindenburg tries to convince Hitler to cancel a planned Nazi boycott against German Jewish shops and businesses. (Edelheit)

1933 March 30 The British House of Lords is the scene of a demonstration against Nazi persecution of German Jews.

1933 March 30 A telephone line linking London with Jerusalem goes into operation.

1933 March 31 The American Jewish Committee and the B'nai B'rith issue a formal, official joint statement, counseling "that no American boycott against Germany be encouraged," and advising "that no further mass meetings be held or similar forms of agitation be employed." (Gottlieb)

1933 March 31 Monsignor Kaas is back in Berlin after being recalled for talks with Hitler. (Bernhard von Bulow; Lewy)

1933 March 31 The Socialist uniformed defense force (Schutzbund) is ordered disbanded by the Austrian government.

1933 March 31 Oranienburg, near Berlin, is officially established as a concentration camp.

1933 March Theodor Eicke returns to Germany from Italy.

1933 April Dr. Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and later known as Sister Teresia Benedicta a Cruce of the Order of the Carmelites, communicates with Pope Pius XI from Germany, expressing grave concerns about the Nazis' antisemitic aims and requesting that the Pontif to issue an encyclical on the Jewish question. Dr. Stein's request is not granted (see August 1942). (Lewy)

1933 April 1 The Catholic Teacher Organization publishes a declaration noting with approval that Adolf Hitler and his movement have overcome the un-German spirit which triumphed in the revolution of 1918. (Lewy)

1933 April 1 Hitler stages a nationwide, one-day boycott of Jewish businesses, physicians and lawyers. Armed SA men are posted in front of Jewish-owned shops and stores to prevent would-be customers from entering. In an effort to silence foreign criticism of Germany's treatment of the Jews, signs are posted in English implying that Jewish claims of persecution are false.(Apparatus)

1933 April 1 Prussian Jews are forbidden to act as notary publics.

1933 April 1 Himmler is appointed chief of the Bavarian Political Police.

1933 April 1 SA men demolish the interior of the Mannheim synagogue.

1933 April 1 Pope Pius XI proclaims holy year.

1933 April 2 The Catholic Worker's Movement declares its readiness to cooperate in the creation of a strong national state and the building of an order at once Christian and German.

1933 April 2 Monsignor Kaas has a private talk with Hitler.

1933 April 3 The Kreuz und Adler (Cross and Eagle) organization is founded by Catholic supporters of the new Nazi state. Formation of this group was initiated by Papen, who assumed the title of Protector.

1933 April 4 The Central Association of Catholic fraternities withdraws its ban on membership in the Nazi party.

1933 April 4 Legislation of anti-Jewish laws begins in Germany.

1933 April 4 Robert Weltsch publishes an article in the Juedische Rundschau (Jewish Review) under the banner headline, "Wear the Yellow Star with Pride," in reaction to the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany. (Edelheit)

1933 April 6 The Paris Journal publishes a story by a correspondent in Berlin reporting that Germany has made overtures to the Vatican concerning a concordat, one of the main points of which is a provision that would forbid Catholic priests to be candidates for political office. (Lewy)

1933 April 6 Heinrich Bruening succeeds Monsignor Kaas as leader of the Catholic Center Party.

1933 April 7 Monsignor Kaas once again leaves Berlin on a trip to Rome. (Lewy)

1933 April 7 Papen leaves Berlin for Munich. Papen asks Fritz Menshausen to keep the purpose of his trip secret, indicating that he will tell the press he had gone to Rome for a vacation over the Easter holidays.

1933 April 7 The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, a new German Civil Service law, is promulgated. Thousands of Jews are barred from German civil service and judicial positions. All those who earlier had opposed the Nazis are at risk of losing their jobs. Hundreds of Catholics and Communists had already been replaced, and many more are soon to follow.

Note: Jews who were frontline veterans of World War I, those in government service since 1914 and close relatives of fallen soldiers were temporarily exempted by the new law. (Lewy)

1933 April 7 The Law concerning State Governors strips the German states of their autonomous powers. Hitler appoints Reichsstatthälter (Reich governors) in all German states, superceding the regular, elected governments. (Lewy)

1933 April 7 The Law Concerning Admission to the Legal Profession is published in Germany affecting Jewish judges, district attorneys and lawyers.

1933 April 7 Switzerland denies "political fugitive" status to Jews fleeing Germany. (Edelheit)

1933 April 8 Monsignor Kaas secretly meets Papen in Munich. Together they travel on to Rome. Kaas will never again set foot on German soil. (Lewy)

1933 April 8 Zionist leaders, including Chaim Weizmann and Chaim Arlosoroff, meet with Arab leaders from Transjordan at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

1933 April 9 Hermann Goering flies directly to Rome from Berlin.

1933 April 9 After Kaas and Papen arrive in Rome, Kaas is the first to be received by Secretary of State Pacelli.

1933 April 10 Papen has a morning meeting with Pacelli. Later in the day, Papen and Goering are received by Pope Pius XI. According to Papen, the Pope tells them that he is pleased the German government now has at itshead "a man uncompromisingly opposed to Communism and Russian nihilism in all its forms." They then begin laying the groundwork for the concordat. Although the purpose of their visit is still secret, the Italian press openly reports that Papen and Goering have been received with great honor. (Lewy)

1933 April 10 Wittmoor concentration camp opens near Hamburg.

1933 April 11 Administration of Dachau concentration camp is taken over by the SS.

1933 April 12 A debate in the British House of Lords considers the fate of German Jews under Nazi rule. The British cabinet considers the Jewish refugee situation.

1933 April 13 Jehovah's Witnesses and their religion are officially suppressed in Bavaria. The Catholic Church accepts the assignment, given it by the Ministry of Education and Religion, to report on any member of the sect still practicing this "forbidden religion." (Lewy)

1933 April 14 Japan begins an anti-Jewish drive in Tokyo. (Edelheit)

1933 April 15 Papen and Kaas meet again with Pacelli. Kaas is subsequently instructed to prepare a draft of the concordat. (Lewy)

1933 April 15 Osthofen concentration camp opens in Hessen.

1933 April 17 Uniformed members of of BETAR (Brith Trumpeldor), a Revisionist Zionist Youth Organization, are attacked by workers and residents of Tel Aviv while marching through the city. (Edelheit)

1933 April 18 Pacelli and Pope Pius XI have a lengthy conversation about the concordat. In the evening, Papen leaves for Berlin.

1933 April 19 The U.S. drops from the gold standard.

1933 April 20 On Hitler's 44th birthday, Monsignor Kaas sends a telegram of congratulations from Rome that is widely published in the German press. Kaas assures Hitler of "unflinching cooperation." This undoubtedly accelerates the movement of Catholics into the Nazi camp. (Lewy)

1933 April 21 Germany enacts a law banning all kosher rituals and prohibiting Jewish ritual slaughter (shechita). (Persecution)

1933 April 21 Rudolf Hess is named Director of the Political Central Committee and deputy fuehrer of the NSDAP. He is authorized to decide all matters concerning the direction of the Party in Hitler's name. (Missing Years)

1933 April 21/22 Anti-Jewish decrees passed by Germany hit a record, numbering 400.

1933 April 22 A law is passed dismissing all "non-Aryan" medical doctors, pharmacists, dentists and dental technicians from German hospitals, clinics and public health centers.

1933 April 24 Baron von Ritter, the Bavarian ambassador at the Vatican reports to Berlin that Monsignor Kaas and the Papal Secretary of State are in constant touch with each other. "There can be no doubt that Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) approves of a policy of sincere cooperation by the Catholics within the framework of the Christian Weltanschauung (world view) in order to benefit and lead the National Socialist Movement." (Lewy)

1933 April 25 The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute receives a letter from the Ministry of the Interior containing directions that the law for the restoration of the professional civil service be applied to the society's employees. Two days later, the Secretary General instructs the directors to carry out these measures. (Science)

1933 April 25 The Law for Preventing Overcrowding in German Schools and colleges is promulgated, limiting admittance to 1.5 percent for "non-Aryans" seeking higher education.

1933 April 26 Hitler tells Bishop Berning and Monsignor Steinmann, representatives of the Catholic Church in Germany, that he is only going to do to the Jews what the Church of Rome has been trying to do without success for over 1,500 years. (Lewy)

(Note: Hitler stated that he was personally convinced of the great power and significance of Christianity and would not permit the founding of another religion. For this reason, he said, he had parted company with General Ludendorff, and stressed that Rosenberg's anticlerical book was no concern of his -- since it was a private publication. Being a Catholic himself, Hitler added, he would not tolerate another Kulturkampf and the rights of the Church would be left intact. (Lewy)

1933 April 26 The Gestapo begins functioning as a state sanctioned terror organization. (Edelheit)

1933 April 27 A British-German trade agreement is signed.

1933 April 28 Cordell Hull assures representatives of American Jewish organizations that the U.S. State Department will continue to monitor the Jewish situation in Germany.

1933 April 29 David Ben-Gurion is attacked by members of BETAR, the Zionist youth movement, in Riga, Latvia. (Edelheit)

1933 May An agreement is reached in Berlin between Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler's economics minister, and John Foster Dulles, the international attorney for literally dozens of Nazi enterprises. This new pact calls for all Nazi trade and commerce with the U.S. to be coordinated with The Harriman International Co., headed by Averell Harriman's first cousin, Oliver. Max Warburg and Kurt von Schroeder are also involved in the negotiations.

1933 May 1 Hitler holds a massive May Day celebration for German workers.

1933 May 2 On Hitler's orders, all independent and Socialist trade unions in Germany are closed down and dissolved. The remains are united into the German Labor Front (DAF). (Lewy, Edelheit)

1933 May 2-3 The central board of the Association of Catholic Young men decides that "the fact of belonging to the Jungmännerverein in principle does not rule out membership in the NSDAP, including its various formations (SA, SS etc.)." Soon afterward, the Nazi party forbids simultaneous membership in Catholic and National Socialist organizations. (Roth, Katholische Jugend)

1933 May 2 Germany outlaws the German Communist Party (KPD).

1933 May 3 Sachsenburg (Sachsen) concentration camp goes into operation.

1933 May 4 The Nazis publish a second ordinance of the Law for the Restoration of the Civil Service.

1933 May 5 University students in Cologne burn book concerning Judaism or written by Jewish authors.

1933 May 6 The Reich Minister of Justice, Gürtner, speaks to his colleagues in state governments: "I should like to ask you all to consider whether you can envisage any legislative procedure whereby we can prevent marriages of mixed race." (Science)

1933 May 6 Teachers dismissed due to the Law for the Restoration of the Civil Service, now lose their licenses to teach or lecture.

1933 May 8 English Revisionists repudiate Vladimir (Zeev) Jabotinsky, founder of BETAR and HA-ZOHAR. (Edelheit)

1933 May 10 The property of the Social Democratic Party is confiscated on Hitler's order. (Lewy)

1933 May 10 Goebbels and his Propaganda Ministry sponsor a book burning session in Berlin. Thousands of books by Jewish authors and those that the Nazis consider un-German are fed to the flames. Similar burnings occur throughout Germany. (Edelheit)

1933 May 10 The American Jewish Congress stages an anti-Nazi parade through lower Manhattan.

1933 May 10 A large anti-Nazi rally is held at the Trocadero in Paris.

1933 May 11 The French Senate holds discussions on the German situation.

1933 May 12 The Young Reform Movement is founded in Germany by Reverend Martin Niemoeller.

1933 May 12 The U.S. dollar is devalued by 50 percent.

1933 May 12 Nazis seize local trade union headquarters in Danzig.

1933 May 15 Erbhoefe, a Nazi law regarding hereditary domains is published, No Jew or Negro can be part of these family holdings. (Edelheit)

1933 May 17 Hitler makes his first major "peace" speech, denying his intent to subject other nations to German domination.

1933 May 17 Strikes and walkouts are banned in Germany.

1933 May 17 Spain nationalizes church property and bans church-run schools.

1933 May 17 The Bernheim Petition is submitted to the League of Nations.

1933 May 18 The general secretary of the Catholic Journeyman's Association invites Hitler to a national meeting of apprentices to be held in Munich the following month. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)

1933 May 18 The Central British Fund for German Jewry is established in London.

1933 May 23 Church leaders in Holland protest Nazi treatment of Jews.

1933 May 23 Republican Congressman Louis T. McFadden of Pennsylvania brings impeachment charges against the Federal Reserve Board, the agency he says that caused the Stock Market Crash of 1929, with these charges, among others:

"I charge them... with having... taken over $80,000,000,000 (eighty billion dollars) from the United States government in the year 1928....

I charge them... with having arbitrarily and unlawfully raised and lowered the rates on money... increased and diminished the volume of currency in circulation for the benefit of private interests...."

I charge them... with having conspired to to transfer to foreigners and international money lenders title to and control of the financial resources of the United States....

It was a carefully contrived occurrence... The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as the rulers of us all. (Congressional Record May 23, 1933)

1933 May 26 Some 1,200 Protestant clergymen in the U.S. sign a manifesto protesting Nazi treatment of Jews and others.

1933 May 27 The World's Fair opens in Chicago.

1933 May 28 Nazis in Danzig win a majority (50.3%) in Volkstag (Senate) elections.

1933 May 29 Congressman McFadden makes a violent attack on the Jews of America in a speech in the U.S. Congress. Rabbi Lee J. Levinger has characterized this speech as the first evidence of political antisemitism in the United States (Anti-Semitism: Yesterday and Tomorrow, 1936).

(Note: Two assassination attempts by gunfire were made on McFadden's life. He later died a few hours after attending a banquet. Rumors persist that he was poisoned) (Larson)

1933 May 29 A manifesto calling for a worldwide action to save German Jews is published by Lord Cecil, David Lloyd George, General Jan Smuts, Sir Herbert Samuel, Chaim Weizmann, Peter Warburg, M. Rotenburg and Nahum Sokolow. (Edelheit)

1933 May 30 The Council of the League of Nations censures Germany for its anti-Jewish actions in Upper Silesia.

1933 May 31 A confrontation breaks out between BETAR members and Ha-Poel in Haifa. (Edelheit)

1933 June Unity Mitford joins the British Union of Fascists.

1933 June 1 A Chinese-Japanese armistice is signed.

1933 June 2 Chaim Arlosoroff and Selig Brodestsky meet with British colonial minister Philip Cunliffe-Lister regarding aid to German Jews.

1933 June 3 Pope Pius XI declares "Universally is known the fact that the Catholic Church is never bound to one form of government more than to another, provided the divine rights of God and of Christian conscience are safe. She does not find any difficulty in adapting herself to various civil institutions, be they monarchic or republican, aristocratic or democratic." (Lewy)

1933 June 7 In Rome, the four Big Powers, France Britain, Italy and Germany sign the Quadripartite Pact of Guarantee proposed by Mussolini, a reinvigoration of the Locarno Pact. All parliaments will ratify this new pact except for France, which rejects it and therefore prevents it from coming into force.

1933 June 7 The Central Fund for German Jewry is established by Va'ad Leumi, with Henrietta Szold as chairwoman.

1933 June 8 The first plenary session of the Central Fund for German Jewry opens in Jerusalem. (Edelheit)

1933 June 8-10 An all-German meeting of Catholic Journeymen held in Munich is broken up by force. (See May 18)

1933 June 12 The World Monetary and Economic Conference opens in London with 64 nations in attendance.

1933 June 15 At the first public meeting of the Kreuz and Adler (Cross and Eagle) in Berlin, Papen calls for the overcoming of liberalism and characterized the Third Reich as a "Christian counterrevolution to 1789." (Lewy)

1933 June 16 The National Industry Recovery Act (NRA) passes in the United States.

1933 June 16 Papen informs Ambassador Bergen that Hitler has agreed to his going to Rome to complete negotiations for the concordat in person.

1933 June 16 Zionist Labor leader Chaim Arlosoroff is assassinated in Tel Aviv.

1933 June 16 German statistics for "believing Jews in the Reich, not including the Saar, are officially put at 499,682. (Edelheit)

1933 June 19 Leon Trotsky is granted political asylum in France.

1933 June 21 The Stahlhelm is absorbed by the Nazis.

1933 June 21 Austria passes anti-Nazi measures.

1933 June 22 The German Social Democrat Party (SPD) is outlawed by the Nazis.

1933 June 22 Goering issues a decree instructing all government employees to spy on each other.

1933 June 24 The German Congress of Christian Trade Unions is dissolved.

1933 June 24 The Association of Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany states that they have no quarrel with the Nazi regime and its principles except for swearing an oath of loyalty to Hitler.

1933 June 26 The Federation of Jewish Communities of Switzerland and the Berne Jewish Community bring an action against five members of the Swiss National Front, seeking a judgment that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a forgery and a prohibition of their publication. (See May 14, 1935)

1933 June 26 The Academy of German Law is established.

1933 June 27 An anti-Nazi demonstration at Queen's Hall in London is addressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang.

1933 June 28 Goebbels, threatening force, publicly demands the dissolution of the Catholic Center Party.

1933 June 28 The Democrats (Staatspartei) dissolve themselves.

1933 June 29 Franz von Papen leaves Berlin for Rome.

1933 June 29 Bruening tells the British Ambassador in Berlin, Sir Horace Rumbold, that the Catholic Center Party will probably dissolve itself the following day. (Lewy)

1933 June 30 Alfred Hugenberg, leader of the German Nationalists, resigns from the Cabinet while his aides begin liquidating the party.

1933 July Hitler tells Winifred Wagner that once he and the Nazis have achieved full power he will dissolve all the monasteries and confiscate church property.

1933 July 1 Hitler telephones Papen in Rome with instructions, authorizing Papen to tell Pacelli that after the conclusion of the Concordat he "would arrange for a thorough and full pacification between the Catholic portion of the people and the Reich government," and that he "would be willing to put a finish to the story of past political developments." (Lewy)

1933 July 1 Jewish student organizations are abolished in Germany.

1933 July 1 Dollfuss threatens to implement strong measures aginst Austrian Nazis if they don't cease their anti-Jewish campaign.

1933 July 1 A conference of German housewives in Berlin excludes all Jewish women from its membership.

1933 July 1 Francois Coty, publisher of a chain of French newspapers, is found guilty by a French court for having committed libel against a number of Jewish war veteran organizations. (Edelheit)

1933 July 2 Final agreement on the concordat is reached despite the news of continuing arrests of priests in Germany. Papen reports Pius XI "had insisted on the conclusion of the Concordat because he wanted to come to an agreement with Italy and Germany as the countries which, in his opinion, represented the nucleus of the Christian world."

1933 July 3 Papen cables German foreign minister Konstantin von Neurath, "In the discussions which I had with Pacelli, Archbishop Groeber, and Kaas this evening, it developed that with the conclusion of the Concordat, the dissolution of the Center Party is regarded here as certain and is approved."

1933 July 3 Roosevelt rejects the World Monetary and Economic Conference's stabilization plan.

1933 July 3 Statutory religious organizations throughout Germany are forbidden to employ Jews. (Edelheit)

1933 July 4 The Bavarian People's Party dissolves itself.

1933 July 4 The Pact of Definition of Aggression is signed in London, between Soviet Russia, her neighbors, and several other nations.

1933 July 4 Zionist leaders decide that the proceedings of the Eighteenth Zionist Congress to be held in Prague are conducted in Hebrew instead of German. (Edelheit)

1933 July 5 The Catholic Center Party publishes its decree of dissolution.Only the Nazis remain as an active political party in the Reichstag.

1933 July 5 Cardinal Faulhaber complains to the Bavarian Council of Ministers that almost one hundred priests had been arrested in the last few weeks. (Lewy)

1933 July 5 Kemma (Rheinland) concentration camp goes into operation.

1933 July 5 The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Neville Laski, publicly opposes anti-Nazi street demonstrations and boycotts.

1933 July 6 Jewish lawyers in Germany are warned to stay away from courts, presumably for their own protection.

1933 July 6 Jewish students attending German universities are limited to 1.5 percent of the total student body.

1933 July 6 A Nazi order dissolves the 42-year-old German Non-Jewish Association for Combatting Antisemitism. (Edelheit)

1933 July 7 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, already recognized worldwide as a antisemitic forgery, becomes an official textbook in the Berlin school system.

1933 July 7 SA men force Jewish owned stores in Dortmund to close.

1933 July 7 The Gestapo raids the Berlin offices of the Relief Organization of German Jews.

1933 July 7 A number of universities throughout Germany announce that Jewish students who have already matriculated will not receive their degrees. (Edelheit)

1933 July 8 In the late hours of the evening, Ambassador Bergen informs the Foreign Ministry by telegram,"Concordat was initialed this evening at 6 o'clock by the Vice Chancellor and the Cardinal Secretary of State."

1933 July 9 Hitler releases a public statement on the Concordat. The world learns that a Concordat has been initialed by Nazi Germany and the Holy See. Public opinion generally regards this as a great diplomatic victory for Hitler, but the Papal Secretary of State Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, has himself worked toward this very goal since 1920 when he was first appointed Papal Nuncio in Germany. (Lewy)

1933 July 10 A National Peasant Government in Romania begins what Prince Michael Sturdza will later call the "first Calinescu terror" against the Legion of St. Michael and the Romanian Legionary Movement.

1933 July 10 Die Brucke (The Bridge), a New York based Nazi newspaper, begins publication.

1933 July 10 The London Daily Mail, England's largest daily newspaper, prints an editorial justifying Hitler's anti-Jewish policy.

1933 July 11 Wilhelm Frick, German Minister of the Interior, announces that "the German revolution is terminated."

1933 July 12 Germany blocks the bank accounts of all German-Jewish relief agencies.

1933 July 13 The reorganized German Evangelical Church announces that it will not apply the "Aryan Clause" to its membership requirements.

1933 July 14 The German Cabinet approves the Concordat with the Vatican. During the deliberations, Hitler stresses the significance of the Concordat, especially "in the urgent fight against the international Jews. Possible shortcomings in the Concordat can be rectified later when the foreign policy situation is better." (Lewy)

1933 July 14 In the same cabinet session that approves the Concordat, the new government approves the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring." It allows for compulsory sterilization in cases of "congenital mental defects, schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, hereditary epilepsy, and severe alcoholism." It will not be announced until July 25, so as not to jeopardize the signing of the Concordat. (Science; Lewy)

1933 July 14 A law against the creation of any new political parties and 'The Law on Plebiscites" are passed. All political opposition to Nazism is now outlawed and it becomes the one and only political party in Germany.

1933 July 14 The Nazis also pass the Law on the Revocation of Naturalization and Deprivation of German Citizenship of Jews. German citizenship can now be taken away from those designated as "undesirables" (Persecution)

1933 July 14 Dr. Herman Rauschning, Nazi President of the Danzig Senate, is snubbed by Jewish members of the Warsaw city government who refuse to participate in an official reception held in his honor.

1933 July 15 Germany signs the Four Powers Pact with France, Great Britain and Italy. (Lewy)

1933 July 15 Britain's Lord Alfrd Melchett converts to Judaism. (Edelheit)

1933 July 17 Elections for delegates to the Eighteenth World Zionist Congress are held in Palestine.

1933 July 17 The United People's Conference against Fascism is held in Los Angeles.

1933 July 20 Papen and Pacelli formally sign the Concordat in anelaborate ceremony at the Vatican. Reich Minister of the Interior Frick announces that now the entire German government is now under the control of Adolf Hitler and that the Hitler salute is henceforth to be generally used as the German greeting. A number of contemporary historians consider this to be the day Hitler's dictatorship of Germany actually began.

1933 July 20 The Jewish Economic Conference opens its preliminary session in Amsterdam. It seeks an intensified anti-Nazi boycott.

1933 July 20 More than 30,000 men, women and children jam the streets of London protesting Nazi persecution of German Jews. That same day, the Academic Assistance Council is organized to aid expelled German Jewish scholars.

1933 July 21 The SA arrests 300 Jewish store owners in Nuremberg and parades them through the streets for hours.

1933 July 21 The Board of the Federation of Synagogues in London votes to endorse the anti-Nazi boycott.

1933 July 22 The text of the Concordat is released to the press. A secret annex is never announced to the public, or even to party members (see August 29, 1939).

1933 July 22 Colditz (Sachsen) concentration camp goes into operation.

1933 July 23 The Board of Deputies of British Jews rejects a proposal to join the anti-Nazi boycott. (Edelheit)

1933 July 24 The "Völkischer Beobachter" describes the Concordat as a most solemn recognition of National Socialism by the Catholic Church. (Lewy)

1933 July 24 The Federation of Polish Jews in America pledges support for the anti-Nazi boycott.

1933 July 25 Passage of the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" is publicly announced. It will officially go into effect on January 1, 1934.

1933 July 26 Oliver Locker-Lampson proposes a bill in the House of Commons granting Palestinian citizenship to all "stateless" Jews.

1933 July 27 In London, the World Monetary and Economic Conference ends in failure. Roosevelt's lack of support was largely responsible.

1933 July 27 The Dutch Ministry of Justice allows the Committee for Jewish Interests to hold a lottery to benefit German Jewish refugees.

1933 July 28 The German state of Thuringia expels all Jewish teachers and orders disbandment of the Jewish Student's Association.

1933 July 29 Professor Fischer, recently elected as Rector of the University of Berlin, in which capacity he is responsible for signing his Jewish colleagues' dismissal notices, says in his inaugural address: "The new leadership, having only just taken over the reins of power, is deliberately and forcefully intervening in the course of history and in the life of the nation, precisely where this intervention is most urgently, most decisively, and most immediately needed. To be sure, this need can only be perceived by those who are able to see and to think within a biological framework, but it is understood by these people to be a matter of the gravest and most weighty concern. This intervention can be characterized as a biological population policy, biological in this context signifying the safeguarding by the state of our hereditary endowment and our race, as opposed to the unharnessed processes of heredity, selection, and elimination." (Science)

1933 July 29 Germany revokes the citizenship of naturalized eastern European Jews.

1933 July 30 The Hungarian government suppresses publication of Nemzet Szava (the Nation's Voice), the official organ of Hungarian Nazis.

1933 July 30 The Venizelist press in Greece begins an anti-Jewish campaign.

1933 August 1 A Nazi decree prohibits non-Jewish doctors from professional contact with Jewish physicians.

1933 August 2 Colonel Graham Seton Hutchinson begins publication ofThe National Worker, a pro-Nazi periodical.

1933 August 2 The Breslau Jewish Community News is closed by the Nazis.

1933 August 3 Osthofen concentration camp is closed by the Gestapo.

1933 August 3 Police in Toronto, Canada, begin investigating the antisemitic Swastika Club.

1933 August 4 The International Committee for the Protection of Academic Freedom is established in Paris.

1933 August 5 The German Lawyers' Association threatens to boycott German firms still employing Jewish lawyers.

1933 August 5 Poland signs an agreement with Danzig.

1933 August 5 Authorities in Hamburg order the removal of the Heinrich Heine monument from the city park.

1933 August 7 Jews in Nuremberg are forbidden to use the municipal baths and swimming pools.

1933 August 8 A Nazi decree grants Staatenlose (stateless) status to some 10,000 Jews of eastern European origin who had been deprived of their German citizenship in July.

1933 August 11 The Supreme Representative Committee of German Jewry establishes a farm to train unemployed Jews for agricultural employment.

1933 August 11 The Hamburg Federation of Grain Merchants, an organization with a large Jewish membership is "Aryanized."

1933 August 14 Women Against the Persecution of Jews in Germany, a committee of non-Jews, announces its establishment in New York City.

1933 August 16 The American Jewish Congress sends an open letter to President von Hindenburg urging him to dismiss Hitler as Chancellor.

1933 August 19 Mussolini meets with Dollfuss at the Italian-Austrian border.

1933 August 19 Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston publishes Hitler's Mein Kampf in English translation.

1933 August 20 The American Jewish Congress joins the anti-Nazi Boycott.

1933 August 21 The Eighteenth Zionist Congress opens in Prague where attendants discuss the Nazi takeover of Germany, the growing persecution of German Jews, the assassination of Arlosoroff, the economic situation of the Yishuv and the conflict between the Labor Party and the Revisionists. The Congress will continue until September 4.

1933 August 22 The Gestapo suspends Centralverein Zeitung publication. (Edelheit)

1933 August 23-29 Jewish atheletes from 14 countries participate in the World Maccabee games held in Prague.

1933 August 24 Nazis prohibit the German-Jewish Maccabee team from participating in the World Maccabee games.

1933 August 25 Romanian military authorities in Czernowitz suspend the Yiddish daily, Der Tog, for criticizing the government.

1933 May 27 Czechoslovakian Revisionists establish the Jewish State Party at their first conference in Prague.

1933 August 29 Chaim Weizmann declines the presidency of the World Zionist Organization but agrees to chair the campaign fund for the settlement of German Jews in Palestine.

1933 August 30 The Union of German National Jews in a published statement blames the World Zionist Organization for German Jewry's present predicament. (Edelheit)

1933 September Genetic Health Courts are organized set up through out Germany. Beginning in January 1934, they will eventually order the sterilization of almost 400,000 German citizens. (32,268 during 1934; 73,174 in 1935; 63,547 in 1936. In the U.S. 60,166 people were sterilized from 1907-1958) (Lewy)

1933 September Karl Maria Wiligut joins the SS under the pseudonym Karl Maria Weisthor and is appointed head of a department for Pre- and Early History within the SS Race and Resettlement Main Office in Munich. He had earlier been personally introduced to Himmler by his old friend Richard Anders.

1933 September 1 The German government approves the Haavara (Transfer) Agreement with the Jewish settlement in Palestine, enabling the transfer of a small percentage of Jewish capital to Palestine in the form of German goods.

1933 September 2 The Soviet Union and Italy sign a pact outlining non-agression, friendship and neutrality.

1933 September 2 Centralverein Zeitung resumes publication.

1933 September 4 Fuhlsbuettel (Hamburg) concentration camp is opened.

1933 September 5 The Hamburg Amerika Line is merged, under Nazi supervision, with the North German Lloyd Company. The new line is renamed Hapag-Lloyd.

1933 September 5 The "Aryan Clause" is adopted by the old Prussian church Synod.

1933 September 5 The World Jewish Congress preliminary conference convenes in Geneva, Switzerland.

1933 September 6 Austria deploys its army along the German border.

1933 September 8 The Second World Jewish Congress joins the anti-Nazi boycott.

1933 September 9 Papal Secretary of State Pacelli, at the request of Cardinal Bertram, puts in "a word on behalf of those German Catholics" who are of Jewish descent and for this reason suffering "social and economic difficulties." The future Pope Pius XII makes no other mention of the "Jewish question." (Lewy)

1933 September 10 The Concordat becomes final when documents of ratification are exchanged between Cardinal Pacelli and German Charge d'Affaires Eugen Klee. (Lewy)

1933 September 11 Hungary prohibits the use or display of the swastika by private citizens or organizations.

1933 September 12 Cardinal Bertram submits a letter of protestconcerning the "Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" to Minister of the Interior Frick.

1933 September 14 The Ministry of Education in Holland establishes a numerous clausus based on race for foreign students attending Dutch universities.

1933 September 15 Chancellor Dollfuss, addressing the Austrian Fatherland Front, proposes a "Christian German state on Fascist lines," but without discrimination against Jews.

1933 September 17 The State Representation of German Jews is established by order of the Gestapo.

1933 September 18 The Nazi-dominated Danzig Senate guarantees basic rights to Poles living in the Free City.

1933 September 21 The Pastor's Emergency League is founded by Martin Niemoeller.

1933 September 22 The State Chamber of Culture Law is passed, reestablishing a Reich Chamber of Culture. "Non-Aryans" are restrained from participating in German culture, the arts, literature, music and related fields.

1933 September 24 Jewish lawyers are banned from the German Bar Congress.

1933 September 25 The Relief Conference for german Jews, meeting in Rome under the chairmanship of Chaim Weizmann, adopts a resolution to open special ofices in Jerusalem and London dealing with settlement of German Jewish refugees in Palestine.

1933 September 27 Ludwig Müller (Mueller), bishop of Prussia and a confidant of Hitler, is named Reichsbishop.

1933 September 27 The Canadian garment industry joins the anti-Nazi boycott.

1933 September 29 Hitler excludes all Jews from agriculture and establishes the Reich Chambers of Culture, instituting mandatory guilds for employees in the fields of film, theater, music, the fine arts and journalism under the control of Joseph Goebbels, who forbids Jews from joining the guilds, and thus, from working. (Apparatus)

1933 September 29 The Dutch government sponsors a resolution urging the League of Nations to formulate plans for an international solution to the German refugee problem.

1933 September 30 One hundred fifty-five Jewish traders are ousted from the Berlin Stock Exchange.

1933 October 1 Theodore Eicke, commandant of Dachau, publishes "Disciplinary Camp Regulations," It will later be used as a guide for the expanding Nazi concentration camp system.

1933 October 1 A Nazi approved Jewish Cultural Society is established in Germany.

1933 October 1 Nine high-ranking Wehrmacht generals critical of Hitler are forced to retire.

1933 October 2 Jewish military personnel are purged from the German army and navy.

1933 October 2 The first group of Jewish refugees esaping Germany arrives in Brazil.

1933 October 3 An assassination attempt is made against Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss.

1933 October 3 A British court indicts ten Brit ha-Biryonim (Covenant of Terrorists) members in the Arlosoroff murder. (Edelheit)

1933 October 4 Albert Einstein addresses a crowd of 10,000 in London's Albert Hall during the opening of a campaign to collect $5,000,000 for exiled German scientists.

1933 October 5 The British Labor Party endorses the anti-Nazi boycott.

1933 October 5 Vandals paint Swastikas and antisemitic slogans on New York City's Temple Emmanuel.

1933 October 8 The St. Louis, Missouri, chapter of the Fiends of New Germany, a pro-Nazi organization, begins operating.

1933 October 8 Anti-Jewish incidents take place in rural Romania.

1933 October 8 All Jewish jockeys are banned from German race tracks.

1933 October 9 The Third all-Polish BETAR conference begins in Warsaw. The delegates wear "brown shirts."

1933 October 10 President Roosevelt sends a letter to Mikhail Kalinin proposing the establishment of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.

1933 October 11 The American Federation of Labor (AFL) joins the anti-Nazi boycott.

1933 October 11 U.S. Ambassador Christopher Dodd criticizes the Nazi regime during an addresses to the American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin.

1933 October 13 The AFL votes to approve participation in the boycott of German products and services.

1933 October 14 Hitler withdraws Germany from the Disarmament Commission.

1933 October 14 The bishop of the Nazi Christian Church, Ludwig Müller (Mueller), declares that Christianity started as a war against Jews.

1933 October 14 The Gestapo confiscates and liquidates the property of Hagibor, a Jewish sports organization.

1933 October 16 Stephen Tatarescu and others establish the pro-Nazi Christian-Fascist Party in Bucharest.

1933 October 17 Wittmoor concentration camp is closed by the Gestapo.

1933 October 17 Chaim Weizmann meets with King Albert of Belgium to discuss the German-Jewish refugee problem and the need for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1933 October 19 Germany pledges to protect all foreigners.

1933 October 19 German Zionists and assimilationists clash for control of the Berlin Kehilla (Jewish Community Council).

1933 October 21 Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.

1933 October 23 Martin Buber and 51 other Jewish educators are fired from their positions at German universities.

1933 October 25 Edouard Daladier's cabinet falls from power in France.

1933 October 27 The French government cancels orders issued by local municipal authorities to expel German Jewish refugees.

1933 October 28 Gustav Ranzenhoffer, Austrian High Court Justice, demands a numerus clausus for Jews in all professions.

1933 October 28 The Nazis boast that their antisemitic propaganda has inspired Arab riots in Palestine.

1933 October 29 The Conference for Relief of German Jewry opens in London.

1933 October 29 The antisemitic Gray Shirt movement is established in South Africa.

1933 October 30 The antisemitic White Shirts movement is founded in Ottawa, Canada.

1933 October 30 James G. McDonald is appointed League of Nations High Commissioner for the Relief of Refugees.

1933 November 1 The Conference for Relief of German Jewry closes in London. It has adopted resolutions calling for Palestine to be the primary location for resettling Jewish refugees and the establishment of a central allocation committtee and a central bureau to coordinate the work of the various groups dealing with German-Jewish problems.

1933 November 2 Martin Niemoeller speaks out against the anti-Jewish laws enacted within the churches in Germany.

1933 November 3 Himmler and his staff visit Wewelsburg castle near Paderborn in Westphalia. Himmler decides to acquire it for the SS that same evening. (Roots)

1933 November 3 Archbishop Groeber and Bishop Berning report that the government is willing to exempt the directors of Catholic institutions from the duty of applying for the sterilization of patients under their care. (Lewy)

1933 November 6 The Conference of Anglo-Jewish organizations in London approves the anti-Nazi boycott.

1933 November 7 Hitler has Goering deliver a letter to Mussolini in Rome, thanking him for his efforts on "a fair handling of international relations" and informing him of the Reich's position in respect to disarmament. (Domarus)

1933 November 7 Fiorello LaGuardia is elected mayor of New York City.

1933 November 7 The German-Christian movement publicly announces its total acceptance of National Socialist totalitarian dogma at a large rally in the Berlin Sportspalast.

1933 November 8 Hitler takes part in various gatherings of Alte Kämpfer, (old fighters) in Munich, including meetings in the Braunes Haus (Strosstrupp Hitler) and the Sternecker, the birthplace of the NSDAP.

1933 November 9 A huge Blutzeuge celebration is held in Munich. At midday, the march from the Bürgerbräukeller over the Ludwig Bridge to the Feldherrnhalle -- which had ended so badly in 1923 -- is reenacted. Hitler and the surviving members of the original march, including the Freikorps fighters (without General Ludendorff) silently trod the same fateful path through the streets of Munich. The Carillon in the city hall played the Horst Wessel Song, whrn the columns reached the Marienplatz. A small bronze memorial honoring the dead of 1923 was unveiled by Hitler after a moving speech. Plans had already been made to make this commemoration ceremony a permanent annual event. (Domarus)

1933 November 9 At 9 PM, Hitler conducts an oath ceremony for 1,000 recruits of the SS Leibenstandarte Adolf Hitler, 100 men of the Stabswache Goering and fifty members of the Stabswache Roehm. This, too, was now to become an annual event. On the evening of every November 9th, SS recruits would gather and, at Hitler's orders, pledge their oath before the memorial to be willing at all times to give their blood and their lives for him. (Domarus)

1933 November 10 Hitler makes a campaign speech to workers at the Siemens plant in Berlin-Siemensstadt, proclaiming to his audience that he is one of them.

1933 November 10 Martial law is declared in Austria.

1933 November 11 A referendum sponsored by Latvian Nazis urging Latvian voters to deprive Jews of their citizenship rights, fails

1933 November 12 Hitler receives 92% of the vote in new German elections.

1933 November 13 In a meeting with Josef Lipski, the Polish Ambassador in Berlin, Hitler tells him that "any war could bring Communism to Europe. Poland is at the forefront of the fight against Asia. Poland's destruction therefore would be a universal misfortune.The other European governments," Hitler says, "ought to recognize Poland's position."

1933 November 13 The Storm Troopers for Jesus Christ lead a Nazi-style mass demonstration in the Berlin Sportspalast.

1933 November 14 In Romania, Liberal Party leader Ion Duca forms a cabinet.

1933 November 16 Roosevelt recognizes the Soviet Government as the legitimate government of Russia and establishes diplomatic relations.

1933 November 19 The Gestapo confiscates the property of Albert Einstein.

1933 November 21 The Austrian Fatherland Front demands a numerus clausus for all Jews living and working in Austria.

1933 November 21 Hungarian student organizations demand numerus clausus for all Jewish students in Hungary, threatening strikes and demonstraions unless their demands are met.

1933 November 22 Lithuania enacts numerus clausus against all Jewish professionals in academic institutions. The Lithuanian language becomes compulsory in all Jewish schools.

1933 November 23 Romanian Premier Ion Duca outlaws the antisemitic Cuzist Party and the Garda de Fier (Iron Guard).

1933 November 23 The Monarchists are victorious in Spain.

1933 November 24 A law for the protection of animals is passed by the German government. This law explicitly states that it is designed to prevent cruelty and indifference of man towards animals and to awaken and develop sympathy and understanding for animals as one of the highest moral values of a people. The soul of the German people should abhor the principle of mere utility without consideration of the moral aspects. The law further states that all operations or treatments which are associated with pain or injury, especially experiments involving the use of cold, heat, or infection, are prohibited, and can be permitted only under special exceptional circumstances. Special written authorization by the head of the department is necessary in every case, and experimenters are prohibited from performing experiments according to their own free judgment. Experiments for the purpose of teaching must be reduced to a minimum. Medico-legal tests, vaccinations, withdrawal of blood for diagnostic purposes, and trial of vaccines prepared according to well-established scientific principles are permitted, but the animals have to be killed immediately and painlessly after such experiments. Individual physicians are not permitted to use dogs to increase their surgical skill by such practices. National Socialism, the law says, regards it as a sacred duty of German science to keep the number of painful animal experiments to a minimum.

1933 November 24 Jewish students are beaten and harassed at a number of Hungarian universities.

1933 November 25 The League to Combat Antisemitism opens its fourth annual congress in Paris.

1933 November 27 The German Labor Front establishes Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy), an agency to provide German workers with Nazi controlled recreation.

1933 November 28 A pogrom at Jassy in Romania is carried out by the Iron Guard.

1933 November 28 The University of Budapest is closed by the government until anti-Jewish disturbances cease.

1933 November 29 Jewish stores in Germany are warned not to display Christmas symbols.

1933 November 30 Goering removes the Gestapo from the control of the Interior Ministry.

1933 December 1 The German cabinet passes a law "to ensure the unity of Party and State." Hitler declares that the German state and the Nazi Party are one by law.

1933 December 2 The Romanian Jewish Self-defense Organization repulses Iron Guard attacks on the Jewish quarter of Jassy.

1933 December 2 British Fascists in Liverpool paint swastikas on Prince Synagogue.

1933 December 4 Cardinal Faulhaber denounces Nazi racial teachings.

1933 December 5 Regulations for the enforcement of the German sterilization law are issued. Persons suffering from hereditary diseases can be exempted from sterilization if they have committed themselves or are already confined in an institution. Physicians objecting on grounds of conscience are not obligated to conduct or assist in sterilizations. (Lewy)

1933 December 5 Prohibition is repealed in the United States.

1933 December 6 More than 20,000 Nazi sympathizers celebrate "German Day" in New York's Madison Square Garden.

1933 December 7 Lord Robert Cecil is elected chairman of the Governing Body of German Refugees.

1933 December 7 Vice Chancellor von Papen urges German-Americans to act as Nazi propagandists.

1933 December 9 Hundreds of Spaniards are killed and wounded when the Monarchist government crushes an anarchist uprising.

1933 December 10 The Legionary Movement in Romania is dissolved for a third time. More than 20,000 members of the Legion of St. Michael are arrested. Some are executed and hundreds are tortured and beaten.

1933 December 15 Austrians are asked by Catholic leaders to do their Christmas shopping in non-Jewish stores.

1933 December 18 A Nazi decree bars Jews from the field of journalism and associated professions.

1933 December 20 A government headed by Ion Duca wins at the polls in Romania.

1933 December 20 The Aryan Lawyers' Association demands that the Austrian Ministry of Justice expel all Jewish lawyers. (Edelheit)

1933 December 21 The Italian Jewish community receives permission from the Fascist government to launch a fund-raising drive to aid German-Jewish refugees.

1933 December 23 Marinus van der Lubbe is found guilty of arson and sentenced to death for setting the Reichstag fire. (See February 27)

1933 December 23 Pope Pius XI condemns the Nazi sterilization program. (Edelheit)

1933 December 24 Henry Ford denies being an antisemite and states that he never gave financial aid to Hitler or the Nazis.

1933 December 26 The Kantarschi Synagogue in Jassy is burned down by the Romanian Iron Guard.

1933 December 29 Ion Duca, Romanian Prime Minister, is assassinated by three members of the Romanian Iron Guard (Legionaries).

1933 December 29 Hohnstein (Sachsen) concentration camp is opened.

1933 December 31 President Roosevelt appoints Henry Morgenthau, Jr. as Secretary of the Treasury.

1933 More than 50,000 Jews demonstrate against the Nazis in London's Hyde Park -- calling for war aginst Germany. (1933, History Year by Year, History Channel)

1933 Rudolf von Sebottendorff returns to Munich to revive the Thule Society in the Third Reich. He quickly falls into disfavor with the Nazi authorities because of his claims as a precursor of National Socialism. (Roots)

1933 Otto Rahn publishes Crusade Against the Grail. Himmler greatly admires the book, and it soon becomes required SS reading.

1933 Roosevelt appoints Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., to the Industrial Advisory Board as liaison officer with the National Recovery Administration.

1933 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels leaves Hungary and relocates to Switzerland where he issues a newseries of his writings from Lucerne. In Germany Lanz's works are printed at Barth near the Darss peninsula and distributed from the nearby Hertesburg under Georg Hauerstein's auspices until 1935. (Roots)

1933 Joseph Goebbels is appointed as minister of propaganda for the Nazi party.

1933 Norwegian fascist leader Vidkun Quisling founds the National Unity party.

1933 The Public Works Administration (PWA) is formed to fund public construction projects.

1933 Of the 38 Germans who had won Nobel Prizes prior to 1933, eleven were German Jews.

1933 The Ahnenerbe, the Society for the Study of Ancestral Heritages, is privately founded by Frederick Hielscher, a mystic and friend of Swedish explorer Sven Hedin, who himself was closely associated with Karl Haushofer. (Pauwels)

1934 Power and Earth (Macht und Erde) is published by German geopolitician Karl Haushofer/ It implies that a dynamic Germany has the natural right to grasp all of Eurasia and dominate the oceanic countries. Based in part on British political geographer Halfor John Mackinder’s 1904 paper “The Geographical Pivot of History,” Haushofer’s theories of geopolitics have helped shape Adolf Hitler’s demands for lebensraum (living space).

1934 January 1 Hitler writes a letter of gratitude to his friend, Ernst Roehm.

1934 January 1 All Jewish holidays are removed from official German calendars.

1934 January 2 A German law is passed for sterilization of the "unfit."

1934 January 6 Catholic worshippers are told at services that according to Catholic doctrine it is forbidden to volunteer for sterilization or apply for the sterilization of another. "We appreciate every consideration for the basic principle." (Lewy)

1934 January 6 George Tatarescu, Romania's new prime minister, promises to eliminate antisemitism throughout the nation.

1934 January 7 Germany bars "non-Aryans" from adopting "Aryan" children.

1934 January 9 A student union in Budapest calls for a boycott of university classes until anti-Jewish legislation is passed. (Edelheit)

1934 January 10 Marinus van der Lubbe is executed in Leipzig for setting the fire at the Reichstag. (See February 27)

1934 January 10 The government of Holland announces that all government employees belonging to the Nazi Party will be fired immediately.

1934 January 11 The homes of dissident German clergymen are raided by the Gestapo.

1934 January 12 The Gestapo permits the Zionist Federation of Germany to hold a Palestine exhibition in Berlin.

1934 January 15 An antisemitic racial exhibition opens in Munich.

1934 January 15 Goering orders the Gestapo to arrest and question all political emigres and Jews returning to Germany.

1934 January 15 Goebbels demands that all Jews representing German companies abroad be dismissed from their positions.

1934 January 16 The League of Nations protests the treatment of Jews in the Saar and Upper Silesia.

1934 January 19 Kemma concentration camp is closed.

1934 January 21 The Austrian government approves establishment of a Jewish self defense force in Vienna.

1934 January 22 Street fighting breaks out between Communists and Royalists in Paris. Hundreds are arrested by the French police.

1934 January 22 The American Jewish Congress establishes the Merchandising Council to Strengthen Boycott against German Goods and Services. (Edelheit)

1934 January 24 Alfred Rosenberg is appointed deputy of the Fuehrer for the supervision of the spiritual and ideological training of the National Socialist Party. (Lewy)

1934 January 25 Albert Einstein visits with President Roosevelt at the White House.

1934 January 26 Germany and Poland conclude a 10-year non-aggression pact.

1934 January 26 The Zurich Church Council condemns The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

1934 January 28 Lithuanian police raid kehilla headquarters in Ponivez to squelch the anti-Nazi boycott. (Edelheit)

1934 January 29 The SA issues a warning card on Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff. (Berlin Document Center; Roots)

1934 January 29 The Pro-Communist New Masses (January 29 and February 5, 1934) publishes an article entitled "Wall Street's Fascist Conspiracy" by John L. Spivak. This article claims that the Warburg family is involved in a fascist conspiracy with the J.P Morgan international banking interests, has opposed the anti-Nazi boycott and controls the American Jewish Committee, while at the same time their Kuhn Loeb and Co. in New York is underwriting Nazi shipping and industrialization. No mention is made of the Warburg family's close connection with Averell Harriman, already a permanent hero of the Soviet Union.

1934 January 30 A Nazi reorganization strips German states of their sovereignty.

1934 January 31 The U.S. dollar is devalued to 60 cents.

1934 February 1 Dollfuss dissolves all rival political parties and establishes one-party rule in Austria. Often described as a proto-Fascist, he is determined to keep Austria independent of both Germany and the Communists.

(Note: A brief but bloody civil war soon breaks out. Socialist resistance to Dollfuss' measures leads to the government's bombardment of Vienna's large Socialist quarter.)

1934 February 1 Police in Vienna outlaw the sale of anti-Jewish or pro-Nazi publications on the streets.

1934 February 2 The Nazis publish a version of the Psalms of David that eliminates all references to Jews.

1934 February 3 Liberation, an antisemitic publication, publishes the text of a speech supposedly given by Benjamin Franklin during the U.S. Constitutional Convention (1787-1788) in which he is alleged to have remarked that if the immigration of Jews to the United States was not restricted, the Jews would ruin the country. Historians later concluded that this document, if it did exist, was a forgery. (Edelheit)

1934 February 4 Greek police prevent a pogrom against the Jews of Salonika.

1934 February 6 Fascist agitation leads to rioting in the streets of Paris, almost resulting in a coup.

1934 February 7 Hitler tells Cardinal Schulte that he does not like Rosenberg's Myth of the 20th Century. He supported Rosenberg, the theoretician of the National Socialist Party, Hitler said, but did not identify himself with Rosenberg, the author. (Lewy)

1934 February 7 The Daladier government resigns and the new French Government of National Concentration is installed. (Edelheit)

1934 February 7 The antisemitic Liberal Movement is founded in Bucharest.

1934 February 8 The Gestapo orders German Bible Circles to be disbanded.

1934 February 8 Customs agents in America impound 300 pounds of Nazi propaganda materials.

1934 February 9 The Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in Rome announces that Alfred Rosenberg's Myth of the 20th Century has been placed on the Church's Index of Forbidden Books. (Lewy)

1934 February 9 The French government bans Communist demonstrations.

1934 February 9 The Balkan Pact is signed in Athens by Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey and Romania.

1934 February 11 The Austrian Antisemitenbund (Antisemitic Association) sets out its anti-Jewish program.

1934 February 12 The Austrian Heimwehr (Homeguard) stages a coup d'etat. Communists are attacked, and the Socialist Schutzbund (Protection Force) is disarmed. More than 100 are killed.

1934 February 12/13 A general strike breaks out in France.

1934 February 14 King Albert of Belgium dies in a mountain-climbing accident.

1934 February 16 A British-Soviet trade agreement is signed.

1934 February 17 More than 5,000 Austrian Jews lose their jobs because of Dollfuss' antisemitic policies.

1934 February 18 Austria bans the Zionist Labor Organization.

1934 February 19 The Youth Aliya (immigration to Palestine) program begins operation in Germany.

1934 February 19 Polish Jewish organizations agree to levy a tax on their members to be used for German Jewish relief.

1934 February 20 Latvia's parliament rejects proposals to abolish Jewish autonomy.

1934 February 25 The German Association of Jewish War Veterans declares loyalty to Germany in honor of the 12,000 Jews who died fighting for Germany in WWI.

1934 February 25 Leopold III is crowned king of Belgium.

1934 February 28 Hitler invites invites General Werner von Blomberg, Minister of Defense, and SA leader Ernst Roehm to meet with him at the War Ministry, where he convinces them to sign an agreement specifying the responsibilities of the Reichswehr and the SA. The Reichswehr is given the right to bear arms and handle all military operations and the SA is placed in chrarge of some aspects of training. The SS soon accuses Roehm of calling Hitler a traitor and vowing to overthrow him. (Secrets)

1934 February 28 The Wehrmacht issues orders applying racial criteria to German military service.

1934 March The Blutorden (Blood Order) medal is instituted by the Nazi party. Originally named "The Sign of Honor for November 9, 1923" it is awarded only to veterans of the Munich Putsch. It will later be presented to a very select few for outstanding personal achievement.

1934 March 1 Henry Pu-yi, last of the Manchu emperors, is crowned emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (Manchuria).

1934 March 4 Austria's leading newspaper, the Oesterreichischer Beobachter, states that Jews should be removed from all leading positions in Austria.

1934 March 5 B'nai B'rith International protests Germany's dissolution of its German lodges.

1934 March 6 The SA issues another warning card on Rudolf von Sebottendorff, and shortly afterward he is briefly interned. Sebottendorff then makes his way once again to Turkey, later finding employment with the German Intelligence Service in Istanbul. (Berlin Document Center; Roots)

1934 March 7 The Spanish government announces it will grant automatic citizenship to all Sephardic Jews returning to Spain.

1934 March 7 The American Jewish Congress and the American Federation of Labor sponsor a mock trial and anti-Nazi protest rally at Madison Square Garden.

1934 March 7 The Carnegie Institute compiles the family tree of President Roosevelt, claiming that his ancestors came to America about 1682. Supposedly they were Claes Martenszen Van Rosenvelt and Janette Samuel, both originally of Spanish Sephardic (Jewish) descent. Once again, conservatives and antisemites used this information to stir up anti-Jewish tensions and create distrust of the President, his cabinet (many of whom were Jewish) and the government. (See March 14, 1935)

1934 March 8 Nazi sympathizers stage incidents at Columbia University in New York.

1934 March 9 The Einstein Institute of Physics opens at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

1934 March 10 Twelve Jews are elected to the Italian parliament.

1934 March 10 Catherine the Great, a film starring Elizabeth Bergner, a Jewish actress, is banned in Germany.

1934 March 12 The Nazi Trade and Artisans Union declares a new boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany.

1934 March 12 Konstantin Paets seizes power in Estonia.

1934 March 14 Classes at Warsaw University are cancelled after disturbances.

1934 March 16 Warsaw University is closed after students attack Professor Herceli Handelsmann. Six are arrested several days later.

1934 March 19 An article in the New York Times reports that the Polish government is fighting back against American and German stockholders who control "Poland's largest industrial unit, the Upper Silesian Coal and Steel Company... Two-thirds of the company's stock is owned by Friedrich Flick, a leading German steel industrialist, and the remainder is owned by interests in the United States." (Those interests were Averell Harriman, George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush among others.)

1934 March 20 Germany lifts the ban on Jewish organizations as long as they remain uninvolved in politics.

1934 March 21 The American Jewish Congress and New York Central Labor Council establish the Joint Boycott Enforcement Council against German goods and services.

1934 March 21 Hitler announces the "war on unemployment," emphasizing the need to employ five million jobless Germans during the coming year.

1934 March 22 The Austrian census calculates that 183,000 Jews live in approximately 750 Austrian towns and villages.

1934 March 23 Germany announces the Law Regarding Expulsion from the Reich.

1934 March 23 The NSDAP orders local Nazi leaders to stop all independent actions that might lead to antisemitic violence. (Edelheit)

1934 March 28 Dr. Max Naumann, leader of a small group of ultranationalist, assimilationist Jews in Germany, organizes a Nazi-like party.

1934 March 29 The pro-Nazi German American Bund launches a counter-boycott against Jewish goods and services.

1934 March 30 Police in Warsaw, fearing antisemitic violence, prohibit meetings of the United Polish Jewish Committee for Combatting German Jewish Persecution.

1934 April 1 Jewish shops in Germany are again boycotted.

1934 April 1 Heinrich Himmler is appointed Reichsführer-SS. (Edelheit)

1934 April 2 Lithuania removes all Jewish doctors from government-run hospitals and clinics.

1934 April 4 The German state of Baden bans Jewish ritual slaughter (shechita).

1934 April 4 The three Legionaries (Iron Guardsmen) who assassinated Romanian Prime Minister Ion Duca are given life sentences.

1934 April 5 Dr. Ludwig Marum, a former Jewish member of the Reichstag commits suicide while in "protective custody" by the Gestapo.

1934 April 5 Forty-six Iron Guard leaders are freed by a military court in Romania.

1934 April 9 Austria bans dissimination of Pan-German Association propaganda.

1934 April 12 The German Ministry of Justice introduces the "protective custody" warrant.

1934 April 12 Julius Streicher is appointed Gauleiter of Franconia.

1934 April 19 The Czech government prohibits The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other antisemitic works from circulation.

1934 April 20 Himmler is appointed inspector of the Prussian Gestapo.

1934 April 22 Reinhard Heydrich is appointed Gestapo chief. (Edelheit)

1934 April 22 Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, accuses English Jews of dual loyalty during his first public address in London.

1934 April 23 Brandenburg concentration camp is closed by the Gestapo.

1934 April 27 The Swiss government informs Germany that a mutual arrangement between the two countries must take place without prejudice on racial origins of Swiss citizens. (Edelheit)

1934 April Himmler again visits Wewelsburg Castle near Paderborn in Westphalia. (See August 1934)

1934 April Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) is promoted to SS-Standartenfuhrer (Colonel).

1934 May Siegmund Warburg immigrates to London.

1934 May 1 The German Labor Code is published.

1934 May 1 Julius Streicher's Der Stürmer (Stuemer) prints a "blood-libel" story accusing Jews of murdering "Aryan" children for ritual sacrifice.

1934 May 9 Mussolini creates the Italian "Corporate State." (Edelheit)

1934 May 11 The British House of Commons passes a resolution protesting use of the German embassy to distribute antisemitic propaganda.

1934 May 15 National Socialist priest, Wilhelm Senn, hails Adolf Hitler as "the tool of God, called upon to overcome Judaism..." (Lewy)

1934 May 15 Jewish autonomy is abolished in Latvia after a coup led by Karlis Ulimanis. There are some 94,000 Jews living in Latvia at this time.

1934 May 17 Colonel Bronislaw Pieracki, Polish minister of the interior, is assassinated by an antisemitic terrorist group in Warsaw.

1934 May 17 The German American Protective Alliance announces a counter-boycott against Jewish businesses at Madison Square Garden.

1934 May 18 The Nazis decide not to apply the "Aryan Clause" to Asians.

1934 May 29 Zionist headquarters in Lvov (Lemberg), Poland, is bombed.

1934 May 31 All those racially classified as Jews are dismissed from the German army. (Edelheit)

1934 May 31 Colditz concentration camp is closed.

1934 June 3 Hitler holds a conference with SA leader Ernst Röhm (Roehm).

1934 June 5 The possibilities for legislating on "race-protection" are discussed at the 37th Meeting of the German Criminal Law Commission. Professor Dahm says: "Ideally, sexual relationships between "Aryans" and "non-Aryans" should be punished." (Science)

1934 June 5-7 The Fulda Bishops' Conference notes that "contrary to earlier declarations of the Fuehrer, the National Socialist movement itself now wanted to constitute a Weltanschauung (worldview)." Religion could not be based on Blood and race or other dogmas of human creation, the bishops write, but only on divine revelation taught by the Church and its visible head, the Vicar of Christ in Rome. (Lewy)

1934 June 5-7 The Fulda Bishops' Conference pronounces that Catholic nurses may not assist or take part in sterilization operations (see July 24, 1940).

1934 June 6 Pogroms throughout Poland are sponsored by Endek (Polish National Democratic Party).

1934 June 7 Ernst Roehm agrees to furlough the SA for one month, beginning July 1.

1934 June 8 Latvia begins alrge-scale roundups of Socialists. Many Jews are arrested.

1934 June 9 Diplomatic relations between Russia and Romania are resumed.

1934 June 9 The Sicherheitdienst (SD) is established as the political counter-espionage arm of the NSDAP.

1934 June 11 The Disarmament Conference ends in failure.

1934 June 11 Temple Neudinger in Vienna is severely damaged in an antisemitic bombing.

1934 June 14-15 Hitler and Mussolini meet for the first time.

1934 June 14 Marshal Josef Pilsudski refuses to meet with Goebbels during the Nazi propaganda chief's visit to Poland.

1934 June 15 Schacht declares a six month moratorium on German foreign payments. He klater extends it to one year.

1934 June 17 On one of the rare occasions when he dares criticize the Nazi regime, Vice Chancellor von Papen makes a much-publicized speech at Marburg, saying that the Church must be granted the right to oppose the state's totalitarian claims when those claims intrude into the realm of religion. (Lewy)

1934 June Himmler hints to Hitler that if the Papen bourgeois and Roehm's SA were to join forces, as reports from the SS secret police seemed to indicate, it would be a catastrophe for Hitler. (Secrets)

1934 June 19 Hitler refuses to accept Vice Chancellor von Papen's resignation.

1934 June 20 The NDW, soon to be renamed the DFG, agrees to the creation of five posts for assistants to process the "scientific material," available in connection with sterilization, for Professor Fischer, Professor Rüdin (Director of the KWI of Psychiatry in Munich), and Professor von Verschuer (a department head at the KWI of Anthropology under Professor Fischer). (Science)

1934 June 21 Hitler flies to Neudeck to see the dying Hindenburg. Hindenburg, appalled by the continued outrageous behavior of Roehm and the SA, vows that unless order is restored he will declare martial law and turn power over to the army. (The SS, Time-Life)

1934 June 21 The German state of Franconia cancels the citizenship for all Jews naturalized between 1922 and 1929. (Edelheit)

1934 June 23 Italian warships occupy the Albanian port of Durazzo.

1934 June 25 Professor Lenz says at a meeting of the Expert Advisory Council for Population and Race Policy: "As things are now, it is only a minority of our fellow citizens who are so endowed that their unrestricted procreation is good for the race." (Science)

1934 June 27 Hitler calls a halt to plans that would have banned Stahlhelm.

1934 June 28 Hitler and Goering attend a wedding in western Germany. Himmler telephones constantly from Berlin warning of an imminent coup by Roehm and the SA. (The SS, Time-Life)

1934 June 29 In response to the rumors of an SA coup, Hitler tells those close to him: "I've had enough. I shall make an example of them." (The SS, Time-Life)

1934 June 30 The Night of the Long Knives: Ernst Roehm and most of the top SA leadership are arrested. Many are quickly executed without trial. Also killed are General von Schleicher and Gregor Strasser. As many as a thousand homosexuals may have been killed during the following purge.

1934 June 30 On Hitler's orders the SS becomes an independent organization within the NSDAP. (Edelheit)

1934 July 1 Defense Minister General Werner von Blomberg thanks Hitler in the name of the Wehrmacht for curbing Roehm and the SA.

1934 July 2 President Hindenburg sends Hitler a telegram thanking him for savings the German people from a catastrophe.

1934 July 2 Hitler gives Sepp Dietrich orders to execute Roehm. The coup de grace is administered by SS-Brigadefuehrer Theodor Eicke. (Secrets)

1934 July 3 The Reichstag justifies Hitler's actions against the SA.

1934 July 3 An order is issued forbidding the publication of the pastoral letter of June 7 by the press and even the diocesan gazettes on the grounds that the letter is likely to jeopardize public order and deprecate the authority of state and movement. The Gestapo confiscates all unsold copies. (Lewy)

1934 July 4 Himmler appoints Theodor Eicke as inspector of of the concentration camp and head of the SS-Totenkopfverbaende (Death's Head units). (Edelheit)

1934 July 7 Theodor Eicke takes command of all Death's Head formations of the SS and becomes director of the Central Camps Authority. (See July 2)

1934 July 8 Sixty people are killed during anti-Communist uprising in Amsterdam.

1934 July 12 Belgium outlaws all uniformed political parties.

1934 July 13 Hitler defends his purge of the SA in a speech at the Kroll Opera House.

1934 July 15 Nazis march the length of the Kurfurstendam in Berlin, wrecking Jewish owned shops and attacking all those they believe to be Jewish.

1934 July 20 The SS is strengthened and takes over control of most of the concentration camps formerly under SA control. (Days)

1934 July 25 Austrian Nazis stage a coup in Vienna and murder Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. An attempted takeover collapses when Mussolini dispatches troops to the Austrian border as a warning to Hitler.

1934 The Austrian DNSAP is disbanded by the government.

1934 August 1 President Hindenburg dies of natural causes. Hitler quickly proclaims himself both Chancellor and Fuehrer of the German People.

1934 August 1 The Lithuanian government suppresses all Jewish newspapers.

1934 August 2 The German armed forces swear a personal oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler.

1934 August 7 Five Americans are beaten in Nuremberg for refusing to give the Nazi salute.

1934 August 7 Belgium orders the antisemitic Green Shirts disbanded.

1934 August 15 Hitler receives Hindenburg's political testament.

1934 August 15 Hohnstein concentration camp is closed.

1934 August 19 A German plebiscite approves (88%) Hitler's assumption of full power and his dual role as chancellor and fuehrer.

1934 August 26-27 The Third World Conference of General Zionists meets in Cracow.

1934 August Wewelsburg castle in Westphalia is officially taken over by Himmler and the SS.

1934 September 5 In America, William Dudley Pelley issues what he calls the "New Emancipation Proclamation" promising to "impose racial quotas on the political and economic structure, observing rigorously in effect that no racial factions shall be allowed further occupancy of public or professional office in excess of the ratio of its blood-members to the remaining sum total of all races completing the composition of the body politic." (Hoar)

1934 September 12 Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania sign a mutual nonagression and cooperation treaty.

1934 September 13 Poland denounces the Minorities Agreement, which had been set up at Versailles and guaranteed by the Covenant of the League of Nations. Hitler chooses not to protest Poland's denunciation even though German interests are directly involved.

1934 September 15 Poland repudiates the National Minority Treaty.

1934 September 18 The Soviet Union joins the League of Nations and is given a permanent seat on the Council.

1934 September 19 U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull denounces all political and racial boycotts in any form.

1934 September 26 Black nationalists in New York City begin boycotting Jewish owned shops and businesses.

1934 September 29 Italy reaffirms the 1928 friendship treaty with (Abyssinia) Ethiopia.

1934 October Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) is appointed head of Section VIII (Archives) at the SS Race and Resettlement Main Office in Munich. (Roots)

1934 October 1 Germany begins building up its air force, the Luftwaffe,in violation of the Versailles Treaty.

1934 October 1 The first course for SS doctors is given at the Kaiser Wilhem Institute of Anthropology under the direction of Professor Fischer (to August 1, 1935). (Science)

1934 October 3 Goebbels warns the Juedische Rundschau (Jewish Review) to limit its articles to Zionist affairs, ot it will be shut down.

1934 October 5 A coalition of Communists, Socialists and Syndicalists stage a general strike throughout Spain.

1934 October 7 Armed revolts in Spain are led by both the Socialist-Anarchists-Communists and the Catalonian Separatists. (Edeleheit)

1934 October 8 Chaim Weizmann demands that Transjordan be opened for Jewish business and settlement.

1934 October 9 King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Jean Barthou are assassinated by Croatian separatist in Marsailles (F), while on their way to Paris.

1934 October 11 King Alexander's 11-year-old son, Peter II, becomes king of Yugoslavia.

1934 October 16 A letter from Wewelsburg commandant Manfred von Knobelsdorff to Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) closes with the expression "in Irminist loyalty." Irminism has been the religion of Weisthor since long before he left Austria and joined the SS. (Roots)

1934 October 16 The tax free staus of all Jewish religious institutions in Germany is cancelled.

1934 October 22 Hermann Goering, speaking in Hitler's name, offers to guarantee all of Romania's borders, including those with Russia and Hungary, and to completely rearm Romania with modern weapons, if it will pledge to oppose any attempt by Soviet troops to cross Romanian territory. Nicolae Titulescu, the Romanian Prime Minister, however, had previously promised the French and Czechoslovaks to allow the Soviets to cross Romania in case of war. Titulescu then attempts to conceal Goering's offer from his ministry and the Romanian government.

1934 October 23 The Naval Disarmament Conference is held in London.

1934 October 27 An assassination plot against Mussolini is exposed in Italy.

1934 October 28 The Arab Federation of Labor calls for a Jewish boycott in Palestine.

1934 October 29 The Nazi party in Southwest Africa (Gray Shirts) is outlawed by the government.

1934 October 30 The American Legion adopts a resolution condemning Nazism.

1934 November Weisthor (Wiligut) who has found great favor with Himmler is promoted to SS-Oberfuhrer (Lieutenant-Brigadier).

1934 November 2 Baron Edmund de Rothschild dies.

1934 November 8 Pierre Flandin suceeds M. Doumerque as French prime minister.

1934 November 8-9 The second annual celebration in memory of the failed putsch of 1923 is held in Munich. The incidents of June 30 (Roehm Purge) cast a dark shadow over the festivities. Hitler gives a speech at the Bürgerbräukeller -- explaining the significance of November 9 to the Nazi Movement -- past, present and future. (Blutzeuge) Speech

1934 November 9 Hitler cancells the "annual" commemorative march to the Feldherrnhalle, but decrees the institution of an "Endowment for the Martrys of the Movement." That night, he speaks to the youngest members of the Party who have now left the ranks of the Hitler Youth and are being sworn in that night. Speech

1934 November 11 Father Charles Coughlin founds the National Union of Social Justice in America.

1934 November 13 Mussolini meets with Nahum Goldman.

1934 November 15 Cardinal Faulhaber writes a letter to the World Jewish Congress protesting "the use of his name by a conference demanding the commercial boycott of Germany, that is, economic war." (Lewy)

1934 November 20 Goering repeats Germany's offer of October 22 and insists that Romania is not being asked to abandon any of its previous alliances. This offer will be made time and time again, right up to the eve of war.

1934 November 26 The World Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi Boycott Association is founded.

1934 December 1 Sergei Mironovich Kirov is assassinated. His death was probably ordered by Stalin, who uses the murder as the pretext for arresting nearly all the major party figures as saboteurs within a year.

1934 December 3 France and Germany sign a one-year agreement prohibiting discrimination against any resident of the Saar region for racial, linguistic or religious reasons.

1934 December 17 Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, is tried for riotous assembly.

1934 December 19 Japan denounces the 1922 and 1930 naval agreements.

1934 December 22 An international group of observers arrives in the Saar to oversee the upcoming plebiscite (referendum) to determine whether the region will become part of Germany, or France.

1934 December 27 The French Foreign Office refuses to issue transit visas for Thousands of Jews fleeing Germany. (Edelheit)

1934 The Edda Society's publication Hagal devotes three issues to the ancestral memory and mystical family traditions of Karl Maria Wiligut (Weisthor). (Roots)

1934 Mao Tse-tung leads the Chinese Communists on what is called the Long March.

1934 No new Jewish lawyers are allowed to enter the legal profession in Romania. (Atlas)

1934 Edward R. Stettinius Jr. becomes a vice-president at U.S. Steel, another Morgan company.

1934 The influential Jesuit magazine Civilta Cattolica published in Rome notes with regret that the antisemitism of the Nazis "does not stem from the religious convictions nor the Christian conscience... but from the desire to upset the order of religion and society," and added, "we could understand them, or even praise them, if their policy were restricted within acceptable bounds of defense against the Jewish organizations and institutions..." (Lewy)

1934 Hitler in a conversation with Hermann Rauschning asks: "How can we arrest racial decay? Shall we form a select company of the really initiated? An Order, the brotherhood of Templars around the holy grail of pure blood?" (Rauschning)

1934 Michael Charol, a Russian emigrant, publishes Genghis Khan: The Storm Out of Asia under the pen name, Michael Prawdin. The book is said to have been closely studied by Himmler, who in turn recommended it to Hitler. (Architect)

1935 January 1 The Soviet Union discontinues food rationing cards.

1935 January 2 The Zurich city council requests the Swiss government to prohibit anti-Jewish demonstrations and publication of antisemitic literature.

1935 January 3 Abyssinia (Ethiopia) requests the assistance of the League of Nations in its conflict with Italy.

1935 January 4 The German bishops rule that since the main purpose of marriage is procreation, sterilized people may not partake of the sacrament of matrimony (see January 15, 1936).

1935 January 6 The American Jewish committee reports that the Jewish situation in Austria has worsened since Kurt von Schuschnigg took over the chancellorship.

1935 January 7 An agreement is signed between France and Italy.

1935 January 8 Columbia Haus prison in Berlin becomes a concentration camp under direct control of the Gestapo.

1935 January 13 The League of Nations supervises the plebiscite (referendum) in the Saar. Ninety percent of the electors vote for a union with Germany. Only ten percent vote for union with France.

1935 January 17 The League of Nations formally awards the Saar region to Germany.

1935 January 20-21 The National Conference on Palestine is held in Washington, D.C.

1935 January 24 Hitler again meets with Josef Lipski, the Polish ambassador. Hitler tells Lipski that "the moment will come when Poland and Germany will be forced to defend themselves from Soviet aggression."

1935 January 30 The SS-Hauptamt (Main Office) is established.

1935 January-February During the 17th Party Congress, disaffection with Stalin is demonstrated when former Leningrad party leader Sergei Kirov (assassinated December 1, 1934) receives an ovation equal to Stalin's. Nevertheless, Stalin crushes the peasant resistance and collectivization proves a success in terms of facilitating rapid industrial growth.

1935 February Wewelsburg castle, which began its SS service as an SS museum and officer's college for ideological education, is now placed under the direct control of Heinrich Himmler's personal staff. Himmler's decision to transform the castle into an SS order-castle, comparable to Marienburg of the medieval Teutonic Knights, almost certainly came from K.M. Weisthor (Wiligut). (Roots; Mund)

1935 February 1 The Anglo-German Conference begins in London. Its main topic is German rearmament.

1935 February 1 Italy sends troops to East Africa.

1935 February 6 Eva Braun celebrates her 23rd birthday and begins a new diary. Twenty-two hastily written pages were found after the war. (Eva's Diary)

1935 February 9 Unity Mitford, dining alone at the Osteria Bavaria restaurant in Munich, is invited by Hitler to join him and his party for lunch. This is their first meeting, but according to her diaries, they will meet or talk 140 times during the next five years. (Guiness)

1935 February 10 Jean Szembeck, Polish Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, tells Josef Beck, Poland's Foreign Minister, that Lipski told him Goering and his generals are "developing great plans for the future, suggesting almost a German-Polish alliance against Soviet Russia."

1935 February 15 Germany publishes a decree creating the Reichsstelle fuer Raumordnung (Agency for Space Arrangement).

1935 February 17 A workers congress organized by the Polish Socialist Party and the Polish Communist Party, attended by numerous Jews, meets in Warsaw.

1935 February 27 Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg denies that his government intends to expel eastern-European Jews or reduce the number of professional Jews. (Edelheit)

1935 February 28 The Swiss Supreme Court prohibits formation of uniformed, Nazi-like stormtroopers.

1935 March 1 The Saar is reunited with Germany and becomes an integral part of the Third Reich. The Nazis quickly apply their anti-Jewish legislation to the region.

1935 March 3 Britain publishes the Defence White Paper, detailing its plans for rearmament.

1935 March 9 Germany begins to secretly rearm (See March 3). (Edelheit)

1935 March 11 Hitler announces the existence of the new German air force (Luftwaffe).

1935 March 11 A meeting takes place of Workgroup II of the Expert Advisory Council for Population and Race Policy. Professors Fischer, Günther, and Lenz discuss with civil servants from the Ministry of the Interior the illegal sterilization of German coloured children. Professor Rüdin calls for the sterilization of psychopaths. (Science)

1935 March 13 German Jews are prohibited from reorienting their lives as artisans with the intent of remaining in the country. (Edelheit)

1935 March 14 The New York Times quotes President Roosevelt as saying, " In the distant past my ancestors may have been Jews. All I know about the origin of the Roosevelt family is that they are apparently the descendents of Claes Martenszen van Roosevelt who came from Holland. (See March 7, 1934)

1935 March 15 The Soviet Union announces creation of a fifth Jewish autonomous region at Larindorf in the Crimea.

1935 March 15 France extends compulsory military service for two more years.

1935 March 16 Germany reintroduces compulsory military service and repudiates the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty. The democracies do not react, and Britain will soon conclude a naval agreement with Germany that permits greater German naval strength than allowed by Versailles. (See June 18)

1935 March 22 The German Ministry of Education reports that not a single Jewish student was admitted to German universities in the academic year 1933-34. (Edelheit)

1935 March 24 The Anglo-Jewish Council of Trades and Industries, the World Alliance for Combatting Antisemitism and the British Anti-War Council proclaim an anti-Nazi boycott.

1935 March 25-26 Britain and Germany hold bilateral talks.

1935 March 28 Greece orders all anti-Jewish organization within its borders closed.

1935 March 31 An antisemitic manifesto published in Romania calls for racial restrictions in all areas of national life.

1935 April Sir Oswald Mosley meets with Hitler in Munich. (Guiness)

1935 Wewelsburg Castle becomes home to the Ahnenerbe, the ancestral heritage branch of the S.S. (It was called by some the Nazi Occult Bureau. (Pauwels;Roots)

1935 Spring Karl Maria Weisthor (K.M. Wiligut) is transferred from Munich to Berlin where he continues his work in the Chief Adjutant's office of Himmler's personal staff. Weisthor's villa is in exclusive Grunewald at Kaspar Theyss Strasse 33. Frequent social visitors included Himmler, Otto Rahn, Joachim von Leers, Edmund Kiss, Richard Anders and Friedrich Schiller. (Mund)

1935 April 1 Austria violates the Treaty of St. Germain by reinstituting compulsory military service.

1935 April 8 Adolph S. Ochs dies in Chattanooga, Tennesee. Ochs is soon succeeded as publisher of The New York Times by his son-in-law, Arthur Hayes Sulzberger, husband of Och's daughter, Iphigene, his only child. (Today, the newspaper remains largely the family business of the Sulzberger family.)

1935 April 11-14 The prime ministers of Britain, France and Italy meet at Stresa, Italy, to discuss Austrian independence and discuss establishing a common front against its unification with Germany.

1935 April 17 The League of Nations censures Germany's rearmament policy.

1935 April 23 The Nazi Race Bureau declares that Jewish children will be excluded from German public schools.

1935 April 23 A new Polish constituion is adopted that severely limits minority rights, especially for Jews.

1935 April 24 The American Union for Social Justice, Father Couglin's organization, holds its first meeting in Detroit.

1935 April 24 A Nazi decree orders that publishers and newspaer editors must prove their "Aryan" descent to 1800, or lose their jobs.

1935 April 30 A Nazi decree prohibits Jews from displaying the German flag.

1935 May The silver jubilee of King George V's reign is celebrated in England and throughout the empire.

1935 May Otto Rahn joins Weisthor (Wiligut's) department as a civilian employee.

1935 May 1 University students in Bucharest are required to fill out special forms describing their ethnic origins.

1935 May 2 Prussia's Administrative Court rules that the Gestapo is no longer subject to judicial control.

1935 May 2 France and the Soviet Union sign the Pact of Mutual Assistance. Hitler says it is obviously directed at Germany.

1935 May 12 Marshal Josef Pilsudski dies in Warsaw and buried in Krakow Cathedral. He is succeeded by Marshal Edward Smigly-Rydz.

1935 May 14 A Swiss court, after two years of testimony and deliberations, rules that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a forgery and demoralizing literature. (See June 26, 1933 and November 1, 1937)

1935 May 16 The Czecho-Soviet Pact of Mutual Assistance is signed.

1935 May 20 The Sudeten German Party in Czechoslovakia, led by Konrad Heiden, an ally of the outlawed Nazi Party, wins 45 out of 300 seats in the national parliament, receiving more tham 250,000 votes.

1935 May 21 The "Army Law" is passed and "Aryan descent" becomes a prerequisite for active service in the German army. (Days)

1935 May 21 Hitler once again declares himself a man of peace and disavows any imperialist designs during a speech to the Reichstag.

1935 May 25 The SA stirs up anti-Jewish riots in Munich.

1935 May 27 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Roosevelt's National Recovery Act (NRA) is unconstitutional.

1935 May 27 The International Congress of Sephardic Jewry is established.

1935 May 29 Chancellor Schuschnigg rejects Austrian union with Germany.

1935 May 31 All Jews are excluded from conscription in the German army.

1935 June Stalin extends his purges to the leadership of the Red Army.

1935 June 4 Pierre Laval forms a new French cabinet.

1935 June 7 German representatives assure the International Olympic committee that "Aryans" and "non-Aryans" will be treated equally during the upcoming Olympic games.

1935 June 7 Stanley Baldwin becomes prime minister of Britain.

1935 June 9 Sixty Jews are injured in anti-Jewish riots at Grodno in Poland.

1935 June 10 Albania announces that only Jews with capital to invest are welcome.

1935 June 12 Germany withdraws from the International League of Nations Society in protest of the League's anti-Nazi resolution.

1935 June 15 Chinese Communists Mao Tse-tung calls for a united front against Japan, but excludes Chiang Kai-shek.

1935 June 18 The German-British Naval Treaty is signed. It permits much greater German naval strength than allowed by the Versailles Treaty.

1935 June 19 The German consulate in Palestine warns Jews not to return to Germany, even for a short visit, because the Gestapo will arrest them and put them in concentration camps for "special education."

1935 June 19 Abyssinia (Ethiopia) asks the League of Nations to send observers into disputed areas of East Africa.

1935 June 20 The Soviet Union recognises the right of Jews to own private property in Birobidjan.

1935 June 21 The German state of Franconia cancels the citizenship of all Jews naturalized between 1922 and 1929. (Edelheit)

1935 June 23 Polish officials close the Anti-Nazi Boycott Committee of Poland claiming its funds are being mismanaged.

1935 June 23 Mussolini rejects British concessions concerning Abyssinia.

1935 June 24 More than 10,000 members of the Hitler Youth take a formal oath "to eternally hate the Jews."

1935 June 26 The German Labor Service (Arbeitdienst) is established and excludes all "non-Aryans" from national labor service.

1935 June 30 The Swiss state of Zurich prohibits the sale of Julius Streicher's Der Stuermer.

1935 July 1 The Gestapo arrests protestant pastor, Martin Niemoeller.

1935 July 1 Himmler officially founds the Society for Research into the Spiritual Roots of Germany's Ancestral Heritage (Ahnenerbe) in Berlin.

(Note: Himmler turns the Ahnenerbe into an official organization attached to the SS. Its declared aims are: "To make researches into the localization, general characteristics, achievements and inheritance of the Indo-Germanic race, and to communicate to the people the results of this research. This mission must be accomplished through the use of strictly scientific methods." (Pauwels)

1935 July 2 Switzerland officially bans three German anti-Jewish publications: Der Stuermer, Reichsdeutsche and Allemane.

1935 July 7 In Belgium, the Catholic daily newspaper, La Libre Belge, states that Catholics in Germany are treated worse than Jews.

1935 July 12 Alfred Dreyfus dies in France.

1935 July 15 The Wehrmacht chief of staff issues orders banning all German soldiers from shopping in "non-Aryan" shops and stores.

1935 July 16 Violent anti-Jewish demonstrations break out on Berlin's Kurfuerstendam.

1935 July 19 Alfred Rosenberg's latest book An die Dunkelmanner unserer Zeit, written as an answer his critics in the Catholic Church, is also put on the Church's Index of Forbidden Books. (Lewy)

1935 July 20 The Gestapo closes down Jewish-owned shop on the Kurfuerstendam in Berlin.

1935 July 23 Lithuanian police in Kovno suppress the Jewish anti-Nazi boycott.

1935 July 27 Nazi leaders forbid individual anti-Jewish actions. All anti-Jewish measures must emanate from the Fuehrer's chancellery. (Edelheit)

1935 July 31 The Berlin city council bars provincial Jews from entering the city.

1935 August 6 The Reich Association of Jewish Cultural Unions, established by the Reich Chamber of Culture, are placed under the control of Goebbel's propaganda ministry.

1935 August 9 Huey P. Long, U.S. Senator from Louisiana and Roosevelt's number one rival in the upcoming presidential elections, makes a speech in the Senate, telling his colleagues that the "Black Hand," led by Jews, has ordered his assassination at a meeting in a New Orleans hotel. (Congressional Record)

1935 August 15 Julius Streicher organizes an anti-Jewish rally at the Berlin Sportspalast.

1935 August 15 The U.S. Congress passes the Social Security Act.

1935 August 18 President Roosevelt implores Mussolini to preserve the peace in East Africa.

1935 August 20 The Catholic bishops send a lengthy memorandum to Hitler complaining that because of the support and publicity given by the party to Rosenberg's books, the public could only conclude that neopaganism and National Socialism were identical. (Lewy)

1935 August 20 The Nineteenth World Zionist Congress opens in Lucerne, Switzerland. It will close on September 14.

1935 August 20 The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) calls for a popular front to combat Fascism and support the struggles and wars of national liberation around the world.

1935 August 26 Half-Jewish Berlin psychiatrist, Dr. Kallmann, is allowed to speak for the last time at a meeting inGermany. At the International Congress of Population Problems, he claims: "...it is desirable to extend prevention of reproduction to relatives of schizophrenics who stand out because of minor anomalies, and, above all, to define each of them as being undesirable from the eugenic point of view at the beginning of their reproductive years." (Science)

1935 August 31 Italy increases the size of its army to more than one million men.

1935 September 1 Chaim Weizmann becomes president of the World Zionist Organization at the Nineteenth World Zionist Congress in Lucerne.

1935 September 4 The League of Nations meets to discuss Mussolini's agression against Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1935 September 6 Street sales of Jewish newspapers is prohibited in Germany. (Persecution)

1935 September 7-12 The New Zionist Organization (HA-ZACH) is officially founded at its first congress in Vienna. Jabotinsky presents a 10-year plan to settle 1.5 million Jews on both sides of the Jordan River. The Revisionist constitution is adopted.

1935 September 8 Huey P. Long is shot in the State Capitol at Baton Rouge by Dr. Carl Austin Weiss, a doctor of Jewish descent, less than a month after his speech in the Senate. More than 10,000 people attend Weiss' funeral in Baton Rouge. (See August 9)

1935 September 10 Huey P. Long dies from his wounds in Baton Rouge.

1935 September 11 Hitler, at the Seventh Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, announces that German scientists have solved the problem of synthetic rubber (buna) production.

1935 September 11 Britain urges the League of Nations to resist agressive actions. (Edelheit)

1935 September 14 Italy rejects a League of Nations compromise on the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) crisis.

1935 September 15 At the Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg, Hitler officially proclaims the antisemitic "Nuremberg Laws." These repressive laws are designed to biologically isolate the Jewish people legally, politically, and socially. One law restricts German citizenship to those of "German or related blood," thus stripping the Jews of their few remaining rights as German citizens. Another prohibits marriage and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans, making it a crime punishable by imprisonment.

1935 September 15 The swastika becomes part of the official flag of the Third Reich. (Edelheit)

1935 September 16 The central office of the German episcopate in Berlin reports that previously Catholic couples of racially mixed descent had travelled to England to get married, but now even those marriages have become illegal. (Lewy)

1935 September 20 Nazi party ideologists give their official interpretation of the Nuremberg Laws. (Edelheit)

1935 September 20 Himmler issues an order forbidding members of the S.S. to take any leading role in religious organizations, including the German Faith movement, and strictly forbidding all manifestations of religious intolerance or scorn of religious symbols. (Lewy)

1935 September 27 Otto Rahn writes a letter to Weisthor (Wiligut) excitedly describing the places he has been visiting in his hunt for grail traditions in Germany. Rahn asks for complete confidence in the matter with the exception of Himmler. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)

1935 September 27 Waldemar Gurian, a German Catholic writer in exile, writes that the Nuremberg ordinances are "only a stage on the way toward the complete physical destruction of the Jews." (Lewy)

1935 September 30 All Jewish civil servants in Germanym are placed on leave. (Persecution)

1935 October 1 Goebbel's Propaganda Ministry explains that Nazism is anti-Jewish rather than antisemitic -- probably to avoid offending their Arab allies.

1935 October 2 German banks are prohibited from issuing loans and giving credit to Jews.

1935 October 3 - 4 Mussolini's Italian troops invade the African nation of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), sending in forces from Italian Eritrea and Somaliland. Italy had unsuccessfully attempted to conquer Ethiopia in 1896, and that defeat still rankled many Italians.

1935 October 5 The U.S. places an embargo on all arms shipments to Italy and Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1935 October 5 Columbia Haus concentration camp in Berlin is closed.

1935 October 6 Nazis stage anti-Jewish actions throughout Germany. (Edelheit)

1935 October 10 The monarchy is restored in Greece under King George II.

1935 October 15 The Reich War Academy (Kriegsakademie) is reopened in Berlin.

1935 October 18 Germany promulgates the Marriage Protection Law, forbidding person with hereditary diseases to marry.

1935 October 19 The Institute for the History of the New Germany opens.

1935 October 19 The League of Nations imposes sanctions on Italy for invading Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1935 October 24 Catholic and Protestant leaders urge America not to participate in the Berlin Olumpics.

1935 October 27 An anti-Nazi rally in Hyde Park, London, draws 18,000 people.

1935 October The Order of the New Templars (ONT) presbytery at Hertesburg, near Prerow on the Baltic Sea coast is compulsorily expropriated by Hermann Goering's Reich Forestry Commission as part of the Darrs National Park. Hauerstein then establishes a new presbytery of Petena at the Püttenhof near Waging in Bavaria. (Roots)

1935 November 1 The German citizenship of Jews is officially revoked. The Nazi government announces that the Nuremberg Laws apply to all Jews, German or foreign, without exception.

1935 November 3 Leon Blum, a Jew, forms the French Popular Front government.

1935 November 11 David Ben-Gurion is named chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive.

1935 November 14 A supplement to the Nuremberg Laws is published to clarify and define who is now considered a Jew. It decrees that anyone with at least three Jewish grandparents is deemed to be a Jew. Half-Jews, those with two Jewish grandparents are to be counted as Jews only if they belong to the Jewish religion or are married to a Jew. Half-Jews and one-fourth Jews -- those descended from one Jewish grandparent -- who do not practice the Jewish faith are lumped together into a new "non-Aryan" racial category: the Mischlinge (mixed race). (Apparatus)

1935 November 15 Germany publishes regulations to execute the Nuremberg Laws.

1935 November 15 The U.S. grants commonwealth status to the Philippines.

1935 November 18 A League of Nations embargo goes into effect against Italy.

1935 November 20 The Church of England unanimously condemns Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany.

1935 November 26 Clement Atlee becomes leader of the British Labour Party.

1935 November 26 The Nazi racial office rules that the prohibition of racially mixed marriages incorporated in the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor," applies equally to Gypsies. (Edelheit)

1935 November 28 Advocates for Jewish refugees reject a proposed liquidation bank for German Jewry. (Edelheit)

1935 December 1 Chiang Kai-shek is elected president of the Kuo Min Tang, the Chinese Nationalist government.

1935 December 2 An order is issued by the Bavarian Gestapo forbidding all public meetings and lectures of Ludendorff's "heathen" movement. The edict is later extended to cover Professor Jakob Wilhelm Hauer's German Faith movement as well. (NA; Lewy)

1935 December 2 A number of American colleges and universities urge U.S. athletes to boycott the Berlin Olympics.

1935 December 7 A resolution by the National Amateur Athletic Union demands that American teams refuse to participate in the Berlin Olympics.

1935 December 13 Germany publishes additional restrictions for German Jews in the legal and medical professions.

1935 December 23 The Italian air force begins using mustard gas against Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1935 December 24 Congress passes the United States Neutrality Act.

1935 December 26 Germany revokes the licenses of Jewish traveling salespeople throughout Germany. (Edelheit)

1935 December 31 James G. McDonald resigns as League of Nations High Commissioner for the Relief of Refugees.

1935 Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress, attempts suicide.

1935 Edouard Benes succeeds Tomas Masaryk as president of Czechoslovakia.

1935 Leni Riefenstahl directs the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will.

1935 The writings of Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels begin to be published by a firm in Vienna, which will continue to be involved until late 1937. No more of his writings will appear until after 1945 in Switzerland. (Roots)

1935 Scottish physicist Robert Watson-Watt patents the first practical radar system.

1935 Michael Prawdin (Michael Charol) publishes The Legacy of Genghis Khan, a sequel to his 1934 book on the same subject. Both are avidly read by Heinrich Himmler, who strongly recommends them to all those around him, including Hitler. (Architect)

1935 The Moscow subway (named for Kaganovich) is opened with great publicity.

1935 Between 1935 and 1937, 75 Polish Jews are killed and more than 500 injured in widespread attacks. Many are attacked in the streets and their homes and schools broken up and looted. (Atlas)

1936 The Duke of Kent, King Edward VIII's brother and closest family supporter, dies; some historians say under mysterious circumstances.

1936 January The German government begins a series of trials of members of the religious orders accused of violating the foreign currency laws. Press coverage is hostile to the accused in almost all cases. (Lewy)

1936 January An article in the Catholic Klerusblatt justifies the Nuremberg Laws as indispensable safeguards for the qualitative makeup of the German people.

1936 January 1 The United Palestine Appeal is founded.

1936 January 4 Ambassador Bergen in Rome writes to German foreign minister von Neurath that the Pope is protesting the violations of the Concordat by the Hitler government, and has several times threatened to bring his complaints into the open. It has taken the moderation of Secretary of State Pacelli to prevent a rupture of relations. (Lewy)

1936 January 11 An attempt is made on the life of Romanian Chief Rabbi Jacob Isaac Niemirower.

1936 January 15 Vicar General Riemer of Passau issues instructions allowing sterilized Catholics to receive the sacraments of matrimony, reversing the decision of January 4, 1935. (Lewy)

1936 January 15 Japan withdraws from the London Naval Conference.

1936 January 20 Edward VIII is crowned king of Great Britain.

1936 January 21 British King George V dies.

1936 January 23 Utah Senator William H. King urges the U.S. to open its doors as a haven for Jews fleeing Germany.

1936 January 25 The Catholic Agency of Poland officially condemns antisemitic acts. (Edelheit)

1936 January 29 The funeral of King George V.

1936 January - February Moderate Republicans and leftist parties in Spain form a "Popular Front" in opposition to the conservatives.

1936 February 4 Swiss Nazi Party leader Wilhelm Gustloff is assassinated by David Frankfurter, a Jew.

1936 February 6 The German Ministry of the Interior decrees that a system of records be set up to cover hereditary biological data on all patients in mental hospitals and institutions. (Science)

1936 February 6-16 The Winter Olympics are held in the German resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

1936 February 16 The "Popular Front" of moderate Republicans and leftists in Spain drives the conservatives out of office in national elections.

1936 February 18 Goebbels issues a decree muzzling the religious press.

1936 February 18 British Major General Sir Neill Malcolm is appointed League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany.

1936 February 18 Switzerland bans NSDAP propaganda activities nationwide.

1936 February 26 A military dictatorship is established in Japan.

1936 February 27 The French Parliament ratifies the Franco-Soviet military alliance.

1936 February 27 Mussolini protests the Five-Power Mediterranean Pact.

1936 February 28 London police are ordered to arrest all antisemitic agitators.

1936 February 29 Cardinal Hlond declares in a public letter that "It is true that the Jews are committing frauds, practicing usury, and dealing in white slavery. It is true that in schools, the influence of Jewish youth upon Catholic youth is generally evil, from a religious and ethical point of view. But let us be just. Not all Jews are like that. One does well to prefer his own kind in commercial dealings and to avoid Jewish stores and Jewish stalls in the markets, but it is not permissable to demolish Jewish businesses, break windows, torpedo their houses..." (Lewy)

1936 March Writer and researcher Otto Rahn officially joins the SS. (Roots)

1936 March 3 Italy abolishes private banking.

1936 March 7 German troops re-enter the de-militarized Rhineland in defiance of the Treaty of Locarno.

1936 March 7 German Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath informs the other signatories to the Locarno Treaties that Germany now considers those Treaties to have been broken by France. The French military alliance with Russia, von Neurath says, is obviously directed at Germany and consequently Germany will reoccupy the Rhineland. Germany offers to sign a pact of nonaggression with Belgium and France, to sign an Air Force agreement with all Western Powers, and to reenter the League of Nations if its Charter is independent of the Versailles Treaty. None of these proposals are acted upon by the Western Powers.

1936 March Britain, Italy and Belgium at the League of Nations 12-18 Council in London make it clear to France that even if Germany's reoccupation of the Rhineland is a violation of Versailles, it is not cause enough for war.

1936 March 7 Jews in Germany lose their right to vote in elections for the Reichstag. (Persecution)

1936 March 9 Three Jews are murdered at Przytyk in Poland, and a few days later, five more are killed in the village of Stawy. (Atlas)

1936 March 13 Jewish labor groups call for a one day general strike to protest Polish antisemitism.

1936 March 14 Socialists, Communists and Syndicalists burn churches in the center of Madrid.

1936 March 15 Hitler makes one of his most memorable quotes in a speech in Munich, saying, "I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker."

1936 March 15 The Council for German Jewry is established in London.

1936 March 18 Catholic leaders in Austria demand a numerus clausus against Jews.

1936 March 22 Sir Oswald Mosley makes an antisemitic speech that almost causes a riot in London's Albert Hall.

1936 March 22 Italy, Austria amd Hungary sign an anti-Nazi mutual defense treaty in Rome.

1936 March 23 British troops evacuate Jews from Hebron in Palestine.

1936 March 25 The U.S., Britain and France sign the London Naval Convention.

1936 March 25 Nazis confiscate property belonging to German and Jewish writers who voluntarily went into exile.

1936 March 29 Hitler receives 99% of the votes in a referendum, receiving 44.5 million votes out of 45.5 million registered voters.

1936 March 29 SS guard formations are renamed SS-Totenkopfverbande and their number increases to 3,500. (Edelheit)

1936 March 30 Britain announces that it will build 38 new warships.

1936 April Otto Rahn is promoted to SS-Unterscharfuehrer, a noncommissioned officer (NCO).

1936 April 7 Abyssinia again appeals to the League of Nations for aid against Italy.

1936 April 7 A Socialist vote in the Spanish parliament outs President Alcala Zamora.

1937 April 17 The Polish parliament passes a bill outlawing Jewish ritual slaughter (Shechita).

1936 April 17 Leftist unions stage a general strike in Madrid.

1936 April 22 The Lithuianian government announces that all Jewish teachers institutes will be closed.

1936 April 24-27 Anti-Jewish demonstrations break out in Czechoslovakia after screenings of the film Golem.

1936 April 28 King Farouk is coronated in Egypt.

1936 May The German government steps up its drive against the religious orders, instituting a number of trials for sexual perversity. The proceedings are given detailed and lurid coverage by the German press. Catholic monasteries are described as breeding places of filth and vice. (Lewy)

1936 May 2 Haile Selassie flees Abyssinia (Ethiopia). Addis Ababa is looted and set afire by mobs.

1936 May 3 Italian troops capture Addis Ababa.

1936 May 3 A fundraiser for Jewish refugees at Madison Square Garden draws 16,000 people.

1936 May 5 Mussolini announces total victory over Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

(Note: Although the League of Nations had imposed an embargo against Italy, it failed to include a vital item, oil, thereby discrediting itself once again.)

1936 May 7 Britain proposes a plan for regulating worldwide arms traffic.

1936 May 8 Haile Selassie arrives in Palestine.

1936 May 8 Oswald Spengler, renowned German historian and philosopher best known for his pessimistic philosophy of history, dies in Munich.

1936 May 9 Abyssinia (Ethiopia) is annexed into the Italian empire under King Victor Emanuel II.

1936 May 10 The League of Nations votes to leave its sanctions against Italy in place.

1936 May 10 Manuel Azana is elected president of the Spanish Republic.

1936 May 11 Pope Pius XI describes Communism as the "greatest evil to men."

1936 May 13 Britain accuses Italy of encouraging the Arab revolt in Palestine.

1936 May 16 General Felicjan Skladkowski becomes prime minister of Poland.

1936 May 18 The British Colonial Office announces formation of the Peel Commission to investigate the disturbances in Palestine.

1936 May 18 Haile Selassie thanks Jews for their support in defending Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1936 May 21 Britain warns Italy not to meddle in the affairs of Palestine and Egypt.

1936 May 21 Kurt von Schuschnigg is elected leader of the Austrian Fatherland Front.

1936 May 23 Catholic bishops in Holland demand a ban on the Dutch Nazi party. (Edelheit)

1936 May 24 The Belgian Fascist party, the Rexists, win 21 seats in parliament.

1936 May 26 Austria announces its intention not to attend the Geneva conference on German refugees.

1936 June A Swiss Catholic reportedly asks children to pray for the death of Hitler. The German press quickly accuses all Catholics of being in sympathy with sedition. (Lewy)

1936 June 1 Chancellor Schuschnigg meets with Mussolini, who persuades him to agree to a German-Austrian pact.

1936 June 2 One hundred nineteen Nazis are indicted in Warsaw for conspiring to overthrow the Polish government.

1936 June 4 Leon Blum becomes the first socialist and the first Jew to serve as premier of France. Presiding over the Popular Front coalition of Socialists, Communists, and liberals, he responds to worker unrest with reforms such as paid vacations, collective bargaining, and the 40-hour work week.

1936 June 6 Xavier Vallat, a member of the French Chamber of Delegates, attacks Leon Blum for his Jewish origin.

1936 June 7 Cardinal Faulhaber, in a sermon, declares "A lunatic abroad has had an attack of madness -- does this justify wholesale suspicion of German Catholics? We feel offended on account of this questioning of our loyalty to the state. We will today give an answer, a Christian answer: Catholic men, we will now pray together, a paternoster for the life of the Fuehrer. This our answer." (AB Munich; Lewy) (See June 1936 above)

1936 June 9 Mussolini appoints Count Galeazzo Ciano Italian foreign minister.

1936 June 12 The first Arab attack is made on British troops in Palestine. (Edelheit)

1936 June 13 Britain is forced to declare martial law in Palestine.

1936 June 17 Himmler is appointed chief of the German police, both uniformed and civilian.

1936 June 20 The Bavarian Political Police issue orders to take into custody all priests who dare to criticize an order dismissing all nuns teaching in the public schools, which is scheduled to be announced the following day. Vicar General Buchwieser of Munich (in charge of the diocese in the absence of Cardinal Faulhaber) instructs the clergy to read a joint pastoral letter of the Bavarian bishops criticizing this order.That same evening the government gives in and instructs the police to merely record the names of priests who read the pastoral letter. (Lewy)

1936 June 20 Austria bans all political meetings and street demonstrations.

1936 June 21 The Bavarian government publicly reads the order dismissing all Catholic nuns teaching in the public schools.

1936 June 21 Anti-Jewish riots break out in Bucharest, Romania.

1936 June 27 Germany declares its support for Danzig's independence.

1936 June 30 A Jewish general strike is held to protest Polish antisemitism

1936 June 30 France outlaws the French Fascist Party.

1936 June 30 Haile Selassie addresses the League of Nations.

1936 July 8 The Polish government declares that the German-sponsored movement for Danzig independence is belligerent act (causa belli) that could lead to war.

1936 July 8 Arabs send a memorandum to the British government demanding an end to Jewish immigration to Palestine.

1936 July 8 Hitler guarantees Austrian independence.

1936 July 9 Goebbels orders a halt to anti-Jewish propaganda until after the Berlin Olympics.

1936 July 10 The British House of Commons debates the activities of Sir Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists.

1936 July 11 A German-Austrian friendship treaty is signed.

1936 July 12 Sachsenhausen concentration camp is opened.

1936 July 15 The League of Nations and Western Powers lift economic sanctions against Italy.

1936 July 15 Professor Mollison, an anthropologist at the University of Munich, recommends to the Ministry of the Interior that the costs of expert reports on "Aryan" or Jewish origins should be recovered from the applicants. "It is not advisable to provide such a time-consuming investigation free for those who claim Aryan origins when they know they are not entitled to do so." (Science)

1936 July 17 The Spanish Civil War begins. A number of generals led by General Francisco Franco provoke revolts against the Republican (Socialist) governments in Spain and Spanish Morocco. Franco is strongly supported by the Catholic Church, the nobility, the military and the Fascists. Hitler and Mussolini immediately sent arms and men to help Franco. Several months later Stalin begins shipping arms to the "loyalists." The U.S. adheres to a policy of strict neutrality, but thousands of Communists and anti-Fascists volunteers from the United States and Britain go to Spain to serve with the republicans and are organized with the aid of the Soviet Comintern.

1936 July 17 France nationalizes its munitions industry.

1936 July 18 The Nazi-controlled Danzig Senate nullifies the Free City's constitution, prohibits Jewish ritual slaughter and prevents Jews from renewing leases and business licenses.

1936 July 21 Members of the Peel Committee (British Royal Committee on Palestine) are named.

1936 July 23 Representatives of Britain, France and Belgium meet in London to discuss German violation of the Locarno Pact in the Rhineland.

1936 July 26 Italy and Germany begin assisting General Franco's forces in Spain.

1936 July 26 Father Charles Coughlin, in an address to 5,000 American farmers claims that the Roosevelt administration is a tool of the Rothschild banking dynasty.

1936 July 26 The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) announces that during 1935 it contributed $300,000 to Jewish welfare in Germany.

1936 Summer Hitler finds a strange rock he calls Wotan's Hand and mounts it in a special glass case, displaying it as though it were a holy relic.

1936 August A gathering organized by the American Forward Movement in Asheville, N.C., collapses when a rabbi attempts to attend the conference.

1936 August 1 The 1936 Olympic Games begin in Berlin. A Black American, Jesse Owens, wins 4 gold medals. For propaganda reasons, most anti-Jewish measures are avoided for the duration of the games, and slogans are removed from the streets.

1936 August The Messerschmitt ME-109, a highly successful single-seat fighter, is first publically displayed at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. It was subsequently tested and proven during the Spanish Civil War.

1936 August 1 France declares a policy of non-intervention in the Spanish civil war.

1936 August 6 The U.S. declares its strict neutrality in the Spanish civil war.

1936 August 14 Arthur S. Leese, publisher of the Fascist, a periodical of the Imperial Fascist League, is tried in London on charges of seditious libel against British Jews.

1936 August 14 Count Jean Szembeck reports that during a recent conversation with Joachim von Ribbentrop that the German Foreign Minister "insisted upon the necessity of Polish-German collaboration." Both Poland and Germany," Ribbentrop said, "are under the threat of a very great danger. Bolshevism plans to destroy all of the fruits of Western civilization"

1936 August 15 Arab groups in Palestine attack 38 Jewish settlements.

1936 August 19 The first Stalinist trials of "counterrevolutionaries" opens. All defendents will be sentenced to death.

1936 August 23 The German Evangelical Church publishes its manifesto.

1936 August 24 Two-year mandatory military service becomes compulsory in Germany.

1936 August 24 Lev Kamenev is executed after being found guilty of treason in the first Stalinist "show trial" of the Great Purge.

1936 August 25 Grigory Zinoviev is executed after being arrested and falsely charged with having organized a "terrorist counterrevolutionary group allied with the Gestapo."

1936 August 26 Britain and Egypt sign a twenty-year alliance in Cairo, ending the British military occupation of Egypt, except for the Canal Zone (Suez).

1936 September Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) is promoted to SS-Brigadefuehrer (Brigadier) on Himmler's personal staff. An undated typescript in the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz is a blueprint for the reestablishment of the Irminist religion in Germany, with detailed provisions for restrictions on the priesthood, the nationalization of all ecclesiastical property, and the restoration and conservation of ancient monuments. (Roots)

1936 September 4 The Berlin Labor Court rules that German employees who marry Jews or other "non-Aryans" may be dismissed from their jobs.

1936 September 8 France places an embargo on all military exports to Spain.

1936 September 9 Goebbels accuses Czechoslovakia of providing secret bases for Soviet aircraft.

1936 September 14 After a majority of the Spanish Catholic hierarchy has sided with General Franco and called for a crusade against Communism, Pope Pius XI gives his blessing to "those who have assumed the difficult and dangerous task of defending and restoring the rights and honor of Church and religion." (Lewy)

1936 September 18 David Lloyd George publicly expresses enthusiam for Hitler and his regime after visiting the Fuehrer in Germany.

1936 September 20 The Gestapo arrests a number of well-known rabbis and Zionist leaders without charging them with any crimes.

1936 September 21 Arthur Leese and two other British Fascists are found guilty of libeling and slandering British Jews.

1936 September 24 Jewish-owned employment agencies in Germany are ordered to cease operation.

1936 September 27 The Gestapo closes the Association of Independent Artisans of the Jewish Faith, a German Jewish mutual aid society.

1936 October 1 General Franco is declared Spanish head of state at Burgos.

1936 October 3 The German battleship Scharnhorst is launched.

1936 October 4 Hans Frank draws up a program to remove all Jewish influence from German jurisprudence. (Edelheit)

1936 October 4 The Reich Chamber of Culture orders all Jewish art dealers in Berlin to close their galleries by the end of the year.

1936 October 13 Special courts are set up by the German Ministry of Justice to try cases covered by the Nuremberg Laws

1936 October 15 Jewish teachers in Germany are forbidden to tutor "Aryan" children.

1936 October 20 Polish officials close the Warsaw Trade School after anti-Jewish riots.

1936 October 21 Julius Streicher initiates a new anti-Jewish campaign with an exhibition entitled "World Enemy Number One: Jewish Bolshevism."

1936 October 22 Belgium declares martial law to combat Rexist violence.

1936 October 22-25 Spanish Republicans (Socialists) transfer Spain's gold reserves to the Soviet Union. (Edelheit)

1936 October 25 The Rome-Berlin Axis is established. Cooperation between Germany and Italy in Spain has helped cement a vague understanding, which is now formally concluded.

1936 November At Petrovaradim in Yugoslavia, the editor of an antisemitic newspaper modelled on Streicher's "Der Stürmer" is tried and acquitted. (Atlas)

1936 November Dr. Ritter, a psychologist and psychiatrist, begins his work on Gypsies in the Section for Research on Race-hygiene and Population Biology in the Reich Department of Health in Berlin, funded by the DFG. (Science)

1936 November 4 President Roosevelt is relected, carrying every state except Maine and Vermont.

1936 November 5 The Iron Guard (Legionaries) denounces the Romanian government as a tool of Jews and Freemasons.

1936 November 7 The so-called International Brigade, composed primarily of Socialists and Communists, arrives in Madrid and a battle for the city begins.

1936 November 8 The National Christian Party stages the largest antisemitic demonstration in Romanian History.

1936 November 12 The opening session of the Peel Commission begins in Palestine.

1936 November 13 The Research Department for the Jewish Question (Forschungsabteilung judenfrage) opens in Munich.

1936 November 15 The Romanian Ministry of Labor announces that Jewish refugees will not be allowed to establish themselves in Romania. (Edelheit)

1936 November 18 Germany and Italy officially recognize General Franco as head of the Spanish state.

1936 November 23 The Nazis blacklist some 2,000 works written by Jewish authors.

1936 November 25 The Anti-Comintern Pact is signed by Germany and Japan. They will soon be joined by Italy. (Some sources say the pact was signed on the 28th.)

1936 November 25 Chaim Weizmann testifies before the Peel Commission in Palestine.

1936 November 29 The National Council for Palestine, located in New York, urges the Peel Commission to insist on Britain honoring its obligation to establish a Jewish homeland in Palesine.

1936 November 29 Soviet Prime Minister Vlacheslav Molotov denounces the Nazi persecution of German Jews. Antisemites claim Molotov and Stalin are both married to Jewesses.

1936 November 30 Moshe Shertok, head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, testifies before the Peel Commission, blaming the Colonial Office and its restrictive immigration policy as the reason for "illegal" Jewish immigration to Palestine. (Edelheit)

1936 December 1 The Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) becomes an official agency of the Reich.

1936 December 3 All Jewish charitable organizations in Germany lose their tax exempt status.

1936 December 4 England and France propose to extend the non-intervention agreement to so-called "volunteers".

1936 December 6 A new Nazi press campaign aimed at totally eliminating Jews from German economic life is begun.

1936 December 7 The last Jewish department store in Germany is "Aryanized."

1936 December 8 Battleship Gneisenau is launched in Germany.

1936 December 9 The trial of David Frankfurter, the Jew accused of assassinating Swiss Nazi leader Wilhelm Gustloff, begins in Grisons state court (S).

1936 December 9 King Edward VIII sends a coded telegram to Baron Eugene de Rothschild requesting permission to stay at Rothschild's Castle Enzesfeld near Vienna. (Cowles)

1936 December 11 King Edward VIII abdicates the British throne and becomes the Duke of Windsor. He quickly leaves the country and begins an extended stay at Rothschild's castles in Austria. (Cowles)

1936 December The Duke of York (father of Queen, Elizabeth) becomes King George VI of England.

1936 December 12 Chiang Kai-shek declares war on Japan.

1936 December 14 David Frankfurter is sentenced to 18 years in a Swiss prison for killing Nazi leader Wilhelm Gustloff.

1936 December 18 The Nazis proclaim an anti-Jewish boycott limited to Breslau.

1936 December 20 Walter Gross, chief of the Nazi Racial Bureau, announces a nationwide racial propaganda campaign.

1936 December 25 The U.S. announces new agreements that facilitate trade with Germany. (Edelheit)

1936 December 27 The first rationing of fats is introduced in Germany. The death penalty is decreed for evasion of foreign exchange regulations.

1936 December 27 The Basque autonomoius government, headquartered in Guernica, seizes a German vessel in Spainish waters. It will be released two days later.

1936 December 27 Britain and France agree on a mutual policy of non-intervention in the Spanish civil war.

1936 Action Francaise is officially dissolved by the French government for complicity in a physical attack on Leon Blum. (Surviving clandestinely, Action Francaise contributes to the ideology of the Vichy Government during World War II. It disintegrates in 1944 when France is liberated and Maurras, its leader, is imprisoned for collaboration.)

1936 Ioannis Metaxas establishes a Greek dictatorship.

1936 In Lithuania, where severe restrictions had been imposed on the number of Jews allowed to enter universities, not a single Jewish student is granted admittance to study medicine. (Atlas)

1936 The influential Jesuit magazine Civilta Cattolica published in Rome emphasizes that opposition to Nazi racialism should not be interpreted as a rejection of anti-semitism, and argues, as the magazine had done since 1890, that the Christian world (though without un-Christian hatred) must defend itself against the Jewish threat by suspending the civic rights of Jews and returning them to the ghettos. (Lewy)

1936 The German government gives the National Association of German Catholics Abroad a sum of more than 139,000 marks, in 1936 alone, for its pro-German and pro-Nazi activities among the German minorities of Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. (Lewy)

1936 A Polish Jesuit periodical asserts that it is necessary "to provide separate schools for Jews, so that our children will not be infected with their lower morality." (Atlas)

1936 The Iron Guard, an influential antisemitic organization in Romania, bombs a Jewish theater in Timisoara, killing two Jews and injuring many more. (Atlas)

1936 Diana Mitford, Unity Mitford's sister, marries Sir Oswald Mosley in Berlin. Their wedding reception is held at the home of Joseph Goebbel's. (Guiness)

1937 January 1 The Polish law banning Jewish ritual slaughter (Shechita) goes into effect.

1937 January 1 All Jewish-owned employment agencies in Germany are ordered closed.

1937 January 6 The Zionist Organization in Poland votes to support the Polish Socialist parties in all future elections. (Edelheit)

1937 January 7 Heiress to the Dutch (Netherlands, Holland) throne, Princess Juliana, marries Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld.

1937 January 10 The Polish government dissolves the Warsaw Jewish kehilla.

1937 January 12 The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem testifies before the Peel Commission in Palestine.

1937 January 13 The U.S. State Department in Washington warns citizens against serving in Spain.

1937 January 15 The Schuschnigg government proclaims amnesty for Austrian Nazis.

1937 January 16 The Gestapo orders all Jewish youth organization in Germany dissolved.

1937 January 17 Germany prohibits foreign warships from free passage through the Kiel Canal.

1937 January 19 Opening of the trials against "Trotskyists" in Moscow. Karl Radek and 16 others are condemned to death in the first trials.

1937 January 20 President Roosevelt is inaugurated for a second term.

1937 January 22 German citizens are asked not to patronize Jewish doctors.

1937 January 23 The second Stalinist trial of counterrevolutionaries opens in Moscow. Thirteen of the fifteen defendents receive death sentences.

1937 January 24 Goering sorders Heydrich to organize emigration of Jews still residing in Germany.

1937 January 30 The Peel Commission returns to Britain.

1937 January 31 The Danzig Senate creates a secret police force modelled on the Gestapo.

1937 January Hitler formally abrogates the Treaty of Versailles.

1937 February 1 The Nazis issue a decree prohibiting Herman citizens from accepting any form of Nobel Prize.

1937 February 2 In reply to a question from the Reich Minister of Science, Education, and National Culture about the number of Jews and half-Jews supported by the DFG, its president reports: "None at all." (Science)

1937 February 4 President Roosevelt begins an effort to "pack" the Supreme court.

1937 February 10 Nazi officials close all Catholic schools in Bavaria.

1937 February 16-22 Hermann Goering visits Poland.

1937 February 18 Under a new German conscription law, half and quarter Jews will be eligible for military and labor service.

1937 February 18 Czechoslovakia signs an agreement with Sudeten Germans guaranteeing them broader minority rights.

1937 February 27 France establishes a ministry of defense.

1937 February 27 Anti-Jewish violence again breaks out in Romania.

1937 March The Duke of Windsor leaves the Rothschild's castle in Austria. (Cowles)

1937 March 5 German officials announce that the nation's film industry is completely cleansed of Jews.

1937 March 14 A papal encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge (With Burning Sorrow) is published, dealing with the condition of the Catholic Church in Germany and condemning Nazi racism.

1937 March 21 Mit brennender Sorge, is read from the pulpits of all Catholic Churches in Germany on Palm Sunday. It has been smuggled into Germany, secretly printed and distributed by messenger throughout the nation. "With deep anxiety and with ever-growing dismay" Pius XI says he has watched the tribulations of the Catholic Church in Germany. The Concordat of 1933 is now being openly violated, and the conscience of the faithful oppressed as never before. True belief in God, the Pope declares, is irreconcilable with the deification of earthly values such as race, people or the state. Important as these are in the natural order, they can never be the ultimate norm of all things. Belief in a national God or a national religion, similarly is a grave error. The God of Christianity cannot be imprisoned "within the frontiers of a single people, within the pedigree of one single race." (Lewy)

1937 March 21 The Polish Senate passes a law making it illegal for Jews to manufacture, distribute or sell Catholic religious materials.

1937 March 22 The Gestapo confiscates all copies of the Pope's encyclical it can find. Twelve print shops are soon closed and dispossessed without compensation for having printed the encyclical letter. Strong protests are lodged with the bishops and the Vatican. (Lewy)

1937 March 26 The Pope publishes an encyclical entitled Divini Redemptoris, condemning atheistic Communism.

1937 Spring A decision is made that all German colored children are to be illegally sterilized. After the prerequisite expert reports are provided by Dr. Abel, Dr. Schade, and Professor Fischer, the sterilizations are carried out. (Science)

1937 April The Duke of Windsor visits Germany at the invitation of Adolf Hitler. Windsor meets privately at least twice with Rudolf Hess. (Wolff Hess, Missing Years)

1937 April 6 Hitler orders the resumption of the immorality and foreign exchange trials against Catholic clergymen, which had been halted shortly before the Olympic Games in the summer of 1936.

1937 April 9 The Gestapo seizes all B'nai B'rith lodges in Germany.

1937 April 11 A new order from the German Ministry of the Interior deprives all Jews of municipal citizenship.

1937 April 12 The German Foreign Ministry sends a note of protest to Papal Secretary of State Pacelli describing the Pope's encyclical as a call to battle against the leadership of the German state and a grave violation of the Concordat (See March 21). (Lewy)

1937 April 13 The Gestapo prohibits all Jewish public meetings for 60 days with the exception of synagogue services.

1937 April 16 Swiss officials announce that they are refusing to grant permanent resident permits to German Jewish refugees to avoid flooding the labor market.

1937 April 20 General Franco declares Spain a totalitarian state and assumes dictatorial power.

1937 April 20 The International Order of B'nai B'rith is banned throughout Germany.

1937 April 26 German warplanes from the Luftwaffe's Condor Legion destroy the Spanish (Basque) town of Guernica during what is described as the first air bombardment of an undefended town in history. More than 1,600 civilians are killed.

1937 April 30 Pacelli replies to Germany's note of protest. "The Holy See," the Papal Secretary declares, "which has friendly, correct, or at least tolerable relations with states of one or another constitutional form and orientation, will never interfere in the question of what concrete form of government a certain people chooses to regard as best suited to its nature and requirements. With respect to Germany also, it has remained true to this principle and intends so to continue." (Lewy)

1937 May On his arrival in America, Walter Krivitsky, Stalin's chief of Military Intelligence, reveals to the U.S. State Department the full details of Stalin's purges. Krivitsky claims Stalin is determined to forge a pact with Hitler and has turned against the old Bolsheviks and officers of the Red Army because they are opposed to any alliance with Hitler. "Stalin, in the name of anti-fascism, destroyed the anti-fascists," Kivitsky says.

1937 May The curriculum vitae of Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) is sealed after confidential scrutiny. Weisthor's psychiatric history remains a closely guarded secret. (Roots)

1937 May Anarchists and radical Marxists in Spain stage an abortive revolution in Barcelona that is opposed by the Socialists and Communists. The Communists, who as the conduit for Soviet aid had become increasingly influential on the Loyalist side, lead a drive to repress the ultra-leftist elements. Many are tortured and murdered.

1937 May 1 President Roosevelt signs the third U.S. Neutrality Act.

1937 May 6 The airship Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed while maneuvering to land at Lakehurst, N.J. Claims and speculation that it was sabotaged have never been supported by solid evidence.

1937 May 9 A Nazi decree bars Jews from receiving university degrees.

1937 May 14 German Jews are forbidden to play music by Beethoven or Mozart during Jewish cultural concerts.

1937 May 20 Professor von Verschuer, now at the University of Frankfurt, mentions in a letter to Professor Fischer his report for Rosenberg, "Proposals for the Registration of Jews and Part-Jews". (Science)

1937 May 28 Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, is elected leader of the Conservative Party of Britain, forms a new cabinet and becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain, replacing Stanley Baldwin.

1937 May 30 Anti-Franco Spanish forces bomb the German battleship Deutschland off Ibizia, killing 26 and injuring 71.

1937 May 31 The German fleet shells the Spanish city of Almeira in retaliation for the attack on the Deutschland.

1937 June 3 Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson (Warfield) in Tours, France.

1937 June 8-9 Air raids on Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Valencia cause heavy damage and loss of life.

1937 June 11 The Soviet "Generals' Trials," the third Stalinist purge trial, opens in Moscow.

1937 June 12 Soviet Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevski is executed in Moscow. It is said that Tukhachevski had confided his plan for a coup against the Communist regime to military officials while visiting London and Paris and that Moscow was immediately informed by its agents. (Sturdza)

(Note: Others claim Tukhachevski was set up by Reinhard Heydrich who used forged documents from WWI to frame Tukhachevski in an effort to disrupt the Soviet military and weaken its leadership.) (Secrets)

1937 June 12 Heydrich issues a secret directive ordering Jewish "race-violators" into "protective custody" after they have served their prison sentences.

1937 June 13 The Swiss state of Geneva bans the Communist Party.

1937 June 16 General Lucjan Zieligowski in a speech to the Polish Senate declares, " there is no place in Poland for the Jews."

1937 June 16 The German People's Church (Deutsche Volkskirche) is accredited as the official Nazi church.

1937 June 16 New Stalinists purges are held in Belorussia.

1937 June 20 The Czech government institutes compulsory military training for all citizens from six to sixty. Actual military call-up is from seventeen to thirty.

1937 June 21 Leon Blum resigns as premier of France. Camille Chautemps forms a radical Socialist government, with Blum as vice premier.

1937 June 28 The Ninth Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce opens in Berlin.

1937 June 30 The French legislature votes to give emergency powers to the Chautemps government.

1937 Summer Otto Rahn makes a second expedition to Montsegur.

1937 July 1 The Gestapo again arrests Pastor Martin Niemoeller, leader of the German Confessional Church in Berlin.

1937 July 2 Severe limitations are put on the number of Jewish pupils (already partially restricted in 1933) allowed to attend German schools. (Persecution)

1937 July 2 Aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her copilot Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific Ocean during the last leg of an attempted flight around the world.

1937 July 6 A German decree forbids Jews from studying medicine.

1937 July 7 A Chinese-Japanese military conflict at Marco Polo Bridge near Peking provides the pretext for an all-out Japanese campaign of conquest in China.

1937 July 7 The Peel Commission publishes its plan for the partitioning of Palestine into two separate states: one Arab and the other Jewish.

1937 July 15 The German-Polish Convention of May1922 expires along with its protection of Jewish minority rights in Upper Silesia. The Jews of Upper Silesia are now exposed to the full rigors of Nazi rule. (Atlas)

1937 July 19 Ettersberg, a new concentration camp, originally designed for professional criminals, is opened in central Germany. Its name is changed to Buchenwald on July 28. (Edelheit) (Note: other sources say it was opened on July 16)

1937 July 24 An order segregating Jews from "Aryans" in German health resorts and public baths is issued.

1937 July 27 The trial of five German Jews accused of a 1929 ritual murder (blood libel) opens in Bamburg.

1937 July 28 Japanese troops occupy the Chinese capital of Peking.

1937 July 30 The League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission discusses the Peel Commission's plan for partitioning Palestine.

1937 August Jews are accused of sacrilege at Humenne in Czechoslovakia. (Atlas)

1937 August 3 Italy bars foreign Jews from universities and institutions of higher learning.

1937 August 3-16 The Twentieth World Zionist Congress meeting in Zurich debates the partitioning of Palestine as proposed by the Peel Commission.

1937 August 4 Most Jewish teachers are barred from teaching in Italian schools.

1937 August 5 The Nazi Propaganda Ministry forbids any further mention of Leo Schlageter or Horst Wessel in the Catholic press. This is another attempt by Goebbels and his staff to put an end to the Catholic practice of "borrowing" Nazi heroes.

1937 August 8 The World Zionist Congress debates the partitioning of Palestine. Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion defend the plan.

1937 August 8 The Romanian government prohibits the singing of Hatikvah (the Zionist national anthem) in Jewish schools.

1937 August 11 Hjalmar Schacht has a loud argument with Hitler at Obersalzberg. (Schacht was one of the few people who dared to shout at Hitler.) After a closed-door meeting, Schacht tenders his resignation. Hitler, obviously upset, insists he must reconsider.

1937 August 13 The German Ministry of Education orders all Germans knowing a foreign language to register with the government.

1937 August 18 The Romanian Orthodox Church urges the Romanian people to fight the "Jewish parasite."

1937 August 23 The Radical Peasants Party criticizes the antisemitism of the Romanian Orthodox Church. (Edelheit)

1937 August 29 China and the Soviet Union sign a treaty of nonagression.

1937 September Brothers of the Hungarian branch of the Order of the New Templars (ONT) found the small priory of Szent Kereszt below Vaskapu Hill at Pilisszentkereszt in northern Hungary. (Roots)

1937 September 4 Nazi officials order all Rotary Club chapters in Germany dissolved.

1937 September 5 Hjalmar Schacht takes a leave of absence from the Economics Ministry. That same month he tells Max Warburg he can no longer keep M.M. Warburg in the Reich Loan Consortium. (Warburgs)

1937 September 9 Sachsenburg concentration camp is closed.

1937 September 12 The Romanian National Soldiers Front calls on Romanian citizens to deal with the "Jewish Plot."

1937 September 13 An Anti-Jewish month is proclaimed by Polish antisemitic groups.

1937 September 25-28 Mussolini and Hitler meet in Berlin.

1937 September 27 The Romanian government prohibits Zionist fundraising nationwide.

1937 October 4 Amin al-Huseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, flees Palestine for Lebanon.

1937 October 5 President Roosevelt, in a major speech in Chicago, warns Americans against continued isolationism, speaking of the need to "quarantine the aggressors." A strong negative response to this call indicates the strength of isolationist sentiment in the U.S.

1937 October 13 Germany guarantees Belgian independence.

1937 October 14 Professor von Verschuer protests to Reich Minister of Justice Gürtner that his expert opinion incriminating the defendant in a "race dishonour trial," has not been accepted and that, as a result, the defendant has been set free. (Science)

1937 October 16 The Hungarian National Socialist Party is founded in Hungary.

1937 October 16 Police in Czechoslovakia disrupt a Sudeten German Party rally at Teplitz. Party leader Konrad Henlein demands that ethnic Germans receive autonomy.

1937 October 20 Felix Warburg, international banker, philanthropist and Jewish communal leader dies in the United States. (Edelheit)

1937 October 20 Jewish market stalls and shops are picketed by Nazi police.

1937 October 21 The Catholic Center Party is eliminated and the Nazis take absolute control of the city.

1937 October 23 Nazis and Nazi sympathizers in Danzig stage a massive pogrom.

1937 October 27 Jewish access to public bathhouses in Danzig is limited to specified hours, one day a week.

1937 October 28 The Spanish Loyalists (Socialists) government escapes to Barcelona.

1937 October 29 The League of Nations High Commission complains that he is powerless to act in the city's internal affairs.

1937 November General Kutiepov, chief of the former Nationalist Russian Army in exile, is kidnapped by Communist agents on the streets of Paris, taken to Moscow and executed.

1937 November 1 The Swiss Court of Criminal Appeal quashes the judment of the lower court's verdict on the authenticity of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in its entirety. (See May 14, 1935)

1937 November 3 The Danzig Senate isolates Jewish merchants and seizes their bank deposits, charging them with tax evasion.

1937 November 5 The Hossbach Memorandum: Hitler outlines secret plans and contingencies in the event of a future war, telling his generals that he intends to destroy Czechoslovakia. Some historians contend that this document's historical significance has been greatly exaggerated. Others, such as William Shirer, emphatically state that it was on this date that Hitler first imparted his decision to go to war to the Commanders-in-Chief of the three armed services. (Shirer I)

1937 November 5 Germany and Poland sign an agreement regarding treatment of each other's minorities.

1937 November 6 Italy joins the German-Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact.This grouping prefigures their later alliance structure in World War II.

1937 November 8 Goebbel's propaganda Ministry sponsors Der Ewige Jew (The Eternal Jew) an anti-Jewish exposition under the direction of Julius Streicher. It closes on February 4, 1938.

1937 November 9 Japanese troops occupy Shanghai.

1937 November 13 The Jewish Socialist Party (Bund) celebrates the 40th anniversary of its founding in Poland.

1937 November 16 Only in rare cases can Jews now obtain passports for foreign travel. (Persecution)

1937 November 17-21 A meeting between Lord Halifax and Hitler is said to mark the beginning of Britain's so-called "appeasement" policy toward Germany. They meet to discuss the deteriorating situation in Czechoslovakia.

1937 November 18 A catholic official refuses to allow permission for the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs to consult diocesan files on Jewish conversions and mixed marriages "on grounds of pastoral secrecy." (Up to this time, the Church had closely cooperated with the government in determining and sorting out those of Jewish descent. It was only when Catholics of Jewish descent were threatened that the Catholic church balked. Yet, even then, they continued disclosing the names of non-Catholics of Jewish extraction right through the war years, when the price of being Jewish was deportation and death.) (Lewy)

1937 November 24 Hjalmar Schacht is removed as German minister of the economy and is replaced by Walter Funk. Schacht remains president of the Reichsbank.

1937 November 26 Nazis begin "Aryanizing" Jewish business in Danzig.

1937 November 28 The Bar Association in Lublin (P) restricts the number of Jews in the legal profession to a percentage corresponding to the ratio of Jews in the total population.

1937 November 29 Pro-Nazi Sudeten German deputies resign en masse from the Czech parliament, precipitating a national crisis. (Edelheit)

1937 December 5 Spanish Loyalists (Socialists) begin a last-ditch counteroffensive in the civil war. (Edelheit)

1937 December 6 The Dutch People's Party, a new antisemitic political party, is established in Holland.

1937 December 8 The Iron Guard (Legionairies) announces the opening of a chain of cooperative stores aimed at underselling Jewish stores and forcing them out of business.

1937 December 11 Italy withdraws friom the League of Nations.

1937 December 12 Japanese forces sink the U.S. gunboat Punay in China's Yangtze River. Japan apologizes and agrees to pay reparations.

1937 December 12 Communists receive 98% of the vote in the first elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

1937 December 13 Nanking, the Nationalist capital falls to the Japanese.

1937 December 14 Himmler orders all those "identified" as "asocial" incarcerated in concentration camps.

1937 December 15 Polish bishops call for segregation of all Jewish students in Polish elementary schools.

1937 December 20 General Ludendorff dies. Hitler attends his funeral.

1937 December 20 The Jewish Party in Romania fails to win a single seat during parliamentary elections.

1937 December 21 Britain officially repudiates the Peel Commission's Partition Plan.

1937 December 28 King Carol of Romania appoints Octavian Goga and Alexander Cuza to head a National Christian Party government. During its 44 days in power it issues numerous anti-Jewish decrees.

1937 December-January General Miller, General Ktiepov's successor, is kidnapped in Paris and later executed in Moscow.

1937 Otto Rahn's second book Luzifers Hofgesind. Eine Reise zu Europas guten Geisten (Lucifer's Court in Europe) is published in Leipzig.

1937 After four months service with the SS-Death's Head Division Oberbayern at Dachau, Otto Rahn is given leave to devote himself fully to writing until his resignation from the SS in February 1939. (Roots)

1937 John D. Rockefeller appoints William S. Farish president and CEO of Standard Oil of New Jersey.

1937 Nikolai Bukharin is arrested by the Soviet secret police..

1937 Joseph Kennedy, Sr., is named U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. His sons, Joe Jr. and John, both work as international reporters for their father.

1937 Leon Trotsky publishes The Revolution Betrayed, an expose of Joseph Stalin and his regime.

1938 January 4 Goering issues a decree classifying even firms with 25% Jewish ownership as subject to "Aryanization".

1938 January 6 U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull declares that America cannot intervene in Romania's internal affairs.

1938 January 9 Max Warburg dedicates a new Jewish Community Center in Hamburg.

1938 January 10 Professor Otto Warburg, scientist, communal leader and Zionist leader, dies.

1938 January 14 A Romanian decree forbids Jews from employing Christian female servants under the age of forty.

1938 January 14 Romanian police order all Jewish libraries and Jewish owned bookstores closed in Bessarabia. The same day, the Romanian press publishes instructions for dismissing all Jewish doctors from social insurance institutions.

1938 January 19 American and European Jewish organizations submit a protest petition to the League of Nations regarding the treatment of Jews in Romania.(Edelheit)

1938 January 21 Romania formally abrogates the minority rights of Jews, and revokes the citizenship of many Jews who have been resident there since the end of the war. (Atlas)

1938 January 24 German War Minister Blomberg is forced to resign and army Commander-in-Chief Fritsch is accused of homosexuality and then sent away on leave.

1938 January 25 The Gestapo is given the power to place prisoners in "protective custody" at its own discretion.

1938 January 28 President Roosevelt asks Congress for increased appropriations to build-up the U.S. armed forces.

1938 January Archbishop Groeber, a "promoting member" of the SS, known as the "brown bishop," is excluded from the SS, but refuses to voluntarily give up his promoting membership. (Lewy)

1938 February 4 Hitler announces he is personally taking over command of the German armed forces. Fritsch is forced to resign and Konstantin von Neurath is replaced by Joachim von Ribbentrop as Foreign Minister. Hitler assumes complete control of the Wehrmacht and announces a complete reorganization of the armed forces supreme command (OKW). Sixteen high-ranking generals are dismissed and 44 others are transferred to other posts. Hitler successfully eliminates the most important dissidents in the Wehrmacht and replaces them with men he feels he can either trust or manipulate. General Walter von Brauchitsch is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the army (OKH). General Wilhelm Keitel is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the OKW.

1938 February 4 Austrian Nazis vandalize numerous Jewish businesses in the suburbs of Vienna.

1938 February 6 Romanian Prime Minister Goga warns that he will not tolerate foreign interference in his domestic antisemitic policy.

1938 February 10 The Goga government in Romania is dissolved. The new government, headed by Dr. Miron Christea, nullifies some of Goga's anti-Jewish legislation.

1938 February 12 A meeting between Hitler and Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg at Obersalzberg leads to a greater Nazi role in Austrian government and public life.

1938 February 16 Chancellor Schuschnigg names Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a virulent Austrian Nazi, minister of the interior.

1938 February 16 Lithuania adopts a new constitution guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens regardless of race or creed. (Edelheit)

1938 February 20 British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigns and is replaced by Lord Halifax, Edward F.L. Wood.

1938 February 20 Bishop Ehrenfried of Wurzburg in a pastoral letter expresses the desire that "the totalitarianism of the State and the totalitarianism of the Church" should coexist "without conflicts and bitterness." (Lewy)

1938 February 20 Franz Josef Rarkowski is consecrated as bishop of the German army in a lavish ceremony conducted by Nuncio Orsenigo, assisted by Bishops Preysing and Galen. Rarkowski will hold this post until the end of World War II. (Lewy)

1938 February 23 Volksruf, a violently antisemitic newspaper, begins publication in Austria.

1938 February 24 Nazi-instigated disturbances erupt throughout Austria after Chancellor Schuschnigg calls for a plebiscite (referendum) on Austrian independence.

1938 February 28 The American Legion begins a nationwide campaign against the pro-Nazi German-American Bund.

1938 March 1 Thousands of Jews are deprived of their livelihood when the Polish government revokes Jewish tobacco dealers' licenses. (Edelheit)

1938 March 2 Long-time Bolshevik Nikolai Bukharin is publicly tried in a so-called "show trial" on trumped-up charges of conspiring to overthrow the Soviet state. He is quickly convicted and sentenced to death after making a forced confession.

1938 March 4 Hitler rejects British concessions in Africa.

1938 March 7 J. Dreyfus and Company, a large Jewish-owned investment bank in Germany, is "Aryanized."

1938 March 8 More than 2,000 Nazi demonstrators march through the center of Vienna shouting anti-Jewish slogans.

1938 March 11 Hitler issues an ultimatum demanding that Schuschnigg resign as Austrain chancellor. Arthur Seyss-Inquart becomes chancellor, paving the way for a complete Nazi take over.

1938 March 12 Operation Otto -- German troops enter Austria unopposed. Hitler tells a large crowd in Linz, his old home town, that "Providence had called him out of Linz and charged him with a mission to restore his homeland to the German Reich." (Operation Otto referred to the first name of the pretender to the Austrian throne: Archduke Otto von Habsburg.)

1938 March 13 The Reichstag "legalizes" Austrian Anschluss (union or annexation) by passing the Law Concerning the Reunion of Austria, declaring it a German province. Hitler, proclaiming the unity of the German people, realizes his dream of a union between Germany and his native Austria.

1938 March 13 Hitler with General Keitel at his side enters Vienna in a triumphant motorcade. Thousands of ecstatic Austrias greet him with unbridled enthusiam, waving Nazi flags and screaming his name.

1938 March 13 More than 138,000 Austrian Jews now come under Nazi rule. The activities of all Jewish organizations and congregations are quickly forbidden, and the Gestapo launces a campaign of terror, looting hundreds of Jewish shops and apartments. Many Jewish leaders are arrested, and more than 500 Jews, driven to despair, soon commit suicide.

1938 March 13 Leon Blum recovers the office of French premier and begins his second term. His Front Populaire government will last only to April 15, 1939.

1938 March 13 Nikolai Bukharin is executed by a Soviet firing squad.

1938 March 15 Austria enacts its first anti-Jewish laws since Anchluss. Hitler places Hermann Goering in charge of the Austrian economy.

1938 March 18 The Gestapo and SD are empowered to act in Austria outside those powers enacted by law. (Edelheit)

1938 March 20 The Polish Association of High School Teachers in Cracow (P) proposes a ban on all Jewish teachers.

1938 March 21 Lichtenburg concentration camp near Prettin (Torgau) reopens

1938 March 22 Britain announes a drive against Jewish "illegal" immigration to Palestine.

1938 March 23 Leon Blum's government in France announces a plan to permit legalized residence for Jewish refugees who agree to become farmers.

1938 March 24 Professor Kleist, a psychiatrist, ends his report on the German mental hospital in Herborn, where "uthanasia" by starvation is being practiced, with these sentences: "As long as there is no law for the destruction of lives unworthy to be lived, those who are beyond cure have the right to humane treatment which assures their continued existence. The expenditure on these unfortunates should not fall below an acceptable minimum level." (Science)

1938 March 24 The Romanian Ministry of Agriculture bans Jewish ritual slaughter (shechita).

1938 March 26 Jewish professors and instructors are dismissed from Austrian universities.

1938 March 28 Hitler gives General Keitel secret directives for Operation Green against Czechoslovakia.

1938 March 28 Berlin's Jewish community loses its incorporated status.

1938 March 29 The Spanish civil war comes to an end.

1938 March 31 The Polish Senate passes the Expatriots Law, canceling citizenship for Polish Jews living outside the country, unless their passports are checked and stamped by Polish consular officials by the end of October. (Edelheit)

1938 April 1 A number od Austrian Jews are sent to Dachau concentration camp.

1938 April 1 Jewish patients are barred from Danzig's public hospitals and welfare institutions. All Jewish doctors and nurses are dismissed.

1938 April 7 Codreanu is arrested in Romania and will later die in prison.

1938 April 8 Eduard Daladier forms a new French government.

1938 April 8 The Rothschild Bank in Austria is "Aryanized" and taken over by the Austrian Credit Institute.

1938 April 10 A plebiscite (referendum) is held in Austria to legalize Anchluss. Jews are excluded from voting.

1938 April 11 Bulgaria outlaws the Bulgarian Nazi Party (Ratnizi)

1938 April 13 The Roman Congregation of Seminaries and Universities attacks as erroneous eight theses taken from Nazi doctrine. Antisemitism is neither mentioned nor criticized. (Lewy)

1938 April 15 Starting in Dabrowa, hundreds of Jews are injured and much property destroyed during anti-Jewish attacks in Poland. (Atlas)

1938 April 17 An attempted coup by Fascists and the Iron Guard is smashed by the Romanian government. Many of the instigators are arrested.

1938 April 19 All remaining Jewish banks in Austria are "Aryanized."

1938 April 22 Trouble breaks out in the Sudetenland signaling the beginning of the Czechoslovak Crisis.

1938 April 22 A German Law is published making it illegal for non-Jews to help conceal Jewish holdings.

1938 April 24 A Sudeten German Congress at Karlsbad demands full autonomy for Sudeten Germans.

1938 April 25 Nazis stage anti-Jewish riots in Theusing (G).

1938 April 26 The German government requires registration of all Jews with assets exceeding 5,000 Reichsmarks,, whether in Germany or abroad. Only British and American Jews living in Germany are exempted.

1938 April 27 The Woodhead Commission arrives in Palestine to study the Peel Commissions partition plan.

1938 May 2 The Gestapo orders the Jewish community offices in Vienna reopened.

1938 May 3 Flossenburg concentration camp opens in Germany.

1938 May 3 The DFG places 15,000 RM at the disposal of Dr. Ritter, "for the continuation of your research work on asocial individuals and on the biology of bastards (Gypsies, Jews)." (Science)

1938 May 3-9 Hitler makes a state visit to Mussolini in Rome, but omits the customary courtesy call on the pope. (Lewy)

1938 May 13 A major anti-partition demonstration is held in Beirut, Lebanon.

1938 May 17 The Czech government confiscates two Nazi-run newspapers, Die Rundschau and F.S., published by Sudeten German parties led by Konrad Henlein.

1938 May 19 Britain and France reject Hitler's demands concerning Czechoslovakia.

1938 May 20 Czechoslovakia orders a partial mobilization in response to Hitler's demands and unrest in the Sudetenland.

1938 May 24 The Nuremberg Laws are officially introduced in Austria. Books written by Jews and works not favoring Nazi ideology are removed from Vienna's libraries and bookstores.

1938 May 26 The U.S. House of Representatives establishes the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to investigate activities of both the left and right.

1938 May 29 The Hungarian government passes its first law specifically restricting the number of Jews in the liberal professions, administration, commerce and industry to 20 percent. (Atlas)

1938 May 30 The Japanese government arrests 1,300 alleged Communists.

1938 May 30 Hitler signs a revised OKW plan for Operation Green (Fall Gruen) against Czechoslovakia.

1938 May 30 The Gestapo arrests almost 2,000 Jews in raids on cafes in Berlin and Vienna. Some 1,000 Austrian Jews are sent to Dachau.

1938 June 1 German political prisoners and all German Jews with previous criminal records are sent to Buchenwald. They are soon followed by 2,200 Austrian Jews.

1938 June 2 Italian Fascist leader Roberto Farinacci, a vocal antisemite, is appointed minister of State.

1938 June 7 Latvia and Estonia sign nonagression treaties with Germany.

1938 May 9 Munich's main synagogue is vandalized and destroyed.

1938 June 14 The German ministry of the interior requires registration of all Jewish-owned enterprises. Pressure is put on Jews to sell their business holdings to certain favored individuals or firms (I.G. Farben, the Flick Group, major banks etc.) at prices far below their actual market value. (Days)

1938 June 15 Operation June (Juni Aktion) sends some 1,500 German Jews to concentration camps.

1938 June 20 German Jews are forbidden to work in the stock and commodity exchanges.

1938 June 22 African-American boxer Joe Louis defeatss German boxer Max Schmeling at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

1938 June 26 Nazis in Austria order all "non-Aryans" dismissed from all Jewish owned firms and close the parks of Vienna to Jews. Jewish schoolchildren are completely segregated.

1938 June 28 Germany and Italy officially recognize Switzerland's neutrality.

1938 June 29 Nearly 40,000 Austrian Jews are dismissed from their jobs.

1938 July 2 Almost 40,000 Austrian Jews are taken into "protective custody."

1938 July 5 Trade unions in Vienna are dissolved and their funds and property are seized by the German Labor Front.

1938 July 5 President Roosevelt convenes an international conference on refugees in the French resort town of Evian on Lake Geneva. It soon becomes clear that more and more countries, including the U.S., want to restrict the number of Jewish refugees allowed to immigrate to their nations. The Australian delegation declares, "since we have no racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one." (Atlas)

1938 July 6 The Law for the Alteration of Regulations of Industrial Enterprises prohibits numerous Jewish business activities in Germany. Jews can no longer operate real estate, information, loan, private security, marriage, brokerage, or administrative offices. They are even prohibited from serving as tour guides and are ordered to declare their assets and "sell" their businesses.

1938 July 8 The main synagogue in Munich is demolished on Hitler's orders. (See June 9)

1938 July 8 Alfred Rosenbergg proposes a plan for establishing a reservation for 15 million Jews on the island of Madagascar.

1938 July 11 The French chamber passes a law authorizing the prime minister to govern by decree in the event of war.

1938 July 14 The third regulation of the Reich Citizenship Law is published. All Jewish-owned businesses are again advised they must register with the government.

1938 July 19 King George VI of Britain pays a state visit to France.

1938 July 20 All members of the Wehrmacht are forbidden to live in Jewish-owned homes or apartments.

1938 July 23 A new German law decrees that as of January 1, 1939, Jews will be required to carry special identification cards, which they must obtain from the local police. (Persecution)

1938 July 25 The fourth regulation of the Reich Citizenship Act bars all Jewish doctors from medical practice beginning September 30, 1938. After that date, Jewish physicians may treat only Jews and must call themselves Krankenbehandler (medial orderlies or literally "caretakers of the sick"). (Persecution; Edelheit)

1938 July 25 British Fascists and Nazi sympathizers paint antisemitic graffiti throughout the city of London.

1938 July 27 All Jewish street names in Germany are changed and given new names. (Persecution)

1938 July 30 Germany begins preparations for building new fortifications on its western border. A number of prohibited areas are established.

1938 July 31 In a period of 19 months prior to this date, William Dudley Pelley mails 3.5 tons of antisemitic propaganda from his headquarters in America.

1938 August 2 A major clash breaks out between Socialists and Nazis in Switzerland.

1938 August 3 New anti-Jewish legislation is introduced in Italy.

1938 August 5 New laws regulating the meat and cattle industry in Poland virtually eliminate Jews from participation.

1938 August 7 The Beirut synagogue is bombed by Arab terrorists.

1938 August 8 Mauthausen, the first concentration camp in Austria, goes into operation.

1938 August 10 The great synagogue and Jewish community center in Nuremberg is demolished on Nazi orders. (Edelheit)

1938 August 11 Poland withdraws its permanent delegate from the League of Nations.

1938 August 11 Hermann Goering tells an American diplomat that within ten years the United States will become the most antisemitic country in the world and that the combination of Jews and blacks raise grave questions about America's future. (Architect)

1938 August 13 The Wehrmacht stages large-scale military maneuvers.

1938 August 16 The German Ministry of Justice orders an increase in the Gestapo's power in Austria.

1938 August 17 A new decree orders that as of January 1, 1939, German Jews may have only Jewish first names. If they keep an "Aryan" first name (Michael etc.), they must add Jewish middle names such as "Israel" or "Sarah." (Persecution)

1938 August 17 Special passports for Jews are inroduced in Germany. (Eyes)

1938 August 17 Hitler issues a new decree indicating that the Waffen-SS is destined to be more than just a private police force. By authorizing motorization of the SS-Verfuegungstruppen (SS-VT or "field troops"), Hitler serves notice that it will fight in the coming war and enforce the Nazi-dominated peace that he is sure will follow. (The SS, Time-Life)

1938 August 19 Swiss officials take measures to block Jewish refugees trying to enter Switzerland.

1938 August 19-20 At a meeting of the German Committee for Public Care and Welfare Law, professors of medicine and law discuss with civil servants from the Ministry of the Interior the possibility of a "law on asocial individuals" that would allow people so defined to be sterilized or committed to concentration camps. According to later drafts of this law, which was never passed, two physicians and a police officer were to decide on the sterilization and further disposal of these individuals to concentration camps. (Science)

1938 August 26 The Central Office for Jewish Emigration is established in Vienna under the direction of Adolf Eichmann. Within eighteen months, 150,000 Austrian Jews will be induced to emigrate. (Days)

1938 August 27 General Ludwig Beck, one of the top Wehrmacht generals resigns in disagreement over Hitler's Czechoslovakian policy, which he believes will lead to war. (Edelheit)

1938 August Late in the month, Max Warburg, his wife, Alice, and their daughter, Gisela, depart Germany for New York. First they will make a stop-over in London. (See September 1938) (Warburgs)

1938 September The Soviet Union joins the League of Nations.

1938 September In London before leaving for America, Max Warburg meets with George Rublee, an American lawyer and head of the Inter-Governmental Committee on Refugees, and Lord Winterton at the British Foreign Office.

1938 September 1 Hitler demands the immediate cession of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland to Germany.

1938 September 1 The Italian government orders all Jewish residents who settled in the country after 1919 to leave the country within six months or be deported.

1938 September 5 More riots and demonstrations are staged in the Sudetenland by Konrad Henlein and the Nazis.

1938 September 6 The U.S. Congress passes the Alien Registration Act.

1938 September 6-12 Hitler, speaking at the Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg, verbally attacks Czechoslovakian President Benes, demanding the right of self-determination for the Sudeten Germans.

1938 September 7 All Jews naturalized in Italy after January 1, 1919, lose their citizenship.

1938 September 7 Pope Pius XI, during a reception for Catholic pilgrims from Belgium, is said to have condemned the participation of Catholics in antisemitic movements and to have added that Christians, the spiritual descendents of the Patriarch Abraham, were "spiritually Semites." This statement was omitted by all the Italian papers, including "L'Osservatore Romano". (La Croix, no. 17060; Lewy)

1938 September 7 France announces a partial mobilization in response to Hitler's demands on Czechoslovakia.

1938 September 8 The British Inner Cabinet meets to discuss the Czechoslovakian crisis (Munich crisis).

1938 September 12 Italy orders the expulsion of all foreign Jews.

1938 September 13 Czechoslovakian President Benes declares martial law in the Sudetenland..

1938 September 15 Hitler and Sir Neville Chamberlain and Hitler meet for the first time, at Obersalzberg (Berchtesgaden) to discuss the Czechoslovakian crisis.

1938 September 16 British Lord Runciman recommends that Czechoslovakia relinquish all border territories with a majority of ethnic Germans to Germany.

1938 September 18 British and French cabinet members, meeting in London, finalize an Anglo-French plan to "appease" Hitler in regard to Czechoslovakia.

1938 September 20-21 The Czech government is forced to accept the Anglo-French "appeasement plan" after being bluntly informed by representatives of Britain and France that they can expect no help if the Germans attack.

1938 September 22 Neville Chamberlain and Hitler meet at Bad Godesburg to discuss events in Czechoslovakia and Hitler's demands for the Sudetenland.

1938 September 22 Czech Premier Milan Hodza resigns, and a new Czechoslovakian government is formed by General Jan Sirovy.

1938 September 22 The International Brigades withdraw from Spain.

1938 September 23 Jewish synagogues at Cheb and Marienbad in Czechoslovakia are burned by German-speaking citizens of the Sudetenland. The new Czech government mobilizes its army.Atlas)

1938 September 23 Mussolini offers to mediate the Czechoslovakian crisis. A conference is called to settle the issue at Munich, setting the stage for an Anglo-French sellout of Czechoslovakia, whose representatives are not even invited to attend.

1938 September 24 Anti-Jewish riots break out in Strasbourg, France.

1938 September 25-26 The French government changes its position on the Anglo-French plan, committing itself to defend Czechoslovakia if the Germans attack.

1938 September 26 Hitler makes an angry speech at the Berlin Sportspalast, attacking Czechoslovakia's alleged mistreatment of its German-speaking citizens.

1938 September 27 Hitler warns that he will crush Czechoslovakia if his demands concerning the Sudetenland are not met.

1938 September 27 The fifth ordinance under the Reich Citizenship act closes the legal professions to Jewish lawyers in the German states.

1938 September 27 Police in Denmark adopt strict measures to prevent illegal Jewish immigrants from entering their country.

1938 September 27-28 The Britsh Home Fleet is mobilized in response to the Czechoslovakian crisis.

1938 September 29 The Munich Conference begins. Britain and France (Czechoslovakia's allies) quickly agree to turn over Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland to Hitler, who in return promises to make no further territorial demands in Europe. Czechoslovakia is excluded from participation in the conference.

(Note: Unlike Austria, Czechoslovakia was a democratic state, and its president, Eduard Benes, was prepared to militarily resist Hitler's demands, but realized it was hopeless without British and French assistance.)

1938 September 30 The Munich Agreement is signed by Chamberlain, Hitler, Daladier and Mussolini. The Czechoslovakian Sudetenland is ceded to Germany. After returning to England, Chamberlain declares, "I believe it is peace for our time."

1938 September 30 A new wave of anti-Jewish riots break out in Poland. (Edelheit)

1938 October Early in the month, the Polish government announces that all Jews who have lived outside Poland for more than five years will have their passports revoked. This law is to take effect of October 30. (Germany soon announces that there is no place in Germany for these "stateless" Jews.) (See October 26)

1938 October 1 German troops occupy the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland. Almost all of the 20,000 Jews in the Sudetenland soon flee to the still independent provinces of Bohemia and Moravia.

1938 October 2 Polish troops occupy Teschen in Czechoslovakia.

1938 October 4 On the advice of Swiss authorities, thhe letter "J" is printed on the front pages of German Jews' passports.

1938 October 5 German Jews have their passports revoked. (Edelheit)

1938 October 6 Dr. Eduard Benes, President of Czechoslovakia, resigns.

1938 October 6 Thousands of Jews with Polish passports who live in Germany and Austria have their passports recalled for "inspection and validation." (Edelheit)

1938 October 7 Slovakia and Transcarpathian Ruthenia are granted autonomy from what is left of Czechoslovakia. Father Josef Tiso, a Catholic priest, becomes leader of Slovakia.

1938 October 7 The Fascist Grand Council in Italy bans Jewish ritual slaughter (shechita).

1938 October 7 Hitler Youth attack the Bishop's Palace in Vienna.

1938 October 8 Hitler issues a decree establishing SS-Sicherheitpolizei Sonderkommandos (SS Security Police Special Units) for duty in the Sudetenland.

1938 October 13 The Italian government announces that no new business licenses of any kind will be issued to Jews.

1938 October 13 Chamberlain declares to the House of Commons that "The Munich Agreement does not permit us to diminish our efforts towards the realization of our military program."

1938 October 13 The Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy Lance (Reichskleinodien and Helige Lanz) are transported by train under heavy armed guard from Vienna to Nuremberg. (Spear)

1938 October 20 The Nazis begin harassing Communists, Jews and other anti-Nazis in Czechoslovakia.

1938 October 24 German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop and Polish Ambassador Lipski meet at Berchtesgaden. Ribbentrop invites Polish Foreign Minister Beck to visit Berlin and puts forward the following suggestions: (1) Danzig to be a German city. (2) Free port for Poland in Danzig with communications assured by extraterritorial railroad and highway through Danzig. (3) An Extraterritorial zone one kilometer wide for a railroad and highway across the Polish Corridor uniting the two portions of Germany carved out at Versailles. (4) Both nations to recognize and guarantee their frontiers. (5) An extension of the German-Polish treaty of Friendship. These proposals are standing and open until August 10,1939, when Poland will reject them and declare "any intervention by the Reich Government (will be regarded as) an act of aggression.

1938 October 26 Himmler orders the police to collect all Polish Jews in Germany with valid passports and deport them before October 29th. (Architect)

1938 October 28-29 Some 15,000 "stateless" Jews are forced to leave their homes throughout Germany and to go, with only one suitcase, to the nearest railway station. They are then taken through the night to the German-Polish border and forced across at gun point. (See October 1938) (Atlas)

1938 October 30 The sixth ordinance of the Reich Citizenship Act bars all Jews from working as patent agents.

1938 October 31 Polish Foreign Minister Beck instructs Ambassador Lipski to negate Ribbentrop's proposals.

1938 November Karl Wolff visits Malvwine Wiligut (Wiligut/Weisthor's wife) at her home in Salzburg and learns of Weisthor's (Wiligut's) psychiatric history. Weisthor's stay in an Austrian asylum becomes an embarrassment for Himmler.

1938 November 2 Hungary occupies and annexes southern Slovakia.

1938 November 7 Ernst vom Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris, is shot by Herschel Grynszpan, a seventeen-year-old Jewish youth whose family was expelled to Poland on October 28. (Note: This was not the first assassination of a Nazi official by a Jew. Wilhelm Gustloff had previously been killed by a Jew in Switzerland and the SD was convinced both murders were part of a much broader Jewish conspiracy.) (Architect)

1938 November 8 Himmler addresses a select meeting of high-ranking SS leaders in Munich. He does not mention the vom Rath assassination, but tells them that within 10 years there will be unprecedented clashes -- not only a struggle among nations, but also an ideological struggle against the Jews, Freemasons, Marxists and Catholics worldwide. (Architect)

1938 November 9 Hitler authorizes Goering to deal with all Jewish political affairs. Hitler tells Goering that he is interested in sending German Jews to Madagascar, and that he will make an initiative in the West. (Architect)

1938 November 9-10 Enst vom Rath dies and a massive pogrom, known now as Kristallnacht (the night of glass) is launched against the Jews of Germany. 191 synagogues are set on fire and 76 others are completely destroyed, along with hundreds of Jewish shops and schools. 91 Jews are killed during the night of November 9th alone and 35,000 male Jews are arrested, herded into concentration camps and their property seized. (Atlas)

1938 November 10 Hitler, in a speech to hundreds of German journalists, discounts the prospects for peace and urges the press to help convince the German public to support his regime in the event of any future war. (Architect)

1938 November 10 The Gestapo closes the Central Organization of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith. (Edelheit)

1938 November 11 Hitler gives Goering a mandate to resolve the Jewish question "one way or another" and to coordinate the necessary steps by various agencies. (Architect)

1938 November 11 Reinhard Heydrich reports on Kristallnacht to Goering, stating that 36 Jews have been killed and 20,000 arrested.

1938 November 11 A new law decrees that German Jews may neither carry nor possess firearms. (Persecution)

1938 November 12 Goering summons a large number of officials from various agencies to the Air Ministry in Berlin to deal with the economic consequences of Kristallnacht and the ways to remove Jews from the German economy. (Architect)

1938 November 12 German Jewry is ordered to pay "Atonement Payments" of one billion Reichsmarks to the German government for the damages caused by German citizens during Kristallnacht, and insurance payments amounting to more than ten million Reichmarks are soon paid to the German government. (Days)

1938 November 12 Jews are prohibited from attending theaters, movies, concerts, and exhibits. Jews are no longer allowed to own stores and artisan businesses. (Persecution)

1938 November 12-14 Nazis in Danzig burn down two synagogues and badly damage two others.

1938 November 13 Nazi officials seriously consider the Madagascar Plan for the first time.

1938 November 14 In response to the Kristallnacht pogrom, President Roosevelt recalls American Ambassador Hugh Wilson from Berlin to Washington.

1938 November 15 All Jewish children are excluded from the German school system. (Goebbels)

1938 November 16 Neville Chamberlain suggests that Jewish refugees come to Britain as a temporary measure. (Edelheit)

1938 November 17 Socialist members of the French Chamber of Deputies criticizes the government for not officially protesting the persecution of German Jews.

1938 November 18 The U.S. State Department extends visitor's visas to some 15,000 mostly-Jewish refugees already in America, because of Kristallnacht.

1938 November 18 The Legislative Assembly of the American Virgin Islands adopts a resolution offering the islands as a haven for Jewish refugees. (Edelheit)

1938 November 18 Members of the Iron Guard (Legionaries) blows up the Ereschitza synagogue in Romania.

1938 November 19 Polish Ambassador Lipski meets with Ribbentrop in Berlin and informs him that, "any tendency to incorporate the Free City (Danzig) into the Reich will inevitably lead to conflict" between Poland and Germany.

1938 November 20 Father Charles Coughlin, head of the misnamed Union of Social Justice, makes a notorious antsemitic radio broadcast, prompting group pressure that will eventually force him off the air.

1938 November 21 German Jews with assets over 5,000 Reichsmarks are forced to pay a special 20 percent tax on their registered assets to the Reich treasury.

1938 November 23 All Jewish-owned plants and retail businesses in Germany are dissolved by a special administrative order. Jews are completely eliminated from German economic life. (Persecution; Edelheit)

1938 November 24 The Danzig Senate introduces legislation resembling the Nuremberg Laws for Jews still living in the Nazi-dominated "Free City."

1938 November 24 Das Schwarze Korps, an SS periodical, claims that it would welcome the founding of a Jewish state.The German people are not in the least inclined to tolerate in their country hundreds of thousands of criminals, who not only secure their existence through crime, but also want to exact revenge... In such a situation we would be faced with the hard necessity of exterminating the Jewish underworld... The result would be the actual and final end of Jewry in Germany, its absolute annihilation. (Architect)

1938 November 26 Russian-Polish trade and nonagression are signed.

1938 November 27 Soviet Jews in Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa and Kiev hold mass meetings protesting Kristallnacht.

1938 November 28 Nazi officials introduce residential restrictions on Jews. Movement of Jews from locality to locality is prohibited. The presidents of German regional councils are empowered to impose curfews on their Jewish populations and designate certain places as off-limits (Judenbann). (Persecution)

1938 November 29 Goering tells Hugo Rothenberg, a Danish Jew who had earned Goering's gratitude two decades earlier, that under all circumstances the Jews would have to leave Germany and recommended a foreign loan to finance their emigration. Goering warns him that Germany naturally had other ideas in case emigration did not work. He did not spell out their nature. (Architect)

1938 November 30 Father Charles Coughlin makes an antisemitic broadcast to an estimated 3.5 million American listeners on a nationwide radio network. Coughlin, with one of the largest antsemitic libraries in America, had been using antisemitic overtones in his propaganda before 1936, but it was only after the defeat of his third party in that year that he began to use antisemitism as a political weapon. (McWilliams)

1938 December The Nazi Party issue an edict affecting many sectarian groups in the Reich. (Roots)

1938 December Hjalmar Schacht meets in London with George Rublee, American lawyer and director of the inter-governmental commitee. Schacht presents a plan to allow 150,000 German Jews to leave Germany over a three year period. (Architect)

1938 December 1 Great Britain initiates a program of accelerated rearmament and military expansion.

1938 December 2 Jews in Danzig are ordered to contribute to the "atonement" fine of one billion Reichsmarks imposed on German Jews after Kristallnacht.

1938 December 3 A new decree orders that all Jewish enterprises and shops are now subject to compulsory "Aryanization," the forced disposal of all Jewish stores, businesses, and financial holdings. (Goebbels)

1938 December 3 German Jews are forced to give up their driver's licenses and vehicle registration papers. They are also forced to sell their securities and jewelry. (Persecution)

1938 December 4 Father Charles Coughlin verbally attacks the "Jewish international banking house" in an American radio address.

1938 December 5 The seventh ordinance of the Reich Citizenship Act orders a reduction in pensions for compulsorily retired Jewish officials.

1938 December 6 A new declaration of nonaggression and friendship is signed between Germany and France, providing a mutual guarantee of their common borders. Hitler disavows any interest in Alsace-Lorraine, and during the coming months, will cite this as proof of his peaceful intentions.

1938 December 8 All Jews are banned from conducting research at German universities. Jewish students can no longer attend German Universities. (Persecution)

1938 December 8 Himmler signs an order regarding the need to regulate the "Gypsy question" in Germany. (Edelheit)

1938 December 11 The Nazi Party wins in elections held in Memel. The Jewish situation becomes even more precarious.

1938 December 11 Twenty thousand Libyan Jews are deprived of their Italian citizenship.

1938 December 13 Neuengamme concentration camp is established as part of Sachsenhausen. It will eventually become independent with many sub-camps of its own.

1938 December 13 Jewish property is pillaged and synagogues burned in Slovakia during a renewed anti-Jewish campaign.

1938 December 14 Goering announces he has taken control of all Jewish affairs. All Jewish-owned businesses are placed under the contol of "Aryan" general managers.

1938 December 15 The New York Daily News reprints a scurrilously antisemitic pamphlet by William Dudley Pelley.

1938 December 16 A remarkable editorial in The New York Daily News says that the Bill of Rights means only "that our government shall not officially discriminate against any religion. It does not mean that Americans are forbidden to dislike other Americans or religions or any other group. Plenty of people just now are exercising their right to dislike the Jews."

1938 December 22 All Jews are forced to retire from Italain military service.

1938 December 23 The Hungarian parliament introduces new racially-defined antisemitic laws.

1938 December 28 Jews are forbidden to use sleeping compartments or dining cars on German railways.

1938 December 31 An internal SS report states that 22.7 % of the SS membership still belongs to the Catholic faith (despite all pressures to leave the Church). (Lewy)

1938 Alexander Nevsky directed by Russian filmaker Sergei Eisenstein is released in the Soviet Union. Nevsky was a 13th-century hero who defended Russia against invading Teutonic knights. The film was immensely popular, especially with young boys, and the Russian government used it to stir up anti-German, nationalistic prejudices.

1938 Outraged at Hitler's treatment of the Jews and fearing that Hitler will outlaw Christianity, Protestant pastor, Martin Niemoller, organizes the Pastor's Emergency League to oppose Hitler's policies.

1938 Pastor Martin Niemoller is arrested by the Gestapo and thrown into a concentration camp until liberated in 1945.

1938 Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., becomes chairman of the board of U.S. Steel.

1938 Otto Hahn discovers the principles of nuclear fission.

1938 Sigmund Freud flees to England to escape Nazi persecution in Vienna.

1938 The SS Training Office orders a specially revised and expanded, one-volume edition of Michael Prawdin's two books on Genghis Khan (See 1934, 1935). This book was frequently given as a Christmas present by Himmler and every SS leader received a copy. Hitler is said to have derived his ideas concerning Blutkitt (blood cement) from this source. (Architect)

1938 The U.S. and Britain send aid to the Chinese in their war against Japan.

1939 January The Ahnenerbe is officially incorporated into the SS and its leaders absorbed into Himmler's personal staff. At that time it has 50 branches under the direction of Professor Wurst, an expert on ancient sacred texts who had taught Sanskrit at Munich University. (Pauwels)

1939 January 1 A decree is published eliminating Jews from the German economy.

1939 January 5 Polish Foreign Minister Joseph Beck confers with Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Hitler says he is considering a formula that would make Danzig politically German and economically Polish, and that he is ready to give a formal and clear guarantee for the German-Polish frontiers. (Sturdza)

1939 January 6 Beck and Ribbentrop meet in Munich. Ribbentrop asks for "the reunion of Danzig with Germany" and proposes a number of guarantees.

1939 January 9 The Reich Office of Racial Research exempts Karaites from antisemitic legislation. (Edelheit)

1939 January 10 Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax arrive in Rome to meet with Mussolini.

1939 January 11 The Danzig Senate orders 1,000 of the 4,000 Jews still in Danzig to leave by the end of the month.

1939 January 14 Pope Pius XI urges foreign diplomats at the Vatican to grant as many visas as possible to victims of German and Italian racial prejudice. (Edelheit)

1939 January 17 Denmark, Latvia and Estonia sign a nonagression pact with Germany. Norway, Sweden and Finland insist on strict neutrality.

1939 January 17 Slovakian premier, Father Tiso, declares his foremost task is to solve the "Jewish question."

1939 January 17 The eighth ordinance of the Reich Citizenship Act is passed, barring Jewish dentists, veterinarians and chemists from practicing their professions. Jewish dentists may only treat Jewish patients.

1939 January 19 Hjalmar Schacht has his last meeting with George Rublee in Berlin. (Architect)

1939 January 21 Hitler dismisses Hjalmar Schacht as president of the Reichsbank and replaces him with Walter Funk. Schacht was left as an unpaid minister without portfolio until 1943. (Children)

(Note: A secret report to Hitler, prepared by Himmler, had accused Schacht of being disloyal to Nazi interests in his negotiations with George Rublee.) (Architect)

1939 January 21 Hitler tells Czech foreign minister Chvalkovsy, "We are going to destroy the Jews -- they are not going to get away with what they did on November 9, 1918. The day of reckoning has come."

1939 January 23 Chamberlain announces the introduction of National Service and says, "It is a project that must make us prepared for war."

1939 January 24 Goering orders Reinhard Heidrich to establish the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration is established to organize and accelerate the emigration of the Jews. Heydrich names Gestapo chief Heinrich Mueller to head the department. Almost 80,000 Jews will leave Germany in 1939. (Days)

(Note: Goering commissions Heydrich to bring the "Jewish question to as favorable a solution as present circumstances permit." )(Apparatus)

1939 January 24 Germany and Poland reach an agreement on Jewish deportees. One thousand Jews at a time may return to Germany to settle their accounts. A special proprietary account for this purpose will be set up in Germany for deposits only. (Edelheit)

1939 January 26 General Franco's forces capture Barcelona.

1939 January 27 Ribbentrop repeats Germany's Danzig proposals in Warsaw.

1939 January 28 Chamberlain tells as audience in Birmingham that Great Britain must prepare herself to defend not only her territory but also "the principle of Liberty."

1939 January 30 Hitler, in an address to the Reichstag, gives public notice of his intentions, "If international Jewry should succeed in Europe or elsewhere, in precipitating nations into a world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of Europe and a victory for Judaism, but the extermination of the Jewish race." Hitler also comments on the lack of offers from the so-called democratic states to accept Jewish refugees.

1939 January 30 Archbishop Groeber in a pastoral letter concedes that Jesus Christ could not be made into an "Aryan," but the son of God had been fundamentally different from the Jews of his time -- so much so that they had hated him and demanded his crucifixion, and "their murderous hatred has continued in later centuries." (Lewy)

1939 January-February For the tenth anniversary of the Lateran Treaty, Pope Pius XI drafts a discourse that is said to have condemned totalitarianism in the strongest terms. After his death (February 10), his successor, Pius XII, chooses not to deliver the speech. (Lewy)

1939 February For the tenth anniversary of the Lateran Treaty, Pope Pius XI drafts a discourse that is said to have condemned totalitarianism in the strongest terms. After his death, his successor, Pius XII, chooses not to deliver the speech. (Lewy)

1939 February 3 A bomb thrown into a Budapest synagogue kills one Jewish worshipper and injures many others. (Atlas)

1939 February 5 Karl Wolff, Chief Adjutant of Himmler's person staff, informs Weisthor's SS staff by letter that Weisthor (Wiligut) has retired on his own application for reasons of age and poor health and that his SS office will be dissolved. (Berlin Document Center; Roots)

1939 February Otto Rahn unexpectedly resigns from the SS. (See February 5 and March 13)(Rahn file, Berlin Document Center; Roots)

1939 February 6 Einsatz des Juedischen Vermoegens is published, decreeing complete "Aryanization" of Jewish property in the Reich. (Edelheit)

1939 February 6 Bishop Hilfrich of Limburg is a pastoral letter writess that Jesus had been a Jew, but "the Christian religion has not grown out of the nature of this people, that is, is not influenced by their racial characteristics. Rather it has had to make its way against this people." Christianity, the bishop concludes, is not to be regarded as a product of the Jews; it is not a foreign doctrine or un-German. "Once accepted by our ancestors, it finds itself in the most intimate union with the Germanic spirit." (Lewy)

1939 February 7 Alfred Rosenberg, at a press conference in Berlin, discusses a plan to settle all 15 million of the world's Jews on the island of Madegascar.

1939 February 8 Six members of the Romanian Legion of St. Michael (Iron Guard) are arrested in Romania and later murdered by Armand Calinescu's police.

1939 February 10 Pope Pius XI dies.

1939 February 11 The tenth anniversary of the Lateran Treaty.

1939 February 11 At the first meeting of the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration, Heydrich orders officials to proceed as if an agreement with the intergovernmental committee does not exist. (Architect)

1939 February 15 Count Pal Teleki takes office as Hungary's prime minister.

1939 February 20 A pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in New York draws 20,000 Nazi sympathizers and supporters of Father Charles Coughlin.

1939 February 21 German Jews are ordered to surrender all gold and silver, except wedding rings.

1939 February 22 Neville Chamberlain tells an audience in Blackburn, "Ships, guns and ammunition are produced by our shipyards and factories with an increased acceleration... Even if the whole world is against us we will win."

1939 February 24 Hungary joins the Anti-Comintern Pact and outlaws the Arrow Cross.

1939 February 26 The British government submits a proposal calling for an independent Palestine state allied to Britain. (Edelheit)

1939 February 27 Britain and France recognize the Franco government in Spain.

1939 March 1 Romania announces that 43,000 Jews have been denationalized.

1939 March 2 Papal Secretary of State Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli is elected to succeed Pius XI as pope. He becomes Pope Pius XII.

1939 March 4 Germany introduces a compulsory labor law for Jews, but does not allow them to become part of the German Labor Service (Arbeitdienst).

1939 March 6 Armand Calinescu becomes Prime Minister of Romania after the death of Patriarch Cristea.

1939 March 10 The Eighteenth Communist Party Congress opens in Moscow.

1939 March 10 Slovak Prime Minister Josef Tiso is dismissed by the Czech central government in Prague.

1939 March 11 Ousted Slovak Prime Minister Tiso meets with Hitler in Berlin.

1939 March 12 Prime Minister Chamberlain makes a public pledge of support for Polish sovereignty in Parliament. This speech has been called one of the most important expressions of England's support for Polish independence. (Duffy)

1939 March 13 Otto Rahn dies of overexposure while hiking in the mountains near Kufstein. (Berlin Document Center) Rumors persist that he was murdered by the SS.

1939 March 14 Monsignor Josef Tiso proclaims the independence of Slovakia and establishes an independent Axis state under the Fascist Hlinka Party. Slovak Nazis launch a wave of terror against Slovakian Jews.

(Note: after the war, Tiso will be arrested, imprisoned and executed by the Communist government in Prague.)

1939 March 15 Civil unrest forces President Hacha of Czechoslovakia to ask for German protection. Konstantin von Neurath is appointed "Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia."

1939 March 15 German troops enter Prague and Bohemia becomes a German Protectorate. Some 56,000 Jews are trapped, many of them refugees from Germany and Austria who had fled to Bohemia and Moravia only the year before. Adolf Eichmann soon sets up a Jewish emigration office in Prague. (Atlas)

1939 March 16 Hungarian troops occupy Czechoslovakian Carpatho-Ruthenia.

1939 March 16 Hitler declares that Czechoslovakia no longer exists.

1939 March 17 Neville Chamberlain accuses Hitler of breaking his promises made at the Munich Conference.

1939 March 20 The U.S. ambassador to Germany is recalled to protest the dissolution of Czechoslovakia.

1939 March 20 Reichprotector von Neurath bans all "unofficial Aryanization" of Jewish property in former Czechoslovakian territrories. All Jews are dismissed from their jobs as municipal employees.

1939 March 21 Nazis seize the Free City of Memel (Lithuania).

1939 March 21 Sir Howard Kennard, British Ambassador in Warsaw, offers in the name of his government, what is called a Pact of Consultation and Resistance that includes Great Britain, France, Poland and the Soviet Union.

1939 March 23 German troops occupy Memel and Hitler begins claiming the Polish Corridor, the narrow strip of land that since the Treaty of Versailles has separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Nazi harassment forces thousands of Jews to flee to Lithuania.

1939 March 23 The Polish government rejects Germany's proposals for Danzig.

1939 March 23 An economic agreement between Germany and Romania gives Hitler access to Romanian oil.

1939 March 24 Miuroslav Arciczewski, the Polish Undersecretary of State, complains to the German Ambassador about British and French intrigues in Warsaw, "which don't take into consideration the dangers to which Poland is exposed." (Sturdza)

1939 March 25 The Vatican recognizes Monseignor Tiso's recently founded Slovakia.

1939 March 26 Polish Ambassador Lipski inBerlin completely rejects Germany's proposals of October 1938. Beck refuses to even meet with Hitler, and instructs Lipski to tell Ribbentrop that if Germany continues to insist on the idea of a German Danzig... it would mean war.

1939 March 27 Spain joins the Anti-Comintern Pact.

1939 March 28 General Franco occupies Madrid, and the Spanish Civil War comes to an end. Franco assumes complete control, strengthening both Hitler's and Mussolini's positions in the Mediterranean.

1939 March 31 The Anglo-French guarantee of Poland's borders is signed. The "unconditional" guarantees given to Poland by France and Great Britain concern only Poland's western border, not its frontiers with the Soviet Union.

1939 March 31 Neville Chamberlain tells the House of Commons that the British government considers itself bound to come immediately to Poland's aid the moment the Polish government feels its existence is in danger. The news of Chamberlain's guarantee throws Hitler into a rage. (Shirer I)

1939 March 31 Germany and Spain conclude a Treaty of Friendship,

1939 April 1 Hitler tells General Keitel that it is a shame that "sly, old Marshal Pilsudski," with whom he had signed a nonaggression pact, had died so prematurely, but the same could happen to him at any time, and that is why it is so important to resolve the problem of East Prussia as soon as possible.

1939 April 2 Nazis fail to win seats in the Belgian House of Deputies.

1939 April 3 Hitler issues a war directive marked "Most Secret" and has it delivered by hand to his senior war commanders. "Since the situation on Germany's eastern frontier has become intolerable and all political possibilities have been exhausted," it began, "I have decided upon a solution by force." Preparations for the attack on Poland, "Case White" (Operation White), "must be made so that the operation can be carried out any time from September 1, 1939." (Shirer I)

1939 April 4 The Godesberg Declaration accepts the Nazis world view (Weltanschauung).

1939 April 6 Italy issues an ultimatum to King Zogu I of Albania.

1939 April 6 Polish Foreign Minister Beck signs a temporary mutual assistance pact in London, but since Beck fears the Soviets as much or more than the Nazis, it excludes any Soviet participation.

1939 April 7 Mussolini's occupies Albania, and soon annexes it to Italy.

1939 April 11 Hitler issues a directive for Operation White, a proposed plan to attack Poland.

1939 April 11 Hungary withdraws from the League of Nations.

1939 April 13 Britain and France counter Mussolini's threats with a guarantee to protect the sovereignty of Greece and Romania.

1939 April 14 President Roosevelt appeals to Hitler to respect the independence of nations.

1939 April 15 Roosevelt appeals to both Hitler and Mussolini for assurances against any further aggression, telling them both there is no need for war and to respect the independence of other European nations.

1939 April 15 Alfred Rosenberg opens the Institute of the Nazi Party for Research into the Jewish Question (Institut der NSDAP zur Erforschung der Judenfrage).

1939 April 16 After Franco, with the help of Hitler and Mussolini, has successfully defeated the "Loyalists," Pope Pius XII sends the Spanish Catholics his expressions of "immense joy" and "fatherly congratulations for the gift of peace and victory with which God has deigned to crown the Christian heroism of your faith and charity, proved through such great and generous sufferings." (Lewy)

1939 April 17 Britain and France reject a Soviet offer to form an anti-Nazi alliance.

1939 April 17 Soviet Ambassador Alexei Merekalov calls on Ribbentrop's chief subordinate, Baron von Weizacher and offers unmistakable signals that Russia is now willing to develop better relations with Germany.

1939 April 18 In Berlin, Hitler warns Grigore Gafencu, Romania's new Foreign Minister that "Romania will be abandoned by the covetousness of its neighbors" and again offers military aid and support against Soviet aggression.

1939 April 19 Hitler tells Gregoire Gafencu he cannot understand why the English cannot see that he only wishes to reach an agreement with them.... But if England wants war she can have it.

1939 April 20 Hitler celebrates his 50th birthday with the largest military display in German history. It is a clear warning to his enemies.

1939 April 20 Joint hearings of the U.S. House and Senate are held concerning the admission, on a non-quota basis, of 20,000 German Jewish children over a two-year period.

1939 April 24 A new Slovakian decree dismisses Jews from the civil service and corporation staffs.

1939 April 27 Britain enacts the Concsription Law, ordering compulsory military service.

1939 April 27 Hitler denounces the 1935 British-German naval agreement.

1939 April 28 In a worldwide radio broadcast from the Reichstag, Hitler rejects Roosevelt's appeal for peace and denounces what he calls Britain's new foreign policy. He also annuls the German-Plish nonagression Pact and denounces the British-Polish Pact. (See April 14)

1939 April 28 Sudeten-German Nazis incite anti-Jewish riots in Jihlava (Iglau), Czechoslovakia. Many Jewish shops and stores are damaged. (Edelheit)

1939 April 30 A new German decree causes Jews lose their right to rent protection. Landlords are sanctioned by law to evict Jewish tenants. (Persecution)

1939 April The first regular television broadcasts begin in the United States.

1939 May Hitler orders his personal physician, Dr. Karl Brandt, to devise a new program for the killing of sick and disabled German children.

1939 May The British government sets a limit of 75,000 Jewish refugees into Palestine over the next five years.

1939 May Stalin's purges have by now cut across Russian society. A total of 98 of the 139 central committee members elected in 1934 have been shot and 1,108 of the 1,966 delegates to the 17th Congress arrested. The secret-police reign of terror annihilates a large portion of every profession. Deaths have been estimated in the millions, including those who perished in concentration camps.

1939 May 3 Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov, a Jew, is replaced by Stalin with V.M. Molotov, a gentile. Hitler is said to have been greatly pleased.

(Note: Molotov will serve as foreign minister from 1939-49 and again from 1953-56. Litvinov will become Soviet Ambassador to the U.S. in 1941.) (Ickes)

1939 May 3 Hungary enacts antisemitic laws similar to the Nuremberg Laws. Hungarian Jews are forbidden to become Judges, lawyers, schoolteachers, or members of Parliament. Those who converted to Christianity before 1919 and Jewish war veterans are exempted.

1939 May 4 A second anti-Jewish law in Hungary deprives Jews naturalized after July 1, 1914 of their citizenship.

1939 May 4 The Housing Segregation Law is enacted in Germany. (Edelheit)

1939 May 6 Mussolini commits himself to sign an armistice with Hitler. It will be a fateful decision. (Shirer I)

1939 May 8 Spain withdraws from the League of Nations.

1939 May 13 The Hungarian Union of Jewish Communities, in response to a massive surge in conversions to Christianity, implores Jews not to abandon the faith of their fathers and the Jewish people.

1939 May 15 The S.S. St. Louis, loaded with 930 Jewish refugees, leaves Hamburg bound for Cuba.

1939 May 15 Ravensbrueck, a concentration camp for women, is established.

1939 May 17 A German census lists 330,539 Jews in Greater Germany; 138,819 males and 191,720 females. These figures include 94,530 Jews in what was formerly Austria and 2,363 in the Sudetenland.

1939 May 18 Julius Streicher's Der Stuermer calls for the extermination of all Jews in the Soviet Union, saying it is the only way to eliminate Bolshevism.

1939 May 18 Britain reinstates compulsory military conscription.

1939 May 19 Franco's Spanish Nationalists stage a huge parade in Madrid.

1939 May 20 Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov invites German Ambassador von der Schulenburg to meet with his staff in the Kremlin.

1939 May 20 Pan American Airways launches the first commercial trans-Atlantic flight. The Yankee Clipper flies from New York to Portugal.

1939 May 22 Hitler and Mussolini sign the "Pact of Steel."

1939 May 23 The British parliament approves the so-called "White Paper" by a vote of 268 to 179. This document proposes slowing the growth of the Jewish community in Palestine by limiting Jewish immigration and cutting back Jewish purchases of land. The House of Commons approves a plan for an independent Palestinian state by 1949, but the plan is denounced by both Arabs and Jews.

1939 May 23 Hitler tells a gathering of his highest-level military officers, "The Britisher himself is proud, brave, tough, dogged and a gifted organizer. He knows how to exploit every new development. He has the love of adventure and the courage of the Nordic race... England is a world power in herself. Constant for three hundred years. Increased by alliances. This power is not only something concrete, but must also be considered as a psychological force, embracing the entire world. Add to this immeasurable wealth and the solvency that goes with it and geopolitical security and protection by a strong sea power and courageous air force." (Shirer I)

1939 May 23 Hitler orders the Military High Command to prepare for war with Poland. Goebbels propaganda machine begins accusing the Poles of committing atrocities against their German-speaking minority. (Goebbels)

1939 May 26 Ribbentrop instructs Schulenburg to inform Molotov that Germany's hostility to the Comintern will be abandoned if Hitler can be assured that the Soviets have, in fact, renounced their aggressive struggle against Germany as indicated by Stalin's recent speech.

1939 May 27 The Cuban government refuses to admit the 930 Jewish refugees onboard the S.S. St. Louis. (See May 15)

1939 May 28 The Arrow Cross Party elects 45 representatives to the Hungarian parliament.

1939 May 29 President of the Hungarian Senate, Count Julius Karolyi, resigns in opposition to his country's new anti-Jewish laws.

1939 May 31 Hundreds of commercial licenses held by Jews are cancelled after the Hungarian Ministry of Commerce applies strict numerus clausus to Jewish businesses.

1939 June 1 General Oswald Pohl is named chief administrator of the SS.

1939 June 1 Italian Jews are ordered to assume "Jewish" surnames. Collaboration between Jewish and non-Jewish professionals is prohibited. (Edelheit)

1939 June 1 The SS-Gericht, the SS Legal Head Office, is established on Himmler's orders.

1939 June 2 The Cuban government forces the S.S. St. Louis to leave Havana harbor. (See May 27)

1939 June 3-4 The U.S. government refuses to admit the 930 Jews on the S.S. St. Louis, even those with valid American quota numbers. All requests go unheeded as the ship sails northward along the Florida coast.

1939 June 6 President Roosevelt ignores a telegram sent on behalf of the Jews aboard the S.S. St. Louis. The ship, with all 930 Jews on board, is forced to return to Europe.

1939 June 7 Britain's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrive in America for a state visit and public relations campaign.

1939 June 12 Romania imposes a special tax on denationalized Jews, ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 lei annually.

1939 June 13 Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands (Holland) agree to take in the Jews aboard the S.S. St. Louis. Those who find shelter on the Continent will come under German control in the summer of 1940 and most will later be murdered in the concentration camps.

1939 June 18 A bomb explodes in a Jewish cafe in Prague, injuring 39 people.

1939 June 20 General Walther von Brauchitsch issues a directive ordering cooperation between the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS (SS-Verfuegungstruppen).

1939 June 20 Professor Fischer says in a lecture: "When a people wants, somehow or other, to preserve its own nature, it must reject alien racial elements, and when these have already insinuated themselves, it must suppress them and eliminate them. The Jew is such an alien and, therefore, when he wants to insinuate himself, he must be warded off. This is self-defence. In saying this, I do not characterize every Jew as inferior, as Negroes are, and I do not underestimate the greatest enemy with whom we have to fight. But I reject Jewry with every means in my power, and without reserve, in order to preserve the hereditary endowment of my people." (Science)

1939 June 22 Slovak Minister of Propaganda Aleksander Mach proclaims that with a year Slovakia with be cleansed of Jews (Judenrein).

1939 June 29 The first group of Gypsy women from Austria are sent to Ravensbrueck concentration camp. They number some 440.

1939 June 30 A fire destroys part of the Jewish district in Silal, Lithuania. Arson is suspected.

1939 Summer A public announcement is printed: "The German Society of Race-hygiene is to organize the Fourth International Congress of Eugenics in Vienna on 26-28 August 1940. The President of the Congress will be Professor Rüdin." (Science)

1939 July 4 The tenth ordinance of the Reich Citizenship Act creates the Reich Association of Jews in Germany (Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland), replacing all other Jewish organizations. All German Jews are forced to become members of the new association. (Persecution)

1939 July 6 Adolf Eichmann arrives in Prague to take charge of Jewish emigration.

1939 July 7 An editorial in the Völkischer Beobachter states that the Jewish problem in Germany will be solved only when Germany is cleansed of Jews.

1939 July 7 The ban against Action Francaise is lifted just four months after the election of Pope Pius XII, who was even more convinced of the usefulness of anti-Communist right-wing movements than his predecessor. (Lewy)

1939 July 8 Italian companies dealing with the government are prohibited from employing Jews. (Edelheit)

1939 July 9 Churchill urges a British military alliance with the Soviet Union.

1939 July 10 Niculetta Nicolescu, head of the women's branch of the Legionary Movement in Romania is arrested and and tortured. Her breasts are cut off and she is put to death after being raped. (Sturdza)

1939 July 12 Chamberlain tells the House of Commons that: "The present status of Danzig could not be considered as illegal or unjust... We hope that the Free City will prove once more that different nationalities can collaborate when their interests demand it."

1939 July 13 Italy an "Aryanization" program similar to the one in Germany.

1939 July 15 A Central Office for Jewish Emigration (Zentralstelle fuer Juedische Auswanderung) opens in Prague under the direction of Adolf Eichmann. A branch office is set up in Brno. All Jews wishiung to emigrate from the Czech Protectorate must request permission from these offices.

1939 July 16 Sir Oswald Mosley declares that one million British Fascists will refuse to fight in a "Jewish war."

1939 July 17 Cardinal Bertram sends instructions marked "Top Secret" to the German bishops informing them where priests should report for military pastoral care in case of war. (Lewy)

1939 July 23 Britain and France agree to Russia's proposal that military staff talks be held at once to spell out specifically how Hitler's armies are to be met by the three nations (See August 5). (Shirer I)

1939 July 24 A numerus clausus is instituted in Slovakia, restricting Jews in the professions to four percent. another Slovak decree dismisses all Jews from the army.

1939 July 26 The United States rescinds the 1911 trade agreement with Japan.

1939 July 29 Jews in Slovakia are forbidden to live in rural areas.

1939 July 30 Elections are held for the Twenty-first Zionist Congress to be held in Geneva.

1939 August Stalin, who has become convinced that Britain and France are conspiring to help throw the full weight of German strength against the USSR, seeks an accommodation with Hitler despite their bitterly antagonistic ideologies.

1939 August 1 The U.S. Congress passes a bill outlawing the use of uniforms and firearms by any organization conflicting with the American government. (Edelheit)

1939 August 2 After a lengthy debate the House of Commons votes itself a summer holiday. It is not scheduled to return until October 21.

1939 August 2 Albert Einstein writes a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him of the possibility that Nazi Germany might be attempting to build an atom bomb. "This new phenomena (atomic energy) would also lead to the construction of bombs. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port, together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air." Roosevelt soon issues orders for a U.S. effort to investigate building an atomic bomb. (Howarth)

1939 August 3 Following a secret meeting in London between German Ambassador Herbert von Dirksen and Sir Horace Wilson, head of Britain's civil service and Chamberlain's closest adviser, a message is sent to Hitler informing him that Britain is prepared to increase trade with Germany, talk constructively about Germany's need for colonies, take a helpful view of Germany's need for expansion in southeast Europe, announce jointly a cooperative program to help improve the world economic situation, look seriously at the possibility of limiting armaments (including a possible loan to Germany to offset the financial difficulties limitation would bring), and finally, not to intervene in matters concerning the Greater Reich, which would include Danzig. There was only one precondition: Germany and Britain should sign a treaty of nonaggression, in which both sides would renounce unilateral aggressive action as a policy method. (Howarth)

1939 August 3 Jews in Memel are allowed to liquidate their property without Nazi interference.

1939 August 4 The Polish government sends an ultimatum to the Danzig Senate warning it will arm its customs officers if the Senate does not stop interfering with Polish customs inspectors. Supposedly based on mistaken information, Poland's action causes great consternation among the Nazis.

1939 August 5 Britain and France's joint military mission to Russia departs Britain for Leningrad on a slow-moving, passenger-cargo ship. Discussions have been arranged with Molotov in Moscow (See July 23). (Shirer I)

1939 August 5 Albert Foerster, Nazi Gauleiter of Danzig, flies to Berchtesgaden to confer with Hitler. Meanwhile, the customs dispute in Danzig is temporarily resolved, but is seen in other countries as a Nazi capitulation, infuriating Hitler.

1939 August 6 Mussolini, fearing Germany will go to war with Poland, discusses with Count Galeazzo Ciano, his son-in-law and Foreign Minister, possible ways to evade the terms of the Pact of Steel, which commits them to aiding Germany. Mussolini believes Italy is still 3 years short of readiness for war.

1939 August 6 German authorities in Danzig tell the Poles that their customs officials can no longer work in the port.

1939 August 7 Count Ciano requests a meeting with Joachim von Ribbentrop.

1939 August 8 Winston Churchill makes a fifteen-minute radio broadcast to America, warning of the increasingly serious threat of war in Europe and the likelihood of American involvement. "This is the time to fight - to speak - to attack!"

1939 August 9 Germany issues an official warning to the Polish government in Warsaw, saying that another comminatory note to Danzig will result in strained Polish-German relations, with Poland being responsible.

1939 August 9 German Ambassador von Dirksen, preparing to depart on leave to Germany, visits British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax. Halifax questions von Dirksen over the "sharp tone of the German press concerning Danzig." Dirksen replies that it is the fault of the Polish newspaper Czas which has published a statement that if there were any attempt to incorporate Danzig into the Reich, Polish troops would open fire on the Free City. (Howarth)

1939 August 9 The joint British-French military mission arrives in Leningrad.

1939 August 9 Jews from several Hagana units sink the British police boat Sinbad II in Palestine. (Edelheit)

1939 August 10 The Warsaw government warns Germany that "any future intervention to the detriment of Polish rights and interests in Danzig will be considered an act of aggression."

1939 August 10 In Berlin: Julius Schnurre, head of the Economic Policy Department of the German Foreign Ministry, picks up discussions with Georgi Astakhov, Charge d'Affaires of the Soviet Embassy, sounding out the possibility of a pact between Germany and the Soviet Union.

1939 August 10 Delegates of the joint British-French military mission spend the day sightseeing in Leningrad.

1939 August 10 Alfred Naujocks, a young SS secret-service veteran and member of the SD since its founding in 1934, is personally ordered by Reinhard Heydrich to fake a Polish attack on the radio station at Gleiwitz near the Polish border. "Practical proof is needed for these attacks by the Poles for the foreign press as well as German propaganda," Heydrich tells Naujocks. (Alfred Naujocks, sworn affidavit, Nuremberg, November 20, 1945; Shirer I)

1939 August 10 Night-time air war exercises are conducted over England on a larger scale than any time since WWI. 500 aircraft (bombers with fighter support) sweep in from the east to attack Birmingham, Rochester, Bedford, Brighton and Derby. 800 defenders take off to challenge the attackers. Defending forces are largely successful in beating off the attacking forces. Bombers approaching London have particular difficulty because of a balloon barrage above the capital.

1939 August 11 The British-French military mission finally arrives in Moscow. It is agreed to start talks the next day; by then it will be too late. Approaches are already quietly underway between Germany and Russia (See August 19). (Shirer I)

1939 August 11 The British Foreign Office learns that Germany will be in a state of complete military readiness on August 15.

1939 August 11 Karl Burckhardt, Commissioner of the League of Nations in Danzig, is summoned to see Hitler at Berchtesgaden.

1939 August 11 Italian Foreign Minister Ciano and Ribbentrop meet in Salzburg. When Ciano asks Ribbentrop whether Germany wants the "Polish Corridor" or Danzig, Ribbentrop replies, "Not that any more.We want war." (Howarth)

1939 August 11 Gauleiter Foerster warns his Danzig Nazis to be prepared for anything.

1939 August 11 Jews begin to be expelled from the Czech Protectorate.

1939 August 12 The British-French military mission begins talks in Moscow. They will continue until August 19, but no agreement will be reached because of a dispute over Soviet troops being allowed in Poland. (WWIIDBD)

1939 August 12 Ciano meets with Hitler at Berchtesgaden. Hitler is pondering over his maps planning the war against Poland. Hitler believes that the war will be localized and there is not the slightest danger that Britain and France would fight. When Ciano protests that so little would be gained at such vast risk, Hitler says to him "You are a southerner, and you will never understand how much I, as a German, need to get my hands on the timber of the Polish forests." Ciano notes: "He has decided to strike, and strike he will."

1939 August 13 Ciano returns to Rome disgusted at the attitudes of Ribbentrop and Hitler. "They have betrayed us and lied to us. Now they are dragging us into an adventure which we do not want and which may compromise the regime and the country as a whole." (Ciano)

1939 August 14 New York Congressman Hamilton Fish, president of the U.S. delegation to the Interparliamentary Union Congress conference in Oslo, Norway, meets with Ribbentrop. Fish is a vocal isolationist and staunch opponent of Roosevelt. The congressman advocates better relations with Germany and hopes to solve the Danzig question during the August 15-19 conference in Norway. Ribbentrop tells Fish that Germany has lost its patience and unless Danzig is restored to Germany war will break out. (Secrets)

1939 August 14 Chamberlain and Halifax receive details of Ciano's meetings with Hitler and Ribbentrop. They consider the idea of sending a German-speaking Briton to negotiate directly with Hitler.

1939 August 14 Hitler orders Ribbentrop to telegraph Ambassador von der Schulenberg in Moscow, ordering him to secure "a speedy clarification of German-Russian relations." Ribbentrop says that he is prepared to personally fly to Moscow and present Hitler's views to Stalin "because only through such a direct discussion can a change be brought about, and it should not be impossible therefore to lay the foundation for a final settlement of German-Russian relations."

1939 August 15 German State Secretary Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker warns Sir Neville Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin, that the situation is extremely serious. Weizsäcker says any German diplomatic initiative is unthinkable in view of Beck's speech declaring that Poland was prepared to talk, only if Germany would first accept Poland's terms. In view of that, the ultimatum to the Danzig Senate, and the comminatory note to Germany of August 10, no further talks are possible.

1939 August 15 Churchill begins a tour of the Maginot Line, France's main land defensive barrier against Germany.

1939 August 15 Molotov meets with von der Schulenberg in Moscow and expresses great interest in Hitler's proposals. Von der Schulenberg in turn is surprised and pleased at the Russian's moderate conditions.

1939 August 15 Captain Karl Doenitz, head of the U-boat arm of the German Navy, is recalled unexpectedly early from leave.

1939 August 15 Ambassador Von Dirksen's leave in Berlin is uninterrupted. Although he wishes to see Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister will not see him. Von Dirksen discovers that Italian Ambassador in Berlin, Bernardo Attolico, believes Hitler is about to go to war with Poland, ignoring Britain's conciliatory attitude. Von Dirksen is convinced Attolico is wrong. (See August 3)

1939 August 15 Advance mobilization orders are sent to the German railways, and plans are made to move Army headquarters to Zossen, east of Berlin. The navy reports that the pocket battleships Graf Spee and Deutschland and twenty-one submarines are ready to sail for their stations in the Atlantic. (Shirer I)

1939 August 15 The annual Nuremberg Party Rally, which Hitler proclaimed on April 1 as the "Party Rally of Peace" and which is scheduled to begin the first week in September, is secretly cancelled. (Shirer I)

1939 August 16 Ribbentrop cables von der Schulenberg, telling him that all Molotov's conditions can be met. Captain Doenitz arrives at Kiel, the main U-boat base, and begins to implement plans for Fall Weiss (Case White) the projected attack on Poland.

1939 August 16-26 The Twenty-first World Zionist Congress meets in Geneva. It strongly opposes the British White Paper and expresses concern for the fate of Jews in Germany, Poland and the rest of eastern Europe.

1939 August 17 The League of Nations' Permanent Mandate Commission rules that the British White Paper is inconsistent with provisions of the Mandate.

1939 August 17 General Halder makes a strange entry in his diary: "Canaris checked with Section I (Operations). Himmler, Heydrich, Obersalzberg: 150 Polish uniforms with accessories for Upper Silesia." (Shirer I) (See August 31, 8 PM)

1939 August 17 Molotov is highly gratified by the German's obvious haste to achieve a political agreement. Soviet Marshal Voroshilov - by now sure that neither the French nor the British mean business - dismisses their delegates for four days.

1939 August 17 Sumner Welles, U.S. Under Secretary of State, passes information concerning the German overtures to Moscow to British Ambassador Sir Ronald Lindsay, who immediately telegraphs London, confident his message will be in the Foreign Office first thing in the morning, London time. It is, but will not be deciphered for four days.

1939 August 18 Weizsäcker repeats his warning to the British and French Ambassadors. (See August 15)

1939 August 18 After learning a German attack on Poland is threatened to take place within two weeks, Sir Nevile Henderson, the British Ambassador in Berlin, implores Chamberlain to write personally to Hitler.

1939 August 18 Doenitz despatches Germany's 35 operational U-boats. 18 are sent to the eastern Atlantic and the remaining 17 to the Baltic for operations against Poland and possibly Russia.

1939 August 19 A German-Soviet economic agreement are completed and signed in Moscow. Molotov suddenly produces a draft of a Russian-German nonagression pact and invites Ribbentrop to Moscow on the 26th or 27th.

1939 August 19 Orders to sail are issued to the German Navy. The pocket battleship Graf Spee is ordered to waters off Brazil, and her sister ship, Deutschland, is directed to the North Atlantic. Twenty-one submarines are ordered to take up positions north and northwest of the British Isles. (Shirer I)

1939 August 19 At 7:10 PM, a telegram is received in Berlin from the German ambassador in Moscow: "SECRET. MOST URGENT. THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT AGREE TO THE REICH FOREIGN MINISTER COMING TO MOSCOW ON AUGUST 26 OR 27. MOLOTOV HANDED ME A DRAFT OF A NON-AGRESSION PACT." (Shirer I)

1939 August 19 Churchill and Chaim Weizmann meet in London. (Edelheit)

1939 August 20 In Moscow during the early hours of the morning an agreement in signed between Germany and the Soviet Union.

1939 August 20 Hitler, suspecting Molotov might cause delays in ratification of the nonagression pact, sends a personal message to Stalin asking him to receive Ribbentrop in Moscow as soon as possible, telling Stalin "The tension between Germany and Poland has become intolerable... A crisis may arise any day. Germany is at any rate determined from now on to look after the interests of the Reich with all the means at her disposal."

1939 August 20 The Soviet Union scores a major victory over Japan in the border conflict along the Outer Mongolia-Manchukuo frontier and Japan sues for peace. By the end of the campaign Soviet losses will be10,000 killed and wounded. Japanese losses: 52,000 to 55,000 killed and wounded.

1939 August 20 German U-boats take up positions in the North Atlantic shipping lanes.

1939 August 21 The Trade and Credit Agreement is signed between Germany and the Soviet Union. Stalin cables Hitler: "THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT HAVE INSTRUCTED ME TO INFORM YOU THAT THEY AGREE TO HERR VON RIBBENTROP'S ARRIVING IN MOSCOW ON AUGUST 23. -- J. STALIN."

1939 August 21 Neville Chamberlain arrives in London, having travelled overnight from Scotland. British Intelligence suggests that Field Marshal Hermann Goering should come to London for discussions.

1939 August 21 Soviet Marshal Voroshilov (knowing of Ribbentrop's impending arrival) indefinitely postpones any continuation of Anglo-French-Soviet talks.

1939 August 22 Chamberlain writes a letter to Hitler, warning him the German-Soviet Agreement will not alter Britain's obligation to come to the aid of Poland.

1939 August 22 Chamberlain gives a fighting speech, to be broadcast by the BBC, saying it is unthinkable that Great Britain should not carry out its obligations to Poland.

1939 August 22 Sir William Seeds, British Ambassador in Moscow, accuses Molotov of negotiating in bad faith.

1939 August 22 At Obersalzburg, Hitler tells his generals that the destruction of Poland "starts on Saturday morning" (26 August), the aim of this war is the wholesale destruction of Poland.

(Note: Hitler proclaims to the commanders of the armed services: "Our strength is in our quickness and our brutality. Genghis Khan had millions of women and children killed by his own will and with a gay heart. History sees him only as a great state builder... Thus for the time being I have sent to the East only my "Death's Head Units" with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language. Only in such a way will we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?") (Architect)

1939 August 22-4 The Fulda Bishop's Conference of 1939 includes the bishops of Austria and the Sudetenland for the first time. All are aware of the "Top Secret" instructions of July 17. (Lewy)

1939 August 23 The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact issigned in Moscow. Sometimes called the Ribbentrop-Molotov Agreement of Non-Aggression, it sets up plans for a 10-year collaboration between Germany and Soviet Russia.

(Note: Both parties agreed that if either became involved in a war, the other would give no help to the enemy; nor would either join any group against the other. There was no clause stating that withdrawal was allowed if one signatory attacked a third party, although this was customary in such treaties. There was also a secret protocol providing for the partition of Poland along the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Vistula and San in the event of what was referred to as a "territorial transition" taking place in Poland. The Soviet Union was allocated all the Byelorussian and Ukrainian provinces of Poland, as well as the province of Lublin and part of that of Warsaw. Germany was to take the western part of the country, though the possibility of retaining a small remnant of a Polish state was kept open. The USSR was to have a free hand in Finland, Estonia and Latvia; and Germany in Lithuania. Soviet interest in the Rumanian province of Bessarabia was recognised by Germany.)

1939 August 23 Hitler is delighted. He believes Stalin has just handed him the perfect opportunity to restore the Reich's "rightful possessions" without having to fight a war on two fronts. He is certain that this new treaty with the Russians will allow him to safely reclaim Danzig and take back the Polish Corridor. Britain and France, he tells his staff, without other major allies, will not go to war in such a situation... "especially over what everyone knows are, by all rights, German territories anyway." (Toland)

1939 August 23 Hitler sets the date for the invasion of Poland as: Saturday, August 26, at 4:30am. Colonel-General Alfred Jodl is appointed Chief of staff of the armed forces supreme command (OKW).

1939 August 23 Orders are issued to confiscate all radios belonging to German Jews. (Eyes)

1939 August 23 The British and French Special Military Mission leaves Moscow.

1939 August 23 French citizens are advised to leave Paris. Churchill leaves France and returns to London. Daladier asks the Permanent Committee for National Defence whether they can stand by and watch the disappearance of Poland and Rumania; they agree that they cannot.

1939 August 23 Sir Percy Lorain, British Ambassador to Rome, informs his government that he is confident the Italians will not fight. Mussolini declares himself ready to mediate.

1939 August 23 Hitler writes to Neville Chamberlain: "Germany was prepared to settle the questions of Danzig and of the Corridor by the method of negotiations on the basis of a truly unparalleled magnanimity, but the allegations put forth by England regarding a German mobilization against Poland, theassertion of aggressive designs toward Romania, Hungary, etc. as well as the so-called Guarantee Declarations which were subsequently given had dispelled any Polish inclination to negotiate on a basis which would have also been tolerable for Germany... The German Reich government has received information to the effect that the British government has the intention to carry out measures of mobilization which, according to the statements contained in your own letter, are clearly directed against Germany alone... I therefore inform your Excellency that in the event of these military announcements being carried into effect, I shall order the immediate mobilization of the German armed forces."

1939 August 23 Foreign Minister Beck agrees to allow passage of Soviet troops through Poland.

1939 August 23 Belgium proclaims its neutrality and mobilizes its army for defense.

1939 August 24 Poland and Great Britain formally sign a treaty of mutual assistance.

1939 August 24 The British Parliament reconvenes and passes the Emergency Powers Act. Royal Assent is given on the same day and the Royal Navy is ordered to war stations. Soon afterward a general mobilization begins.

1939 August 24 Hitler predicts the Chamberlain government will fail. Goering meets with Birger Dahlerus, a Swedish businessman and proposes that Dahlerus, who has good connections, should act as a go-between with Great Britain.

1939 August 24 Gauleiter Albert Foerster becomes head of state in Danzig.

1939 August 24 Pope Pius XII appeals for peace.

1939 August 25 Goering's friend, Swiss businessman Birger Dahlerus, lands in Croyden, England, in Goering's private plane. Dahlerus personally gives copies of Hitler's proposals for a peaceful settlement of the Danzig problem to Lord Halifax.

1939 August 25 Colonel Walery Slawek, a Polish opponent of the anti-German policies of Marshal Smigly-Rydz and President Moscicki, and a strong proponent of Marshal Pilsudski's pro-German policy, is murdered and his death ruled a suicide, even though two bullets are found in his body. (Sturdza)

1939 August 25 Hitler confers with British Ambassador Henderson, telling him that "Poland's provocations have become intolerable." Hitler then makes several new proposals to Britain, whose friendship, Hitler says, he has "always sought." In conclusion, Hitler strongly urges Henderson to leave for London that same day with these new proposals.

1939 August 25 Italian Ambassador Attolico tells Hitler that Italy will not support Germany without German help with arms. On hearing of this, Hitler cancels his invasion of Poland scheduled for 4:30 AM the following morning.

1939 August 25 The number of incidents along the Polish-German border increase. In Makeszowa, near Katowice, German soldiers take over the court house and railway station. Poles break into an wreck the offices of a German newspaper. More Polish reservists are called up and cars and horses are requisitioned.

1939 August 25 President Roosevelt once again appeals for peace.

1939 August 26 The British Chiefs of Staff advise the cabinet that the earliest possible date for any ultimatum to Germany is September 1.

1939 August 26 Dahlerus meets with Halifax again, flies back to Berlin with a letter for Goering and returns to London later that afternoon.

1939 August 26 French Ambassador Robert Coulondre sees Hitler and appeals to him as one soldier to another. When Coulondre cites the probable fate of women and children in any war, Hitler hesitates, but Ribbentrop quickly strengthens his resolve.

1939 August 26 The Polish government in Warsaw increases the pace of its military mobilization.

1939 August 26 Mussolini submits a list of Italian requirements to Ribbentrop.

1939 August 26 Palestinian Jews (IZL) assassinate two British police detectives accused on torturing suspects. Many Britons hate and fear the Jews as much as the Germans. (Edelheit)

1939 August 27 Italian Foreign Minister Ciano recommends British acceptance of Hitler's latest offer.

1939 August 27 The British Cabinet learns from Lord Halifax of "Mr D," Birger Dahlerus, and his efforts on the Nazis behalf. Dahlerus arrives back in Berlin about midnight.

1939 August 27 Polish Foreign Minister Beck agrees to consider an exchange of population between predominantly German and predominantly Polish areas.

1939 August 28 Dahlerus has an early morning meeting with Goering and Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes, Counsellor of the British Embassy, before breakfasting again with Goering. Later that day rationing is imposed in Germany.

1939 August 28 Polish Foreign Minister Beck refuses to go to Berlin. Beck says he accepts the principle of direct negotiations, but towards midnight tells British Ambassador Kennard that Polish mobilisation is proceeding.

1939 August 28 Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) officially retires from the SS. Himmler requests the return of Weisthor's SS Totenkopfring, (Deathshead ring), SS dagger, and sword. Himmler personally keeps them under lock and key. (Weisthor file, Berlin Document Center; Roots)

1939 August 28 Ambassador Henderson returns to Berlin from London. Chamberlain requests information concerning Hitler's intentions towards Poland.

1939 August 28 Slovak Premier Josef Tiso invites the Germany army to occupy Slovakia. (Edelheit)

1939 August 28 The Netherland (Holland) orders a general military mobilization.

1939 August 29 At 7.00 AM Dahlerus telephones Cadogan with news of his meeting with Goering. The Fuehrer "was in fact only considering how reasonable he could be," he said, and was about to extend an invitation to the Poles for discussions in Berlin.

1939 August 29 Chamberlain makes a firm uncompromising speech in the House of Commons, saying "The catastrophe is not yet upon us, but I cannot say that the danger of it has in any way receded." He warns the press to exercise restraint, and apologizes for not being able to give more than an outline of his communications with Hitler.

1939 August 29 Hitler meets with Henderson, repeats his friendly sentiments towards the British Empire and grudgingly accepts direct negotiations with Poland, but demands that a Polish plenipotentiary must arrive in Berlin by the end of the following day. Henderson tells Hitler that the short term of 36 hours sounds like an ultimatum. Hitler replies that this is not an ultimatum, but has the purpose of stressing the urgency of a situation where two completely mobilized armies are confronting one another. On the Western border, only five German divisions man the Siegfried Line in front of the entire French Army.

1939 August 29 German troops enter Slovakia on Poland's southern frontier, but Ambassadors Kennard and Nokl persuade Beck to postpone any further Polish mobilization.

1939 August 29 Ernst von Weizsäcker, State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry learns of a secret annex to the 1933 Concordat with the Vatican. It stipulates that in the event Germany introduces universal military training, students studying for the priesthood are declared exempt except in the case of general mobilization. In that event most of the diocesan clergy are to be exempt from reporting for service, while all others are to be inducted for pastoral work with the troops or into the medical corps. (Lewy)

1939 August 29 Switzerland orders full mobilization of its frontier forces.

1939 August 30 The Warsaw government orders the Polish army to fully mobilize. Drastic measures are taken to stop any possible sabotage by pro-Germans. (Edelheit)

1939 August 30 Ambassador Henderson is advised by the Home Office that Hitler's demand for the arrival of a Polish plenipotentiary that day is unreasonable. Henderson and Ribbentrop meet again, and this time come close to blows. Ribbentrop goes over Hitler's latest proposals, but Henderson claims Ribbentrop refuses to give him a copy of the text.

1939 August 30 Hitler agrees to Britain's request for a 24-hour extension to permit a Polish negotiator to meet with von Ribbentrop.

1939 August 30 Beck tells Ambassador Kennard that Polish mobilization will resume at midnight. By 4.30 PM. all Polish towns are covered with posters summoning all men up to the age of 40 to report for enlistment. (Howarth)

1939 August 30 The British Foreign Office sends a message at 5:30 PM to Berlin after it receives reports of German sabotage in Poland. It says in part, "Germany must exercise complete restraint if Poland is to do so as well."

1939 August 31 The sixth decree on implementation of the law on sterilization virtually puts an end to sterilizations in Germany. (Science)

1939 August 31 Henderson, instead of informing the Poles of Hitler's proposals and the granting of an extension, tries to dissuades Lipski from meeting with von Ribbentrop at all. Henderson, in his Final Report, writes "I suggested that he (Lipski) recommend to his government an interview between Marshal Smigly-Rydz and Goering. I felt obliged to add that I could not conceive of the success of any negotiations if they were conducted by Ribbentrop." (Sturdza)

1939 August 31 A telegram from Sir Howard Kennard, British Ambassador in Warsaw to Lord Halifax states that Polish Foreign Minister Beck has informed him that Lipski has been forbidden to receive any documents from von Ribbentrop.

1939 August 31 Lipski telegrams Beck that French Ambassador Coulondre has told him that Henderson has been informed of Germany's intention to wait until midnight August 31st. Lipski writes: "Coulondre advises me to inform the German government, only after midnight, that the Polish Embassy was always at its reach." (Sturdza)

1939 August 31 The Supreme Soviet ratifies the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.

1939 August 31 At half past noon, Hitler issues Directive # 1 for the conduct of the war: (1) Now that all the political possibilities of disposing by peaceful means of a situation which is intolerable for Germany are exhausted, I have determined on a solution by force. (2) The attack on Poland is to be carried out. Date of attack: September 1, 1939. Time of attack: 4:45am. (Shirer I)

1939 August 31 Polish Ambassador Lipski meets with Ribbentrop at 6:15 PM.

1939 August 31 A telegram to Beck from Lipski informs the Foreign Minister that "I have met with von Ribbentrop. I have obeyed instructions received and told him that I was not empowered to negotiate. Mr. von Ribbentrop repeated that he believed I had such powers. He told me that he would report my visit to the Chancellor."

1939 August 31 SS Sturmbannfuehrer Alfred Helmut Naujocks is said to have received the code words "Grandmama dead," thus ending a 14 day wait at the German radio station at Gleiwitz, where he and Gestapo head Heinrich Mueller are to carry out a mock attack. The "canned goods:" a dozen "condemned criminals" dressed in Polish military uniforms are believed to have been given fatal injections before being shot. (Alfred Naujocks, sworn affidavit, Nuremberg, November 20, 1945)

1939 August 31 At about 2000 hours (8PM) the German radio station at Gleiwitz near the Polish border announces it is under attack. (Most contemporary historians believe the Germans staged this attack as an excuse to invade Poland. Holocaust deniers and historical revisionists, however, suggest that British or Jewish secret agents were responsible.) (See August 10,15, 17, 1939)

(Note: Shortly after signing his sworn affidavit, Naujocks mysteriously disappeared and has never been seen again.)

1939 August 31 At 8.20 PM Ciano is informed by the telephone central office that London has cut its communications with Italy. (Howarth)

1939 August 31 At 9 PM all radio stations in Germany interrupt their schedules to broadcast Hitler's 16 point plan for Poland. It includes provisions for: the annexation of Danzig by Germany; a corridor across the Danzig Corridor; a plebiscite to be held in the Corridor area in 12 months time, and a later exchange of populations. The port of Gdynia is to be recognized as Polish, thus leaving Poland with access to the sea. It will not be delivered to the Polish ambassador until September 1. (Howarth; Bell)

1939 August 31 A huge banquet is held in Ribbentrop's honor at the Kremlin in Moscow. Ribbentrop, Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan and Beria are all seated at the head table. The party ends at 3:00 AM.

WORLD WAR II

1939 September 1 4:45 AM, German troops cross the Polish frontier. The German military machine strikes in what is known as a Blitzkrieg (lightning war). High-speed panzer (tank) units blast holes in the Polish lines. Luftwaffe (air force) bombers destroy the Polish air force on the ground, damage communications lines, and prevent the Poles from moving reinforcements, supplies, and ammunition to the front, while German motorized units and footsoldiers quickly move forward to capture and hold the conquered ground. In all, 53 German divisions take part in the attack.

1939 September 1 An 8 PM curfew is established for all German Jews.

1939 September 1 Mussolini proposes a suspension of hostilities and the immediate convening of a Conference of the Big Powers, Poland included, to discuss terms for a peaceful settlement. Germany, France and Poland immediately accept Mussolini's proposals. Britain categorically rejects any negotiations and demands withdrawal of German troops from all occupied Polish territory (30 kilometers deep). Britain does not consult with Warsaw before making its decision.

1939 September 1 Osborne, British Ambassador at the Vatican, reports to Lord Halifax that he had suggested to Papal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione that publication of the last-minute unsuccessful peace appeal of Pope Pius XII be accompanied by an expression of regret that the German government, despite the Papal appeal, has plunged the world into war. Maglione, he says, has turned down this request as too specific an intervention into international politics. (Lewy)

1939 September 1 The Euthanasia Decree, which will not actually be written until October, is predated to go into effect on this date in Greater Germany. This decree orders that all Germans with incurable diseases are to be killed in order to free up needed hospital space and eliminate "useless eaters."

1939 September 1 Gauleiter Albrecht Foerster proclaims an anschluss of Danzig with Greater Germany.

1939 September 2 Coulondre telegrams Daladier: "Stay firm, Hitler will knuckle under." France revokes its acceptance of Mussolini's peace proposals.

1939 September 2 German control is established in Danzig and a concentration camp is opened outside the city at Stutthof. Hundreds of Jews are among the first prisoners.

1939 September 2 The Gestapo orders all Jews in Germany between 16 and 55 years of age to report for compulsory labor. (Edelheit)

1939 September 3 Great Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany. The British ultimatum that Germany withdraw from Poland was delivered to the German Foreign Ministry at 9 AM by Ambassador Neville Henderson. It gave Hitler two hours to begin the withdrawal or a state of war would exists between the two nations. At 11 AM the French ultimatum was delivered. It expires at 5 PM.

1939 September 3 Ten British bombers drop 13 tons of leaflets on the Ruhr. Printed on the six million sheets of paper is the message: "Your rulers have condemned you to the massacres, miseries and privations of a war they cannot ever hope to win." (Duffy)

1939 September 3 Unity Mitford shoots herself in the head with a small pistol outside a German government building in Munich. Her attempt is unsuccessful, but she will continue to live for several years after the war as an invalid.

1939 September 3 Lieutenant Colonel Nikolaus von Vormann, army liaison officer to Hitler, records in his notes of the day: "Even today the Fuhrer still believes that the Western powers are only going to stage a phony war, so to speak." (Irving I)

1939 September 3 A German U-boat is accused of sinking the Athenia, a Canadian liner bound for Montreal. The sinking results in the loss of 112 lives, including 28 Americans. During the first two months of the war, 67 British merchant ships are sunk. (See October 5)

1939 September 3 Himmler tells the Einsatzgruppe under Udo von Woyrsch that its mission is to suppress the Polish resistence movement with all available means. The overall operation of the Einsatzgruppen in Poland has been given the code-name Aktion Tannenberg. It will officially come to an end on October 25. (Architect)

(Note: It is uncertain whether this code-name referred to the Battle of Tannenberg or to the well-known Pan-German writer Otto Richard Tannenberg. (See 1911)

1939 September 4 With Hitler's consent, Goering makes a speech asking for a settlement with Poland.

1939 September 4 Hitler visits Marshal Pilsudski's grave in the Krakow Cathedral. (Sturdza)

1939 September 4 British Blenheim and Wellington bombers attack the German naval facilities at Wilhelmshaven. Of the 29 bombers that took off from England, 5 failed to find the target and 7 were shot down. The only serious damage was done by a Blenheim that managed to crash into the bow of the cruiser Emden, killing a number of sailors. (Duffy)

1939 September 6 The German command asks the Polish Command to evacuate noncombatants from Warsaw, if it intends to defend the city. Poland answers: "Warsaw will be defended, nobody will be evacuated." (Sturdza)

1939 September 7 Heydrich tells his division heads that the Polish leadership must be "neutalized." The Einsatzgruppen already had lists of people considered to be hostile to Germany, which included members of Polish patriotic organizations, communists, clergymen, noblemen, and Jews. (Architect)

1939 September 7 - 9 French forces cross the German border at three different locations: near Saarbrücken, Saarlouis, and Zweibrücken. The French meet little resistence due to the fact that Hitler had ordered German units near the border not to engage the French units unless they were attacked and forced to return fire. The transfer of troops to Poland had left only eleven regular divisions plus the equivalent of one division of fortress troops defending the western frontier. These were supported by 35 recently-formed divisions of second-, third-, and fouth-line troops. There were no armored or motorized units facing west; they had all been tranferred to the east. (Duffy)

1939 September 9 Hitler issues an amnesty for Catholic priests accused of minor infractions of German law (See March 11, 1940). (Lewy)

1939 September 9 All Jewish men in the small Ruhr town of Gelsenkirchen are deported to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, near Berlin. The women and children are left to fend for themselves. (Atlas)

1939 September 12 Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, protests to General Keitel that extensive shootings are planned in Poland, and that the nobility and intelligentsia are to be exterminated. The world, Canaris said, would hold the armed forces responsible. (Architect)

1939 September 12 The French army now occupies a 15-mile-wide front some five miles inside German territory. Although his forces have met no real opposition to its advance, General Maurice Gamelin halts his army and issues orders to prepare for a rapid retreat at the first sign of strong German opposition. (Duffy)

Note: General Gamelin brazenly lies to the beleaguered Poles when they protest the lack of French action; telling them that half of his active divisions are engaged in combat and meeting vigorous German resistence. "I have thus gone beyond my promise to take the offensive with the bulk of my forces by the fifteenth day after mobilization. It has been impossible for me to do more." Only 9 of France's 85 divisions on the frontier were employeed in the "offensive." (Shirer II)

1939 September 17 Stalin's Soviet Army invades Poland from the East. Neither England nor France chooses to break diplomatic relations with Moscow or declare war, despite Russia's obvious aggression.

1939 September 17 Charles Lindbergh makes his first anti-intervention speech on U.S. radio, arguing that Stalin is as much to be feared as Hitler. (Bookshelf)

1939 September 18 The Polish government and High Command escape into exile in France.

1939 September 21 Reinhard Heydrich tells a meeting of his department heads in the Reich Central Security Office (RSHA), an organization emcompassing the Gestapo, SS, SD, and Criminal Police, that the mass deportations of thousands of Jews, including Poles, Germans, Austrians, Czechs and Slovaks, to the eastern areas of Poland are the "first steps in the final solution" (die Endlösung).(Apparatus)

1939 September 21 Romanian Legionaries murder Armand Calinescu, who they blame for the death of Corneliu Codreanu. Nine of the assassins turn themselves in to police and all are quickly executed.

1939 September 21 The Germans decree that all Polish communities with less than 500 Jews are to be dissolved and that the Jews are hereafter to live in certain restricted areas in the larger cities, or in a special region between Lublin and Nisko, called the "Lublinland reservation." (Atlas)

1939 September 21 Cardinal August Hlond, Primate of Poland, arrives in Rome and personally reports of German atrocities against Catholic priests in Poland to the Pope. The Vatican radio and "L'Osservatore Romano" tell the story to the world. (Lewy)

1939 September 22 Four hundred Legionaries are murdered in Romania by government dead squads and their bodies left at the country's crossroads as a warning to others.

1939 September 23 All German Jews are ordered to turn in their radios to the police. (Persecution)

1939 September 24 Warsaw surrenders to the Germans after heavy and prolonged bombardment. 3,000 of the dead are Jewish civilians. (Atlas)

(WWIIDBD says Warsaw surrendered September 27)

1939 September 24 On the Jewish Day of Atonement, Jewish prisoners-of-war are forced to clean the latrines with their bare hands and are treated with particular brutality. (Atlas)

1939 September 27 "Pray examine and advise upon a proposal to establish a minefiield, blocking Norwegian territorial waters at some lonely spot on the coast as far north as convenient. If the Norwegians will do this themselves, well and good. Otherwise a plan must be made for us to do it." (British First Lord to First Sea Lord and others, 27 September 1939)

1939 September 28 Poland is partitioned between Germany and the Soviet Union. Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz forms a Polish government-in-exile in France. During the fighting about 60,000 Polish soldiers have been killed, of whom some 6,000 were Jews.

1939 September 28 Lithuania annexes the Vilna region of Poland.

1939 September 28 Polish Cardinal August Hlond is allowed to broadcast a message to the Poles of the world over the Vatican Radio. The Pope, unhappy with the cardinal's presence in Rome, wants him to return to Poland, but the Germans will not allow it. (Lewy)

1939 September 30 German Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs Hanns Kerrl sends word to all church authorities suggesting that all church bells should ring during the noon hour for seven days "out of grateful commemoration of the victory (over Poland) and of the dead."

1939 September 30 About 400,000 of the 600,000 people classified as Jews in Germany have already fled the country. Of the 200,000 who remain, about 150,000 will die in the concentration camps.

1939 September 30 General Gamelin issues orders for the French army to begin withdrawing from Germany during the night. (Duffy)

1939 September-October Germany annexes the northern and western portions of German-occupied Poland, including provinces Germany had been forced to give up by the Treaty of Versailles. The southern and eastern portions become an occupied zone, in effect a German colony, designated as the Government General of Poland. (Apparatus)

1939 September-October Stalin forces the Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- to accept garrisons of Soviet troops within their borders.

1939 September-October Simon Wiesenthal becomes a commissar for the Soviet secret police in western Poland, thereby avoiding deportation to the Siberian labor camps.

1939 October The first "euthanasia" questionnaires are distributed to mental hospitals. They are completed, in their capacity as 'experts,' by Professors Heyde, Mauz, Nitsche, Panse, Pohlisch, Reisch, C. Schneider, Villinger, and Zucker, all of whom are professors of psychiatry, and thirty-nine other doctors of medicine. Their payment is 5 pfennigs per questionnaire,when more than 3,500 are processed per month, up to 10 pfennigs when there are less than 500. A cross signifies death. There are 283,000 questionnaires to be processed. These experts mark at least 75,000 with a cross. (Science)

1939 October-November During this period 214 Polish priests are executed, among them the entire cathedral chapter of the bishopric of Peplin. (Broszat; Lewy)

1939 October-April Following Hitler's speedy victory in Poland, a period known as the Phony War follows in western Europe. Hitler proposes several peace conferences, all are quicklyly rejected. The British and French use this 6-month lull for strategic planning.

1939 October Stalin disappears from the Kremlin for two days to meet secretly with Hitler. (KGB Archives.)

1939 October 1 Cardinal Bertram informs all bishops that they should comply with Kerrl's suggestion of September 30, and the church bells in all dioceses in Germany ring out to celebrate Hitler's first military victory. (Lewy)

1939 October 4 All French forces except for a light screen have withdrawn from Germany and returned to French territory. (Duffy)

1939 October 5 President Roosevelt and his Cabinet discuss an official message from German Admiral Raeder to the American military attache in Berlin, warning him that the British are planning to sink the Iroquois, an American ship. Harold Ickes writes in his secret diary, "Of course no one in this country believes that the British would do a thing of this sort, but Hitler and his government have not ceased to insist that it was Churchill who personally gave the orders to sink the Athenia (September 3) for the purpose of having it blamed on the German government in the hope of embroiling us with Germany." (Ickes)

1939 October 6 Hitler calls for a new European conference to end the war, and to settle Germany's differences with England and France. Hitler declares to the Reichstag that Germany has "no further claims against France," and adds, "Nowhere have I ever acted against British interests."

1939 October 7 Himmler issues a new decree giving him a new title: Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of the German People (RFV). (Architect)

1939 October 9 Hitler issues Directive No 6, saying: If England and France will not end the war, then, he will go over to the offensive.

"In this war as in all historical events time is not a factor which is valuable in itself but must be assessed in the light of the situation. In this case it is more probable that time is an ally of the Western powers than of ours." (Hitler memorandum, 9 October 1939)

1939 October 10 President Daladier of France rejects Hitler's offer to negotiate.

1939 October 10 Churchill argues in the British Cabinet for the mining of Norwegian coastal waters to interfere with German iron ore traffic.

1939 October 10 Admiral Raeder mentions to Hitler for the first time the idea of invading Norway.

"The C.-in-C., Navy, points out how important it would be for submarine warfare to obtain bases on the Norwegian coast, e.g. Trondheim, with the help of Russian pressure. The Führer will consider this matter." (Report of the C.-in-C., Navy, to the Führer, 10 October 1939)

1939 October 12 Chamberlain also rejects Hitler's offer of peace. Saying it would amount to forgiving Germany for all its aggression.

1939 October 12 The Nazis begin deporting Jews from Austria and Moravia to Poland. (Persecution)

1939 October 12 Hans Frank is appointed Chief Civilian Officer in occupied Poland. (Goebbels)

1939 October 14 A German U-boat penetrates the defenses of Scapa Flow, the British naval base in the Orkney Islands, and sinks the battleship Royal Oak, killing 833.

1939 October 15 Of the 16,000 Polish civilians executed in the first six weeks of the war, 5,000 were Jewish. About 250,000 Jews escaped from the Germans into the Soviet Union. Some were immediately deported to labor camps in Siberia, where many of them later died. (Atlas)

1939 October 16 A German counterattack begins driving out the few remaining French troops in Germany, and by the following night, no French forces remain on German soil. (Duffy)

1939 October 16 Rarkowski, bishop of the German army, declares in a pastoral letter that "the Almighty God had visibly blessed the struggle against Poland that has been forced upon us." (The average German soldier had no way of knowing for sure whether Poland had indeed mistreated its German minority, or fired the first shots as claimed by Hitler.) (Lewy)

1939 October 18 President Roosevelt issues a proclamation closing U.S. offshore waters and all U.S. ports to submarines of all belligerents. (Schlessinger I)

1939 October 19 The Kristallnacht "Atonement fee" for Jews is increased to 1.25 billion RM and has to be paid by November 15, 1939. (Persecution)

1939 October 19 Hitler incorporates western Poland into the German Reich.

1939 October 25 Aktion Tannenberg. officially comes to an end. SS special task forces (Einsatzgruppen) have murdered hundreds of Jews and members of the Polish intelligentsia, burned down dozens of synagogues, and waged an all-out campaign of terror against non-German,Polish civilians. (See September 3)

1939 October 28 Starting with the town of Piotrkow, German authorities begin confining the Jews of Poland to a particular area (ghetto) of each city or town in which they live. Sometimes this area is the already prominently Jewish quarter, but often it is a poor or neglected part of the town, away from the center. Jews from the rest of the town are then forced to leave their homes, and to move into this, often much smaller area, in which even the basic amenities are unavailable. In eachof these ghetto areas, food and medical supplies are restricted. Intense overcrowding, hunger and disease lead to widespread suffering and death. (Atlas)

1939 October 28 Himmler sets off a controversy when he issues an extraordinary "order" for the entire SS and police to father as many children as possible, even outside of marriage, to compensate for the German blood lost in the war. Himmler pledges to provide generous support for all such children, regardless of their parents marital status. (Architect)

1939 October 30 Himmler orders that all Jews must be cleared out of the rural areas of western Poland within 3 months. In the Poznan region, 50 communities are immediately uprooted. (Atlas)

1939 November 4 The American Neutrality Act is modified to allow the sale of arms to billigerents on a "Cash and Carry" basis. Only the British and French can benefit because on the terms and conditions imposed.

1939 November 6 Himmler departs for Munich to prepare for the annual Blutzeuge celebration to commemorate the 1923 putsch. (Architect)

1939 November 7 Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands and King Leopold of Belgium issue a plea for peace to England and France.

1939 November 7 Hitler postpones his attack on the west, which was scheduled for November 12. This postponement will be repeated 15 times until May 10, 1940.

1939 November 8 Hitler tells a meeting of "Old Fighters" in Munich, "What were the aims of Britain in the last war? Britain said she was fighting for justice. Britain has been fighting for justice for three hundred years. As a reward God gave her 40 million square kilometers of the world and 480 million people to dominate." (Payne)

1939 November 8 A bomb supposedly intended for Hitler explodes at the Burgebraukeller in Munich. Hitler had cut short his speech and abruptly left shortly before the explosion. Eight are killed and sixty are injured in the blast. Johann Georg Elser, a carpenter from Württemberg, is arrested a week later. The Nazis are convinced he is involved in a British plot with Otto Strasser, who was in Switzerland and returned to England soon after the explosion. (Goebbels)

(Note: The British claimed Hitler, himself, staged this explosion to gain the propaganda value.)

1939 November 8 Two British spies are arrested for espionage at Venlo on the Dutch-German border by the Germans, who capture a list of British agents and use it to make numerous arrests of British agents in Czechoslovakia and other occupied countries.

1939 November 8 Hans Frank becomes Governor General of Poland. He quickly encourages the persecution of the Jews.

1939 November 9 On Hitler's instructions, Goebbels cancels the Day of National Solidarity (Blutzeuge) in Munich, saying, "In these times, it is too dangerous." (Goebbels)

1939 November 10 The Papal Nunzio in Berlin delivers the special personal congratulations of Pope Pius on the Fuehrer's miraculous escape from the assassination attempt of November 8. (Lewy)

1939 November 12 A Te Deum is sung in the Cathedral of Munich"in order to thank the divine Providence in the name of the archdiocese for the Fuehrer's fortunate escape from the criminal attempt made upon his life." ("Munchener Katholische Kirchenzeitung;" Lewy)

1939 November 12 King George VI of England and President Lebrun of France reply to Queen Wilhemina and King Leopold refusing to negotiate with Hitler.

1939 November 16 Martial law is declared in Prague after shootings by anti-Fascists.

1939 November 21 The British begin blockading German exports.

1939 November 23 Mandatory wearing of the Star of David by Jews is introduced by the Germans in Poland. (Persecution)

1939 November 28 the USSR denounced its nonaggression pact with Finland, which had resisted Soviet pressures.

1939 November 30 The Soviets invade Finland and the Russo-Finnish war begins. The Finns put up a surprisingly spirited resistance in what is called the Russo-Finnish War, or Winter War. The Western Powers again fail to act against Russia, and later Churchill will declare war on Finland.

1939 December The first euthanasia centers open in Germany. The first victims are shot, but as the program is expanded, gassing rooms disguised as showers are used. The largest of these institutions are at Grafeneck in Wuttemberg and Hadamar in Hesse.

1939 December 1 Trainloads of deportees begin rolling into the newly created Government General in eastern Poland. The administration which already has 1.4 million Jews under its jurisdiction is overwhelmed by the numbers--an average of more than 3,000 per day. (These mass movements were designed to make room in the annexed area of Poland for ethnic Germans who were moving westward under special agreement with the Russians, from the Baltic 0States and other regions now under Soviet control. (Apparatus)

1939 December 2 Finland appeals to the League of Nations to mediate in their dispute with the Soviets.

1939 December 3 "I am now obliged by the general consensus of reports to believe that German morale has rather hardened and that Goebbels has succeeded in making people believe that England is the implacable enemy who persists in thwarting all the gentle chivalrous Hitler's efforts for peace. I am beginning to wonder whether we shall do any good with them unless they first get a real hard punch in the stomach." (Neville Chamberlain to Ida Chamberlain, 3 December 1939)

1939 December 5 The Soviet Seventh Army reaches the Mannerheim Line, the main Finnish defenses.

1939 December 6 "Germany has no part in these events. In conversations, sympathy is to be expressed for the Russian standpoint. I request that you refrain from any expression of sympathy for the Finnish position." (Telegram from State Secretary von Weizsäcker to the Embassy in the Soviet Union, 6 December 1939)

1939 December 7 Inmates, including many Jews, at Tiegenhof asylum near Gnesen in the Polish Wartheland are said to be among the earliest victims of Nazi Germany's poison-gas technology. Bottled carbon-monoxide appears to have been used in vans. (Architect)

1939 December 8 Alfred Rosenberg introduces Hitler to Vidkun Quisling, head of the Norwegian National Unity Party.

1939 December 8 The Pope issues a pastoral letter to the clergy serving as military chaplains in the armed forces of the warring nations. The present war, Pius declared, should be seen as a manifestation of God's providence, as the will of a Heavenly Father who always turns evil into good. (Lewy)

1939 December 9-11 The League of Nations meets and agrees to intervene in the continuing dispute between Finland and the Soviet Union.

1939 December 12 Two years forced labor is made mandatory by the Germans for all male, Polish Jews between the ages of 14 and 60. Labor camps are soon set up throughout the General Government and in the Warthegau (Wartheland). (Atlas)

1939 December 14 The Soviets refuse to recognize League of Nations intervention and are expelled from membership. England and France continue to maintain diplomatic relations with Russia.

1939 December 17 The German pocket battleship Graf Spee is scuttled off Montevideo, Argentina, after a battle with British warships. It had already sunk nine Allied ships.

1939 December 23 The first 7,500 Canadian troops arrive in the United Kingdom.

1939 December 27 The First Indian army troops join the British Expeditionary Force in France.

1939 December 28 "I believe that we have stumbled upon the one great stroke which is open to us to turn the tables upon the Russians and Germans. But we must play our cards very carefully. We must be able to act with surprise or we may be forestalled." (Ironside diary, 28 December 1939)

1939 President Roosevelt appoints Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. chairman of the War Resources Board. Stettinius selects Walter Gifford of American Telephone and Telegraph, Robert Wood of Sears, Roebuck and John Lee Pratt of GM to serve with him.

1939 The He 176, the world's first jet airplane, is tested in Germany.

1939 - 1940 During this period of the "phony war" following the fall of Poland and before the invasion of France, Goering maintained a clandestine communications link with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. This was an unusual, if not unheard-of, situation because both countries were officially at war. (Duffy)

1940 January The Cliveden Group, led by Lady Astor, pressures the British government to declare War on the Soviet Union for invading Finland. They believe the Communists, not Hitler, are Britain's real enemies.

1940 January The killing of mental patients by means of carbon monoxide gas is tried out in the jail at Brandenburg. By September of 1941, 70,723 German mental patients will have been killed in Grafeneck, Brandenburg, Bernburg, Hartheim, Sonnenstein, and Hadamar, using carbon monoxide gas provided by the I.G. Farben corporation. (Science)

1940 January 4 Hermann Goering is given overall control of German war industry.

1940 January 5 Professor Lenz sends a memorandum to Pancke, chief of the RuSHA, entitled: "Remarks on resettlement from the point of view of safeguarding the race." (Science)

1940 January 6 Cardinal Hlond submits a new and detailed report to Pius XII on the deportations and arrests of Polish priests, the closing of churches and the brutal treatment meted out to the Polish population. (Lewy)

1940 January 6 The German Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs issues an edict, based on the Fuehrer's amnesty of September 9, 1939, restoring the salaries of a large number of priests who had their state subsidy cut off because of minor infractions of the law. (Lewy)

1940 January 9 Hildebrandt, chief of the SS and Police in Danzig and West Prussia (and, from 1943 onwards, head of the RuSHA), reports to Himmler on the shootings of German and Polish mental patients which he has carried out: "The other two units of storm troopers at my disposal were employed as follows during October, November and December... For the elimination of about 4,400 incurable patients from Polish mental hospitals... For the elimination of about 2,000 incurable patients from the Konradstein mental hospital..." (Science)

1940 January 10 A German plane carrying plans for the invasion of France is forced down at Mechelen, Belgium. The Belgian authorities pass on details of the German invasion to the British and French. Hitler's agents suspect the British and French have learned of the plans for the invasion, scheduled for January 17, and Hitler postpones the invasion. He will use this alleged violation of neutrality by Belgium to justify the invasion of that country in May.

1940 January 15 The Belgian government refuses to let England and France move troops into Belgium before a possible German attack. This is a strange response if the captured German invasion plans called for an attack through Belgium as the British claim.

1940 January 16 Hitler cancels the German attack in the west until spring, ordering new attack plans to be drawn up.

1940 January 20 Dr. Ritter writes in a progress report to the DFG: "Through our work we have been able to establish that more than ninety per cent of so-called native Gypsies are of mixed blood... The Gypsy question can only be considered solved when the main body of asocial and good-for-nothing Gypsy individuals of mixed blood is collected together in large labour camps and kept working there, and when the further breeding of this population of mixed blood is stopped once and for all." (Science)

1940 January 23 Vatican Radio broadcasts excerpts from Cardinal Hlond's January 6 report to the Pope. (See January 6)

1940 January 29 Ambassador Bergen reports to Berlin that the Papal Secretary of State has ordered the immediate cessation of all broadcasts about atrocities in Poland.

1940 January 31 By the end of January, the Germans have driven 78,000 Jews out of their homes in Poland. (Atlas)

1940 February Fritz Thyssen is stripped of his German nationality and all of his large industrial holdings are confiscated.

1940 February 5 The British and French Supreme War Council decides to intervene in Norway and to send help to Finland. The pretext of helping Finland is primarily intended to prevent Swedish iron ore from reaching Germany.

1940 February 6 German Jews lose their eligibility for clothing coupons. (Persecution)

1940 February 11 The Germans and Soviets sign a further trade and economic agreement.

1940 February 12 The first deportations of German Jews take place. (Goebbels)

1940 February 14 Britain announces all that all British merchant ships in the North Sea will be armed.

1940 February 15 Germany announces that all armed British merchant ships will be treated as warships.

1940 February 16 The captain of the British destroyer Cossack under the direct orders of Churchill violates Norwegian neutrality and boards the German supply ship Altamark. After a short fight in which several German sailors are killed, Captain Philip Vian found 299 British sailors and merchant seaman in the ships's hold. They were prisoners of war being transported from the South Atlantic to Germany.

(Note: Norway protested the British attack, but their complaints were rebuffed. This incident along with reports of troop movements indicating a planned British invasion, sealed Norway's fate, as well as that of Denmark.) (Duffy)

1940 February 17 General Manstein outlines a new plan to Hitler for a rapid armored attack through the Ardennes Forest.

"The southern wing, i.e. Army Group A, must push through southern Belgium over the Meuse and in the direction of the lower Somme. By definitely transferring the centre of gravity in this way, the strong enemy forces which may be expected in north Belgium and which will have been thrown back by Army Group B through frontal attack, will be cut off and destroyed. (Memorandum by General von Manstein, 17 February 1940)

1940 February 19 Hitler receives a telegram informing him that the British have indeed captured Germany's invasion plans from the downed plane and learned of his offensive in the west. This information is said to have originated with the Duke of Windsor. (See January 10)

1940 February 21 Work begins on the German concentration camp at Auschwitz. (WWIIDBD)

1940 February At the end of February, the Soviets move their best troops into the battle in Finland, and the Finns began to give way to the sheer force of numbers.

1940 March The Soviet massacre 15,000 young Polish officers at Katyn in the Arctic. The killings will continue until April. Stalin blames the killings on the Germans.

1940 March The Russian invaders breach the Finns' defensive Mannerheim Line, and Finland is forced to relinquish strategic ports, a naval base, and airports.

1940 March 1-6 American Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles visits Hitler in Berlin.

1940 March 1 Hitler issues the final directive for the German invasion of Norway and Denmark.

1940 March 8 U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes has dinner with Archduke Otto von Habsburg (Hapsburg) and his brother Felix in Washington. Habsburg tells him that "Hitler had disclosed to a very confidential group, which included two Austrians, one of whom, is in the confidence of Otto, that his ultimate objective is the United States, after he has conquered Europe." Ickes writes in his diary the next day: "I am convinced that this is absolutely what Hitler would attempt to do." (Ickes)

1940 March 11 During a visit to Rome, Ribbentrop tells Pius XII that Hitler wants "to maintain their existing truce and, if possible, to expand it. In this respect Germany has made very considerable concessions. The Fuehrer has quashed no less than 7,000 indictments of Catholic clergymen." (Lewy)

1940 March 12 Russia and Finland sign a treaty of peace.

1940 March 18 Hitler meets with Mussolini at the Brenner Pass. Mussolini tells Hitler that he is ready to join Germany and its allies against Britain and France.

1940 March 20 Edouard Daladier is forced to resign as Premier of France; primarily for failing to aid Finland.

1940 March 21 Paul Reynaud forms a new French government.

1940 March 28 The British and French Supreme War Council decides to mine Norway's coastal waters and to invade Norway if the Germans interfere. The operation is scheduled to begin on April 5, but is later postponed to April 8.

1940 March 31 One of Professor Fischer's assistants travels to the ghetto in Lodz to take photographs to be used for comparison with pictures in a book on Jewry in antiquity, which Fischer is planning. (Science)

1940 April 1 Hitler approves plans for the invasion of Norway.

1940 April 2 Hitler orders the invasion of Norway for April 9.

1940 April 3 Churchill resigns as Minister for the Coordination of Defense and is appointed to chair the Ministerial Defense Committee, significantly increasing his responsibilities, even though he had not been success in his previous post. One of his first acts is to obtain consent for the mining of the Norwegian Leads. (WWIIDBD)

1940 April 5 Britain and France notify Norway that they reserve the right to deprive Germany of Norway's resources.

1940 April 7 German ships leave port for the invasion of Norway.

1940 April 7 The British Home Fleet leaves port for Norway.

1940 April 8 Britain informs Norway that it intends to intercept German ships in Norwegian waters. London fails to reveal to Oslo that it has ordered the Royal Navy to mine Norwegian territorial waters. (Duffy)

1940 April 9 Germany invades Denmark and Norway. The German invasion beats the Franco-British invasion by only twelve hours. Norwegian shore batteries and warhips sink three German cruisers (including the 10,000 ton Blucher), 10 destroyers and 11 troop transports. A battleship and three more cruisers are damaged so badly they have to be pulled out of service.

1940 April 9 A German parachute battalion, the first to be used in war, captures the airfield at Oslo, while transport planes drop more troops and guns.

1940 April 9 Copenhagen, Denmark, is taken by two German divisions in less than 12 hours, and the Germans begin a policy of cooperation and negotiation with the Danish government.

1940 April 9 The Danish-German Agreement is signed, resulting in Denmark's Jews being left unmolested for a time.

1940 April 9 A minor naval engagement between German and British warships takes place off Narvik.

1940 April 10 A major naval battle takes place off Narvik.

1940 April 10 The Norwegian government and Royal family leave Oslo. Vidkun Quisling and his National Union Party seize power.

1940 April 13 Another major naval battle takes place off Narvik.

1940 April 14 The British several make small landings in Norway.

1940 April 15 Quisling is forced out by the Germans and replaced temporarily by Ingolf Christensen as the head of a German controlled puppet government.

1940 April 29 King Hakkon of Norway and his government are evacuated from Molde by the British, taking with them the national gold reserves.

1940 May 1 The Lodz ghetto, containing 160,000 Jews, is sealed off from the outside world.

1940 May 4 U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes writes in his secret diary, "Chamberlain appears to be facing a political test in Great Britain. Practically from the beginning of his premiership I have regarded him as the evil genius not only of Britain but of Western civilization. His diplomatic policy has been blundering and inept. Hitler always outsmarted him until Germany was strengthened to that point where it could go to war with confidence of a victorious result." (Ickes)

1940 May 6 Horia Sima, a young Romanian Legionary (Iron Guard) leader leaves Berlin with a group of comrades and secretly enters Romania.

1940 May 7-8 A major debate on the conduct of the war and especially the Norwegian campaign takes place in the British House of Commons. After the votes are tallied, Chamberlain's government has a majority of 281 to 200, but this is said to be insufficient to allow the government to continue claiming to be representative.

1940 May 8 Neville Chamberlain resigns as prime minister and chooses Winston Churchill to replace him. This is the first time in British history that a British prime minister has been allowed to choose his own successor. Chamberlain stays on in Churchill's cabinet. (Horace Wilson, a shadowly figure who served as Chamberlain's chief advisor, returns to obscurity.)

1940 May 9 Hitler slips out of Berlin and travels to an improvised headquarters called Felsennest near Münstereifel on the Western front. (Architect)

1940 May 10 Germany invades France and the Low Countries of Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg. Counting the ten divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), the Belgian army, and the French army, the Germans are outnumbered and outgunned. Both the Dutch and Belgians fight back after receiving the brunt of the opening offensives. The Dutch mine bridges, block roads, and flood wide areas. Luxembourg, with no defensive forces, is occupied with only scattered civilian resistance. The German code word for the general attack is "Danzig." (Architect)

1940 May 10 Churchill officially takes office as Prime Minister.

1940 May 11 Great Britain begins bombing the civilian population in Germany. (Sturdza)

1940 May 13 Churchill speaks in Parliament telling Britons that he has nothing to offer but "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" in the relentless fight against Nazi Germany. In this and many subsequent addresses, Churchill helps rally his country against what he describes as a mortal threat to world civilization.

1940 May 13 The Germans establish a bridgehead at Sedan, long considered the gateway to France.

1940 May 13 The Dutch government and Queen Wilhelmina flee to England.

1940 May 14 Rotterdam is heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe.

1940 May 15 Holland surrenders to the Germans at 11AM.

1940 May 15 British Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding convinces the War Cabinet not to send any more RAF fighter aircraft to France. The decision is also made to send a strategic bombing raid against the Ruhr.

1940 May 15 Churchill begins sending a long series of telegrams to President Roosevelt asking for American aid. In his first message, which he signs as "Former Naval Person," Churchill presents a long list of requests for destroyers, aircraft and other arms.

1940 May 16 Hitler's German blitzkrieg is unleashed on northern France. German mechanized forces outflanked the Maginot Line, surprising the Allies by attacking through the rugged Ardennes Forest rather than the Belgian plain as expected.

1940 May 16 Goering's special train is parked at a railroad siding near the French border. He will direct the air war against France from this location. (Duffy)

1940 May 16 The first deportations of German Gypsies begins. Chosen for the first roundup are some 2,800 men, women, and children living in and around cities in western and northwestern Germany. Their ultimate destination is Poland. No more deportations of Gypsies will occur until late 1941. (Apparatus)

1940 May 17 Brussels is occupied by the Germans.

1940 May 17 General Halder writes in his diary, "The Führer is terribly nervous. He is frightened by his own success, is unwilling to take any risks and is trying to hold us back." (Payne)

1940 May 17-18 Hitler names Arthur Seyss-Inquart as chief executive of the Netherlands. His first order is to arrest all German refugees who had come to the Netherlands since 1933. After 10 days in a concentration camp, most are transported to Poland. (Architect)

1940 May 18 Tyler Kent, a clerk in the U.S. Embassy in London with access to correspondence between Churchill and Roosevelt, is arrested and has his diplomatic immunity waived by the U.S. ambassador. Allegedly, he had passed along this information to members of the Right Club, a pro-Fascist organization, which forwarded it to Germany through Italian diplomats.

1940 May 19 Horia Sima is arrested in Romania.

1940 May 20 German units capture the French cities of Amiens and Abbeville. Advance forces reach the coast at Noyelles, threatening to cut off the British and French forces to the north and east.

1940 May 21 The first German troops reach the Atlantic coast at the port of Abbeville. France is now count in two, with a large portion of its army and the BEF, which is actually almost the entire British army, cut off and surrounded.

1940 May 21 Admiral Raeder mentions to Hitler for the first time that it may be necessary to invade Britain. Hitler shows so little interest that the subject is not addressed at their next meeting on June 4. (Duffy)

1940 May 22 Churchill meets with the French in Paris to discuss an Allied offensive. In Britain, Parliament passes an Emergency Powers Act giving the government broad powers over British citizens and their property.

1940 May 23 Sir Oswald Mosley, the former leader of the British Union of Fascists, is arrested. Also arrested is Captain Ramsay, a member of Parliament, who has connections with the Right Club. (See May 18)

1940 May 23 British generals begin considering an evacuation by sea from the channel ports.

1940 May 23 Goering telephones Hitler and tells him it would be a political mistake to allow the German generals to destroy the Allied army at Dunkirk. Many of the generals were suspected of being unfriendly to the Nazi Party, Goering said, while the Luftwaffe was a true National Socialist fighting force. Goering then promised Hitler the Luftwaffe would wipe out the enemy troops at Dunkirk and have its "finest hour." (Duffy)

1940 May 24 British destroyers evacuate 5,000 men from the port of Boulogne.

1940 May 24 French leaders begin to admit that the war is lost.

1940 May 24 By morning, three panzer divisions and two motorized infantry divisions are within 15 miles of Dunkirk. Hitler orders the halt of Rundstedt's armored forces. Whether Hitler actually ordered the halt or merely approved Rundstedt's request is still a matter of controversy.

(Note: Earlier that same day Hitler had visited Rundstedt's headquarters and expressed his desire to come to term with the British. Rundstedt told him he wanted to temporarily stop the advance to regroup and prepare for what he saw as the more important task, the turn south and the conquest of the rest of France. On returning to his mountaintop headquarters, Hitler issued a stream of orders halting the advance of every unit now moving toward Dunkirk.) (Duffy)

(Note: After the war, Rundstedt blamed Hitler alone for the halt, telling an interrogator, "At that moment (with panzers less than 20 miles from Dunkirk) a sudden telephone call came from Colonel von Grieffenberg at OKH (Army High Command), saying that Kleist's forces were to halt on the line of the (Aa) canal. It was the Fuehrer's direct order -- and contrary to General Halder's view. I questioned it in a message of protest, but received a curt telegram in relpy, saying, "The armored divisions are to remain at medium artillery range from Dunkirk" (a distance of eight or nine miles). Permission is only granted for reconnaissance and protective movements." (Hart)

1940 May 24 General von Kleist disobeys orders and crosses the Aa Canal. His forces enter the town of Hazelbrouck, cuts the British and French lines of retreat from Belgium to Dunkirk, and barely misses capturing the commander of the BEF, General Lord Gort. Kleist was told in emphatic terms to return to the opposite side of the canal, which he did. (Duffy)

1940 May 25 King Leopold of the Belgians surrenders.

1940 May 26 The British issue orders for Operation Dynamo, the evacuation from Dunkirk.

1940 May 27 The British and French begin evacuating Dunkirk. The French, after learning of the scope of the operation, feel they are being abandoned.

1940 May 28 The evacuation at Dunkirk picks up momentum.

1940 May 28 Belgium surrenders to the Germans. King Leopold orders his troops to cease all resistance and lay down their arms in unconditional surrender.

1940 May 28 British and French troops succeed in seizing Narvik, Norway, after a month-long battle.

1940 May 29 Arthur Seyss-Inquart takes office as Reich Commissioner for Holland.

1940 May 29 The French begin allowing their troops to be evacuated from Dunkirk, even sending several ships of their own to assist.

1940 May 30 German panzer forces begin to withdraw from the line at Dunkirk and move to take up positions further to the south. During the next three days, 185,000 men (more than half of the total number evacuated from Dunkirk) will escape.

1940 May 31 President Roosevelt introduces a "billion-dollar defense program" to boost U.S. military strength.

1940 May Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) moves to Goslar, which has figured so prominently in his vision of Germany's ancient past. He and his housekeeper reside at the Wederhof until 1943 when they move to a small SS guesthouse on the Worthersee in Carinthia. They spent the rest of the war in Austria. (Mund; Roots)

(Note: Ernst Junger had lived in Goslar from 1933 to 1936)

1940 June A paper by Professor Lorenz, "Disturbances of species-specific behaviour caused by domestication," appears. He writes: "There is a certain similarity between the measures which need to be taken when we draw a broad biological analogy between bodies and malignant tumours, on the one hand, and a nation and individuals within it who have become asocial because of their defective constitution, on the other hand... Any attempt at reconstruction using elements which have lost their proper nature and characteristics is doomed to failure. Fortunately, the elimination of such elements is easier for the public health physician and less dangerous for the supra-individual organism, than such an operation by a surgeon would be for the individual organism." (Science)

1940 June 4 At 0340 (3:40AM), the last evacuation ship departs from Dunkirk, leaving 40,000 French stragglers to be captured by the Germans. Official figures state that 338,226 troops were evacuated, of which 112,000 were French. There were also Czechs, Poles and Belgians among those evacuated.

(Note: Churchill turned Dunkirk, which was in reality an unmitigated defeat for the British and French forces, into a propaganda victory to prevent the British people from learning the true extent of the disaster. More than 64,000 vehicles, tanks, and trucks, along with 500,000 tons of arms, ammunition and supplies were left behind. The Allies got away with virtually nothing but the shirts on their backs.) (Duffy)

1940 June 4 The Allies begin evacuating their troops in Norway.

1940 June 5 The Germans launch another offensive southward from the Somme in France.

1940 June 5 General de Gaulle is made French Undersecretary of War.

1940 June 5 General Erhard Milch, Goering's deputy, inspects the beach at Dunkirk and rushes back to report to Goering. Milch tells him, "I recommend that this very day all our air units -- both the Second and Third Air Forces -- should be moved up the Channel coast, and that Britain should be invaded immediately. If we leave the British in peace for four weeks it will be too late." (Irving II)

1940 June 6 The Germans break the French line along the Somme between Amiens and the coast.

1940 June 7 French fighter planes bomb Berlin.

1940 June 7 The King of Norway leaves Tromso aboard the British cruiser Devonshire and is taken to England.

1940 June 9 The German conquest of Norway is completed and the Allies withdraw their remaining troops.

1940 June 9 The King of Norway and his government order all Norwegian forces to cease fighting at midnight.

1940 June 10 Mussolini declares war on Britain and France.

1940 June 10 Italian troops invade southern France. President Roosevelt describes Mussolini's invasion as a "stab in the back."

1940 June 10 French Prime Minister Reynaud appeals to President Roosevelt to intervene in the war in Europe.

1940 June 11 Cardinal Eugene Tisserant,a high official of the Vatican library, writes to Cardinal Suhard, Archbishop of Paris, that "our superiors do not want to understand the real nature of this conflict." Tisserant says he has pleaded with Pope Pius XII, without success, to issue an encyclical, but "I fear that history will reproach the Holy See with having practiced a policy of selfish convenience and not much else." (BA Koblenz; Lewy)

1940 June 11 Paris is declared an "open city." What remains of the French army retreats south of the Seine.

1940 June 11 Churchill returns to France and meets Reynaud at Briare. The British are determined not to allow the Germans to capture the French fleet and are prepared to use force against their ally.

1940 June 12 The Soviets issue an ultimatum to Lithuania demanding territory and the establishment of a new government.

1940 June 13 Roosevelt subverts the U.S. Neutrality Laws by having shipments of artillery and arms "sold" to a steel company and then "resold" to the British government. The first shipment leaves the U.S. on the S.S. Eastern Prince.

1940 June 13 In Romania, Horia Sima is liberated and granted an audience with King Carol.

1940 June 13 French Prime Minister Reynaud once again appeals to Roosevelt to intervene, again without success.

1940 June 14 Paris is declared an "open city." General von Bock, commander of Army Group B, flies into the city and is standing at the Arc de Triomphe " just in time to take the salute of the first combat troops. It is a parade, not a battle. The German army quickly occupies Paris. (Toland)

1940 June 14 The Vatican's semiofficial newspaper L'Osservatore Romano announces it will no longer publish military reports. From this time on it will adhere to a strictly neutral line. (Lewy)

1940 June 14 Auschwitz is set up as a punishment camp for Polish political prisoners. 300 Jewish forced laborers are brought in to prepare the old barracks. (Atlas)

1940 June 15 The Soviets occupy Lithuanian cities of Vilna and Kaunas.

1940 June 15 Himmler names Oscar Dirlewanger as Obersturmfuhrer in the Waffen-SS, authorizing him to collect poachers from German prisons to serve as manhunters on Germany's eastern border. (Architect)

1940 June 16 A new government, controlled by the Soviets, is installed in Lithuania. Latvia and Estonia are also occupied.

1940 June 16 The French ask Britain to be released from its obligation not to make a separate peace. A British offer to establish a state of union between the two countries is rejected by the French. Paul Reynaud is forced to resign as Prime Minister and Marshal Philippe Petain is chosen to replace him. The French government requests an armistice and the Battle of France is over.

1940 June 17 The Petain Cabinet takes office and publicly announces it has asked Germany for an armistice.

1940 June 17 Churchill broadcasts a message declaring that the Battle of France is over and the Battle of Britain is about to begin, saying, "if the British Empire and Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say: This was their finest hour."

1940 June 17 French representatives in the U.S. allow the British to take up arms orders they have placed under the "Cash and Carry" rules.

1940 June 17 General Warlimont, Jodl's assistant at OKW, records that Hitler had not yet expressed interest in invading Britain. "Therefore even at this time, no preparatory work has been carried out at OKW. (Fleming II)

1940 June 18 General de Gaulle flees to London and attempts to rally the Free French resistance. De Gaulle issues a radio appeal for the French nation to resist and to continue the struggle.

1940 June 18 The RAF bombs Bremen and Hamburg.

1940 June 20 A new government, controlled by the Soviets, is installed in Estonia.

1940 June 20 The French delegation leaves for Compiegne to begin armistice negotiations with the Germans.

1940 June 20 Admiral Raeder again brings up the invasion of Britain. Again Hitler fails to respond. (Duffy)

1940 June 20 A new government, controlled by the Soviets, is installed in Latvia.

1940 June 22 France signs an armistice with Nazi Germany near Compiegne. As a touch of bitter irony, the Germans arrange for the signing to take place on the same spot and aboard the same railway car used by the French for the armistice of November 11, 1918.

1940 June 23 Hitler makes a brief tour of occupied Paris.

1940 June 23 Pierre Laval is appointed Deputy Premier by Petain. General Weygand cashiers General de Gaulle.

1940 June 24 An armistice is concluded between France and Italy.

1940 June 24 Reinhard Heydrich writes to Ribbentrop, reminding him that in January 1939 Goering had entrusted him (Heydrich) with authority over Jewish emigration. Since there were now 3.5 million Jews under German control, emigration could no longer provide a solution: "a territorial final solution is therefore necessary." (Architect)

1940 June 25 The Franco-German armistice takes effect. Two-thirds of France now comes under Nazi control.

1940 June 25 Increased income taxes are introduced in the U.S. to pay for Roosevelt's armament expenditures and bring in an additional 2.2 million people who never before had been required to pay income taxes.

1940 June 25 A new Romanian government is set up in Bucharest and several Legionaries are given appointments to minor positions.

1940 June 25 General Hans Jeschonnek, chief of the German air staff, is asked by the OKW to help prepare invasion plans for Britain. He refuses, telling them, "There won't be any invasion, and I have no time to waste on planning one." (Irving III)

1940 June 26 The Soviets issue an ultimatum to Romania to evacuate Bessarabia within four days. King Carol complies. The Soviets, coveting Romania's substantial oil resources,seize Bessarabia and part of Bucovina.

1940 Raczkiewicz moves the Polish government-in-exile from France to London after the defeat of France.

1940 June 28 General Charles de Gaulle is recognized by Britain as the "Leader of All Free Frenchmen."

1940 June 30 The Germans begin occupying the British Channel Islands.

1940 Summer The Kreisau Circle, an anti-Nazi group led by Count Helmuth von Moltke, is founded to discuss the political, economic and spiritual foundations of Germany that would arise after the downfall of Hitler. Jesuits Augustinus Rösch and Alfred Delp are both active members. (Lewy)

1940 Summer Fritz Thyssen is arrested by the Germans in France and is later sent to a concentration camp. He will not be liberated until 1945. Meanwhile, his book, I Paid Hitler, is published in America.

1940 July Hitler, hoping that Britain would now accept German control of the Continent, again seeks peace. Again, Britain shuns his overtures. (Grolier)

1940 July Professor Lenz expresses his views on "euthanasia" in writing: "Detailed discussion of so-called euthanasia... can easily lead to confusion about whether or not we are really dealing with a matter which affects the safeguarding of our hereditary endowment. I should like to prevent any such discussion. For, in fact, this matter is a purely humanitarian problem."

(Note: Between 1939 and 1941, Professor Lenz had proposed the following formulation for Article 2.1 of the proposed law on euthanasia "The life of a patient, who otherwise would need lifelong care, may be ended by medical measures of which he remains unaware.") (Science)

1940 July German-Jewish mental patients are murdered in the Brandenburg extermination institute. (Days)

1940 July 1 Roosevelt signs another Navy bill providing $550 million dollars to build ships and other projects.

1940 July 1 Hitler tells Italian Ambassador Dino Alfieri that he "could not concieve of anyone in England still seriously believing in victory." Hitler was still waiting for word that the British were willing to settle. (Shirer I)

1940 July 2 The German High Command issues an order entitled "The War Against England." Goering gives instructions for an air blockade and attacks on British shipping.

1940 July 3 A British task force under Admiral Somerville makes an attack on a large part of the French fleet at Oran, Algeria, to ensure that it will not fall into Axis hands. Unlike other French fleets, it had refused to submit to seizure by the British after the fall of France. More than 1,000 French sailors are killed and the battleship Befragne is sunk. Many French saw this as a perfidious act that killed more French sailors in a single day than the Germans had killed since the war began. (Duffy)

(Note: This combined with the fact that the Germans had discovered records from the Allied Supreme War Command in Paris indicating that the British air staff intended to use its newly developed long-range bombers to destroy the Ruhr industrial complex, home to 60% of German industry, convinced Hitler that Britain intended to stay in the war, no matter what.) (Duffy)

1940 July 3 Horia Sima agrees to participate in a new Romanian Government.

1940 July 4 A new Romanian Cabinet is formed with Gigurtu as prime minister and Manoilescu as foreign minister.

1940 July 5 Marshal Petain's Vichy government breaks off relations with Britain because of the attacks against the French navy at Oran and the seizure of many of its ships at Plymouth and Portsmouth.

1940 July 5 Romania adheres to the Axis system. It's policies are clearly pro-German and antisemitic.

1940 July 6 The first successful escape from Auschwitz is followed by a punitive 20-hour roll-call. (Atlas)

1940 July 7 Horia Sima resigns for the Romanian Cabinet after realizing, he says, just how cowardly King Carol is in dealing with the Soviets. (Sturdza)

1940 July 8 Hitler accepts Hans Frank's proposal that the Government General formally become part of the German Reich. (Architect)

1940 July 8 General de Gaulle criticizes the numerous British attacks on French ships during the past week.

1940 July 10 The German Ambassador in Lisbon informs Berlin that the Duke of Windsor believes that the bombing of England would help bring about a negotiated peace with Germany.

1940 July 10 The Battle of Britain, the first great air battle in history, begins. Several actions take over the channel and 70 German planes raid dock targets in South Wales. (WWIIDBD)

1940 July 10 The French National Assembly, dazed by defeat and maneuvered by Vice-Premier Pierre Laval, meets in the resort town of Vichy and votes 569 to 80 to grant Premier Henri Philippe Petain full emergency and constitution-making power. (Vichy France attempts to consummate a "National Revolution" of a corporate nature -- eliminating divisive political party and class strife, encouraging family growth and cohesion, and favoring church and patriotic organizations. Under pressure from the Germans, antisemitic measures are gradually enacted and reluctantly enforced.)

1940 July 11 French President Lebrun resigns and MarshalPetain becomes head of state after an overwhelming vote of confidence in the Vichy Parliament.

1940 July 11-24 The Luftwaffe makes a seres of attacks against shipping in the English Channel. The Germans lose a total of 93 aircraft, the British 48.

1940 July 13 Hitler issues Directive 15 on the air war with Britain. The offensive is to begin at full strength on August 5, with the intention of driving the RAF from the skies.

1940 July 14 Facilities using forced (slave) labor in the production of synthetic rubber and gasoline begin operation at Auschwitz. (Chaitkin)

1940 July 15 Plebiscites conducted in Soviet occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are announced, showing what is described as a unanimous desire for union with the USSR. Stalin soon annexes the three nations into the USSR as constituent republics.

1940 July 16 Hitler issues Directive #16 concerning the invasion of Great Britain. "I have decided to begin to prepare for, and if necessary to carry out, an invasion of England," Hitler says, stressing the importance of air superiority in this regard.

1940 July 19 Hitler creates twelve new German field marshals.

1940 July 19 In a speech in the Reichstag Hitler issues what he describes as "a final appeal to common sense," urging that Britain make peace.

1940 July 19 General Brooke replaces General Ironside as the Commander in Chief, of British Home Forces.

1940 July 19 Roosevelt signs the "Two-Ocean Navy Expansion Act," ordering construction of 1.3 million tons of new warships and 15,000 naval planes.

1940 July 21 Hitler tells the Military High Command that Germany must prepare to attack the Soviet Union.

1940 July 22 Lord Halifax, British Foreign Secretary, replies to Hitler's call for peace. Saying, "We shall not stop fighting till freedom for ourselves and others is secure."

1940 July 23 A Czechoslovakian provisional government is formed in London. Edouard Benes is recognized by the British as president.

1940 July 24 The Sacred Congregation of the Holy See in Rome rules that Catholic nurses in state-run hospitals may assist in sterilization operations if a sufficiently important reason is present. (Lewy)

1940 1940 July 25 The U.S. prohibits the export of oil and metal products in several categories except under license.This action is seen by many as anti-Japanese, because of Japan's need for foreign oil. From this time on, Japanese oil stocks begin to decline.

1940 July 29 German Jews are forbidden to have telephones in their homes. (Persecution)

1940 July-August Dr. Jaspersen of Bethel attempts to persuade the heads of departments of psychiatry in German universities to make a collective protest against euthanasia. These professors make no move. Professor Ewald remains an isolated protester. (Science)

1940 August The Luftwaffe begins mounting almost daily attacks on British ports, airfields, and industrial centers in southern England. Strict orders from Hitler forbid attacking civilian targets, especially London. (Duffy)

(Note: The Germans have a total force of 900 fighters, mostly Messerschmitt BF-109s, and 1,300 bombers. The RAF has much smaller forces, about 650 Hurricanes and Spitfires, but newly developed radar enables it to concentrate its defenses.) (Grolier)

1940 August Gross-Rosen concentration camp is established by the SS in Silesia.

1940 August Mussolini's troops overruns British Somaliland, defended only by a small British garrison. Mussolini has made no secret of his desire to construct a huge Mediterranean empire at the expense of Britain. His plan is to move one army northward from Italian East Africa and send a second army eastward into Egypt from Libya. He hopes to catch the British in an African vise and eliminate them from the Mediterranean.

1940 August 1 Hitler issues Directive #17 for the invasion of Britain.

1940 August 1 The Duke of Windsor and his wife depart Lisbon for the Bahamas aboard the steamship Excalibur. Windsor becomes Governor of the Bahamas.

1940 August 3 Horia Sima and other Legionaries have an audience with King Carol and tell him that only a Legionary government can save Romania from destruction by the Soviet Union.

1940 August 3 Hitler tells the new German ambassador to Paris, Otto Abetz, that he wants to resolve the Jewish problem for all of Europe and that he wants to force the conquered countries (and persuade Germany's allies) to send their Jewish citizens away, not to Madagascar, but to the United States. (Architect)

1940 August 5 The first operational plan for the German invasion of the Soviet Union is presented to General Halder, Chief of Staff of the Military High Command.

1940 August 8 The Luftwaffe attacks on England begin in earnest.

1940 August 11 Cardinal Bertram issues an official protest from the German bishops concerning the Euthanasia Decree to the Reich Chancellery. Such destruction of the innocent, he wrote, not only violated the Christian moral law, but offended against the moral sense of the German people and threatened to jeopardize the reputation of Germany in the world. (Lewy)

1940 August 12 The Luftwaffe launches a large-scale bombing attack on six British radar facilities. Radar had become important to the British because it enabled them to spot incoming bombers at great distances and alert the fighter squadrons to meet them. In this first surprise raid, five radar facilities were damaged and one destroyed. (Duffy)

1940 August 13 Goebbels issues orders to the Gauleiters to organize memorial ceremonies for fallen soldiers in order to overcome the influence and activities of the churches in this sphere. Until now, Goebbels said, certain restraints had had to be observed. Now, after the victorious conclusion of the war with France, the offensive could again be taken.

1940 August 13 Almost 1,500 German planes sweep across the English Channel and attack Britain. (Duffy)

1940 August 14 Bad weather reduces the number of German fighters attacking Britain to 500. (Duffy)

1940 August 15 By the end of the day, a total of 190 German planes had been lost in the last three days. The British have lost 115 in the same period. (Gilbert II)

1940 August 16 RAF Fighter Command has now fallen 209 pilots below "minimum acceptable strength." Life expectancy of a British fighter pilot is less than 87 flying hours. Exhaustion takes such a heavy toll on the survivors that many of them routinely fall asleep as they taxi their aircraft to a stop. It is not uncommon for ground crews to remove a sleeping pilot from his plane when he returns from combat. (Collier)

1940 August 17 The RAF bombs German armament plants at Leuna. A number of German civilians are again killed in the attack.

1940 August 18 Hitler tells Vidkun Quisling, "I now find myself forced against my will to fight this war against Britain. I find myself in the same position as Martin Luther, who had just as little desire to fight Rome but was left with no alternative." (Irving III; Duffy)

1940 August 20 Churchill pays tribute to the RAF, saying,"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

1940 August 20 Sugehara, the Japanese Consul at Kovno in eastern Russia, begins issuing transit visas to a few Polish and Lithuanian Jews, enabling them to cross the Trans-Siberian railway to Japan. He continues to issue visas to Jews until August 31. (Atlas)

1940 August 21 Leon Trotsky is assassinated by an agent of Stalin's secret police at his fortified villa near Mexico City. (Facts about the assassination are kept secret in the Soviet Union until January 1989)

1940 August 23-24 12 German bombers, unable to locate their targets during an unusual night attack, scatter their bombs aimlessly on South London despite strict orders from Hitler forbidding attacks on civilian targets, especially the city of London. Nine civilians are killed. In retaliation British bombers will attack Berlin several times during the following weeks. (WWIIDBD; Duffy)

1940 August 24-29 British bombing raids on the civilian population of Berlin cause negligible damage and slight loss of life in the German capital, but the loss of face greatly angers and embarrasses Hitler. (Duffy;Grolier)

1940 August 24 The Luftwaffe begins attacking further inland, seeking to destroy RAF bases and production centers.

1940 August 28 The Luftwaffe launches the first of a series of four air raids on Liverpool. About 160 aircraft are sent each night.

1940 August 30 The Arbitration of Vienna transfers half of Romanian Transylvania to Hungary, and part of the province of Dobruja to Bulgaria. Hitler had been concerned that these territorial disputes among the Balkan nations might give the Soviets an opportunity for further intervention.

1940 September President Roosevelt announces that the U.S. is not going to war and disbands the War Resources Board shortly before the election of 1940.

1940 September The first peacetime draft law in U.S. history calls for the registration of 17 million men.

1940 September German Army Bishop Rarkowski issues a pastoral letter to the armed forces saying, "The German people, who for one year now have been fighting against their detractors, have an untroubled conscience and know which nations before God and history are burdened with the responsibility for this gigantic struggle that is raging now. They also know who has wickedly provoked this war. They know that they themselves are fighting a just war, born of the necessity of national self-defense, out of the impossibility of solving peacefully a heavy and burdensome question of justice involving the very existence of the state and of correcting by other means a burning injustice inflicted upon us."

(Note: The average German soldier had no way of knowing whether Holland and Belgium had actually violated their neutrality, as alleged by the Nazi propagandists, and thus provoked the German attacks in May. Most took the word of their government and their priests.) (Lewy)

1940 September Between September 1940 and July 1941, the property of more than 100 monasteries is confiscated by the Germans and the monks and nuns expelled from their houses. (Neuhäusler; Lewy)

1940 September 1 Horia Sima broadcasts a demand for the abdication of Romania's King Carol.

1940 September 2 An agreement between the U.S. and Britain is ratified. The U.S. exchanges 50 old destroyers, veterans of WWI, for British bases in the West Indies and Bermuda. The first ship is taken over by a British crew on September 9.

1940 September 3 The operational orders for Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain, are issued. S-Day is scheduled for September 21.

1940 September 3 The Legionary Revolution breaks out at 9AM in Romania. Fighting in Bucharest, Brasov and Constanta results in the death of nine Legionaries. Most public buildings are quickly occupied and the Palace is surrounded. General Coroama, Commander of the Bucharest Army Corps, refuses to order his troops to fire on the Legionaries. (Sturdza)

1940 September 4 Hitler warns that if the British continue to bomb Berlin, he will have no choice but to level their cities. (Payne; Duffy)

1940 September 5 RAF Fighter Command has lost 450 planes to date and is close to defeat. At this point, Hitler and Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering, infuriated by the British bombing raids (August 24-29) on Berlin, decide to concentrate their air attacks on London.

1940 September 5-6 King Carol of Romania abdicates in favor of his son, Prince Michael and leaves the country after passing part of his royal powers to Ion Antonescu. Hitler is said to have forced the king's abdication.

1940 September 5-6 In Berlin, Prince Michael Sturdza meets with Admiral Canaris and Ribbentrop.

1940 September 7 In the afternoon, 300 German bombers escorted by 600 fighters attack the London docks. This change in tactics surprises the RAF and the bombing is very effective. That night, 250 German bombers use the still blazing fires to guide in their attacks, and again, the damage is quite severe.

(Note: Once the initial surprise is over, and with its defense task somewhat simplified, the RAF soon begins to inflict heavy losses on the German bomber formations. For 57 nights London is attacked by an average force of 160 bombers. The RAF, employing the fast and maneuverable Spitfire fighter, and aided by radar, destroys 1,733 German aircraft, while losing 915 fighters.)

1940 September 9 About 200 well escorted German bombers make another raid on London. Intercepted by the RAF, many drop their bombs before reaching the target.

1940 September 13 Mussolini moves an army of Italians and North African troops across the Libyan border, establishing themselves about 60 miles inside Egypt.

1940 September 13 Himmler meets in Berlin with Viktor Brack, section chief in Hitler's Chancellery responsible for running the "euthanasia" program. After the war, Brack told American interrogators that the physical destruction of the Jews was already an "open secret" in high party circles, as early as 1940, although he had "in no case heard anything officially." (Architect)

1940 September 13 Italian troops from Ethiopia penetrate about 20 miles inside Kenya.

1940 September 14 A formal understanding between the Romanian Legionary Movement and General Ion Antonescu is sanctioned by King Michael and a National Legionary State is proclaimed. Ion Antonescu becomes President; Horia Sima, Vice President and Commandant of the Legionary Movement and Prince Michael Sturdza, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

1940 September 15 The climax of the Battle of Britain begins.

1940 September 17 General Paulus, Deputy Chief of the Army General Staff, presents a plan for a massive attack on the Soviet Union.

1940 September 25 Terboven, the Reich Commissioner of Norway, formally deposes the King and appoints Quisling to lead the new Norwegian government.

1940 September 27/28 Germany, Italy and Japan sign a 10-year military and economic alliance, the Tripartite Pact, known as the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo Axis. Hitler regards Japan as a buffer against the U.S.and distraction for the USSR. Japan takes advantage of the situation and quickly occupies northern French Indochina (Vietnam).

1940 October By early October the Luftwaffe has switched entirely to night raids on London. By the end of the month, Hitler cancels his plan for the invasion of England and the Battle of Britain has been won.

1940 October Norwegian Jews are forbidden to continue in all academic or other professions by the Nazi authorities. Fortunately, there were none of the killings, beatings, forced labor and expulsions which had become daily events in occupied Poland. (Atlas)

1940 October A wall is built around the area of Warsaw designated by the Germans for a Jewish ghetto. Jews are forced not only to build the wall, but also to pay for it. The Warsaw ghetto becomes the largest ghetto established by the Germans in Poland. The section of the city chosen for the ghetto was already home to 280,000 Jews. (Atlas)

1940 October 4 A new law gives Vichy France the power to intern Jews even outside the Unoccupied Zone. (Atlas)

1940 October 6 Antonescu assumes command of the Iron Guard, strengthening his position in Romania.

1940 October 7 German troops enter Romania, supposedly to help reorganize its army. Hitler's main aim is to protect its oil fields. (Goebbels)

1940 October 7 The Germans order all Jews in occupied France to register immediately with its authorities.

1940 October 12 Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion of Britain, is abandoned by Hitler.

1940 October 22 The German government deports more than 15,000 German Jews from the Rhineland to several internment camps in France, at the foot of the Pyrenees. Conditions in the camps, result in the deaths of nearly 2,000 deportees. (Atlas)

1940 October 23 Hitler meets with Franco at Hendaye.

1940 October 24 Hitler meets General Petain at Montoire.

1940 October 27 290 Jews, old people, cripples and the mentally ill from the Old Peoples Home in Kalisz, Poland, are put in a truck, taken just outside of town to the woods at Winiary, and gassed inside the truck with exhaust fumes. All 290 are buried in the woods. (Atlas)

1940 October 28 Mussolini unexpectedly and without warning attacks Greece, sending 200,000 troops through Albania.

1940 October 28 A second escape from Auschwitz results in a rollcall from 12 noon to 9PM in bitter weather, during which 200 prisoners die. (Atlas)

1940 October 28 Himmler inspects Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Silesia. (Architect)

1940 November 6 Roosevelt is reelected President of the U.S.

1940 November 6 Cardinal Faulhaber submits a letter of protest to Minister of Justice Gürtner. Faulhaber wrote that despite all attempts at secrecy, everyone now knew that large numbers of patients were being killed in the course of a compulsory euthanasia program. The killing of these innocent people, Faulhaber ended his letter, raised a moral issue which could not be ignored. (Lewy)

1940 November 9 Neville Chamberlain dies after a sudden illness.

1940 November 9 According to Goebbel's diary, Hitler's annual speech on the Day of National Solidarity (Blutzeuge) is "directed exclusively on the domestic population and finds little support." (Goebbels)

1940 November 11 The British Mediterranean Fleet attacks the Italian naval base at Taranto. British aircraft inflict heavy losses during the night on the Italian fleet.

1940 November 12 Molotov arrives more meetings in Berlin and begins making demands.

1940 November 12 Joseph Goebbels writes in his diary: "Long talks on vegetarianism and the coming religion with Hitler. The fuehrer is totally consistent in this question and has all the arguments at his disposal." (Goebbels)

1940 November 14 Romania's Legionary (Iron Guard) government asks Germany for two tank units, which are immediately sent by Hitler along with instructors to train their Romanian crews. Mussolini protests and suggests that Romania also should ask for Italian troops. Romanian declines.

1940 November 14 A German air raid damages much of Coventry, England.

1940 November 15 The Warsaw Ghetto officially comes into existence.

1940 November 16 The Warsaw ghetto is sealed. It's ten-foots walls and guarded gates enclose nearly half a million Jews. (Apparatus)

1940 November 16 The Greeks, with little mechanized equipment and an obsolete air force, turn back the Italian invaders and penetrate into Albania. Mussolini, expecting a speedy and overwhelming victory, is embarrassed by the failure of the poorly planned invasion.

1940 November 19 King Leopold of the Belgians visits with Hitler.

1940 November 20 Antonescu and Sturdza arrive in Berlin.

1940 November 20 Hungarian Prime Minister Count Teleki and Foreign Minister Csaky in Vienna agree to bring Hungary into the Tripartite Pact.

1940 November 23 Antonescu not Sturdza signs the Tripartite Pact that brings Romania into the Axis Alliance. Hitler, at the same time, begins efforts to bring Bulgaria and Yugoslavia into the Axis orbit.

1940 November 24 Prime Minister Tuka of the German puppet state of Slovakia joins the Tripartite Pact powers in a meeting in Berlin. Antonescu departs Berlin.

1940 November 30 Romanian Foreign Minister Sturdza leaves Berlin.

1940 December General Petain replaces Vichy France's independent-minded Vice-Premier, Pierre Laval, with Admiral Jean Darlan.

1940 December Emanuel Ringelblum begins compiling a secret archive of Jewish life in the Warsaw ghetto.

1940 December 9 The British launch a surprise attack on the Italians in the western desert and begin a push to drive them from Egypt.

1940 December 10 The British capture Sidi Barrani. 20,000 prisoners have been taken so far in the Egyptian offensive.

1940 December 13 Hitler issues Directive #20 ordering additional planning and preparation for Operation Marita, the invasion of Greece.

1940 December 13 A small British force already in Libya cuts the road to Bardia, an important Italian position.

1940 December 15 Prince Michael Sturdza is forced to resign as Romanian Foreign Minister after a conflict with Antonescu.

1940 December 15 The British invade Italian Libya in force.

1940 December 17 President Roosevelt gives a press conference announcing a "Lend-Lease" Bill, proposing massive aid for Great Britain in its war against Germany. Many, including the Germans, view this as a clear violation of American neutrality.

1940 December 17 British troops occupy Fort Capuzzo, Sollum and three other Italian positions on the Egypt-Libyan border. Italian survivors retreat to Bardia fortress.

1940 December 18 Hitler issues Directive #21 for the invasion of the Soviet Union, code-named Operation Barbarossa. Hitler orders that everything must be concluded no later than May 15, 1941.

1940 December 20 New antisemitic laws are introduced in Bulgaria. Other measures against Freemasons and secret societies are also instituted. The Jewish population of Bulgaria at this time is about 50,000.

1940 December 22 New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia announces that in the preceding six months 238 arrests have been made in N.Y. for inflammatory and antisemitic street speeches as well as other disturbances.

1940 December 23 Lord Halifax becomes British ambassador to the U.S. Anthony Eden takes over as Foreign Secretary, and David Margesson, Secretary of War (Army Minister).

1940 December 27 The German raider Komet shells a phosphate plant on the island of Naru in the central Pacific while flying a Japanese flag.

1940 December 29 President Roosevelt, in one of his famous "fireside chats," tells the American people that he wishes the United States to become the "arsenal of democracy" and to give full aid to Britain regardless of threatss from other countries. (WWIIDBD)

1940 Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein directs Wagner's Walküre at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. (NY Times 7-5-98))

1940 Charlie Chaplin, in his first talking film, "The Great Dictator," plays both the "Little Tramp" and a figure modelled after Hitler.

1941 January More than 2000 Jews die of starvation in the Warsaw ghetto.Between January and June 1941, 13,000 Jews will die of starvation in the Warsaw ghetto and another 5,000 in the ghetto at Lodz. (Atlas)

1941 January Industrialist Fritz Thyssen claims that Hitler is the illegitimate grandson of Baron Rothschild of Vienna. Hans-Jurgen Koehler collaborates this story in a top secret OSS report written in 1943. Even though unlikely, possible choices are: Salomon Mayer Rothschild (1774-1885, 62 in 1836) and Amschel Salomon Rothschild (1803-1874, 33 in 1836. Amschel Salomon lived in Frankfurt until 1850) (Langer)

1941 January Himmler meets with twelve high-ranking SS generals at Wewelsburg castle. Himmler claims that the purpose of the coming war with Russia is to reduce the indigenous population by thirty million, presumably to provide living space for German settlers. (Architect)

1941 January Ezra Pound, an admirer of Mussolini, begins recording talks for broadcast over Rome Radio. He makes more than 300 broadcasts for the Fascists.

1941 January Hitler advises Antonescu to "liquidate" the Romanian Legionary Movement and German forces are soon ordered to help crush the Legionaries.

1941 January 1 Another 439 old and sick Jewsfrom the Old Peoples Home in Kalisz, Poland, are gassed wiith exhaust fumes in the nearby woods. (Atlas)

1941 January 6 President Roosevelt calls for the "Four Freedoms" in his State of the Union address to Congress, again referring to America as the "arsenal" of democracy.

1941 January 7 Himmler writes to Seyss-Inquart, inviting him to Wewelsburg castle to discuss "Many important and ultimate matters." (Architect)

1941 January 10 The "Lend-Lease" Bill is introduced to the U.S. Congress, where it encounters considerable opposition. Former ambassador Joseph Kennedy and Charles Lindbergh are vocal opponents.

1941 January 15 Hitler meets with Antonescu at Salzburg and and informs him of his intention to invade Russia with Romanian collaboration. Antonescu tells Hitler that first he must liquidate the Legionary Movement, but neglects to ask for more than just a promise of additional aid, armaments, and war materiels. (Sturdza)

1941 January 19 The British invade Eritrea in East Africa.

1941 January 21 Antonescu stages a coup against his own government. A number of Legionaries are killed, but they continue to hold out in some places.

1941 January 22 The German Charge d'Affaires in Romania Dr. Neubacher, gives Horia Sima a solemn promise from both Hitler and Antonescu of complete impunity for Legionaries, and suggests participation in a new government, if resistance ends before noon on January 23. (Sturdza)

1941 January 22 In Bulgaria, A "Law for the Defense of the Nation" gives Jews one month to leave all public posts, and forces almost all Jewish doctors, dentists and lawyers to give up their practices. A special tax was imposed on all Jewish homes, shops and other property, amounting to 25% of its value. (Atlas)

1941 January 22 Tobruk falls to British forces.

1941 January 23 In Bucharest, Legionary resistance ends before 8AM, and in the provinces, prior to 11AM. Nevertheless, Antonescu's forces stage a massacre of peaceful crowds in Bucharest. At least 360 are killed including many women and children. No Legionaries are killed, they have already peacefully withdrawn on Sima's orders, as agreed. Trials and executions of other Legionaries are commonplace until June. (Sturdza)

1941 January 22-23 Antisemitic violence in Bucharest leaves 120 Jews dead in the streets. Men, women and children are hunted down by armed gangs. Some survivors flee to Palestine (See March 9). (Atlas)

1941 January 27 Joseph C. Grew, American Ambassador to Tokyo, informs the U.S. State Department that "The Peruvian minister has informed a member of my staff that he had heard from many sources, including a Japanese source, that, in the event of trouble breaking out between the United States and Japan, the Japanese intended to make a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor..." (Theobold)

1941 January 30 Hitler, in a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast, reminds his audience of his prophecy concerning the fate of the Jews exactly two years earlier. He added that the coming months and years would show that here too he had seen things correctly... the end of the Jewish role in Europe. (Architect)

1941 February From February to March, 72,000 Jews are expelled from the towns throughout the Warsaw region and herded into the ghetto. Almost 400,000 Jews are now crowded into the Warsaw ghetto under the most appalling conditions. (Atlas)

1941 February Goering orders the expulsion of Jews from the city of Auschwitz to create housing for construction workers for the I.G. Farben factory. (Silence)

1941 February 2 According to Hitler's army adjutant, Gerhard Engel, Hitler tells a small group of intimates that he had been thinking of sending a couple million Jews to Madagascar but the war had prevented this; he was now thinking of something else, which "was not exactly friendlier." (Architect)

1941 February 6 Benghazi falls to British forces.

1941 February 8 Bulgaria joins the Axis Powers.

1941 February 10 Great Britain breaks off diplomatic relations with Romania.

1941 February 12 General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli to take command of the German Afrika Korps.

1941 February 12 General Zhukov is appointed Chief of the Soviet General Staff and Deputy Commissar for Defense.

1941 February 14 The first units of what will be the Afrika Corps land in Tripoli. Field Marshal Kesselring is in Rome as the German representative.

1941 February 15 More than 5,000 Jews are deported from Vienna to forced labor camps on the Bug River and ghettos in eastern Poland. (Atlas)

1941 February 20 British and German patrols make contact for the first time in the desert, near El Agheila.

1941 February 21 Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov, the former ambassador to the U.S., is dismissed from the Central Committee.

1941 February 22 More than 400 Jews are seized in Amsterdam and deported. Some die in Buchenwald, the rest in the stone quarries of Mauthausen. (Atlas)

1941 February 22 An order is issued stating that any Pole selling food to a Jew outside the Warsaw ghetto will automatically be sentenced to three months hard labor, and the ghetto ration is reduced to three ounces of bread a day. (Atlas)

1941 February 24 The first brief action between the British and Germans takes place near El Agheila.

1941 February 28 Senator Burton Wheeler in a speech in the Senate says Jews are attempting to involve America in the war against Germany.

1941 March Thousands of able-bodied Jews are rounded up in Upper Silesia and sent to work in German mining, metallurgical plants, textile mills, and factories in the region. (Atlas)

1941 March 1 Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact. German troops begin crossing Romanian territory to help the Italian army, which is in full route in the Balkans.

1941 March 1 Heinrich Himmler visits Auschwitz for the first time. Accompanied by Gauleiter Fritz Bracht and local senior police chiefs, Himmler orders the expansion on the camp so that it can accomodate 30,000 inmates, instead of the few thousand -- mainly poles -- who are imprisoned there at that time. (Silence)

1941 March 2 German troops enter Bulgaria.

1941 March 2 Himmler visits a resettlement facility for ethnic Germans in Breslau. "Racial experts" categorized the potential settlers as anything from "very valuable" to "reject." Rejects were sent back to their own countries or to concentration camps. (Architect)

1941 March 7 German Jews are forced into compulsory labor.

1941 March 9 A few survivors of the violence in Bucharest reach Palestine aboard the Darien. (See January 23). (Atlas)

1941 March 11 Prsident Roosevelt signs he U.S. Lend-Lease Bill and it becomes becomes law. A time limit is placed on the operation of the act -- until June 1943. A motion originally passed in the House forbidding U.S. warships to give protection to convoys of foreign ships is defeated. Also to be allowed are transfers of ships to other countries solely on Presidential authority without reference to Congress.

1941 March 12 President Roosevelt presents an appropriations bill for Lend-Lease to Congress for $7,000,000,000. It will pass into law on March 27. (WWIIDBD)

1941 March 13 Hitler issues a directive for the invasion of the Soviet Union, which gives administrative control of captured territory to the SS. (WWIIDBD)

1941 March 15 Many historians believe that plans for the systematic murder of the Jews was first decided on, or about, this date -- in preparation for the invasion of Russia. (Bauer)

(Others believe it was a response to the passage of Roosevelt's Lend-Lease Bill and the Nazis perception that this was a violation of America's neutality, inspired by an international Jewish conspiracy.) (See March 26)

1941 March 16 The British invade Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

1941 March 17 A Military putsch takes place in Belgrade.

1941 March 17 Hans Frank meets with Hitler in his private rooms in the Reich Chancellery. Hitler tells him that the Government General will be the first territory to be made free of Jews. (Architect)

1941 March 20 The German deadline for all Jews to be inside the Polish ghettos expires.

1941 March 21 Eichmann, in a meeting at the Propaganda Ministry, refers to Reinhard Heydrich as being in charge of the "final evacuation of the Jews" to the Government General. (Architect)

(Note: There was only one way to have a "final evacuation of the Jews" and simultaneously to make the Government General free of Jews.) (See March 17)

1941 March 22 Marshal Petain signs a new law authorizing the construction of a Trans-Sahara railway. The work is done by all who had been interned: former Spanish Republican soldiers, Poles, Czechs, Greeks and Jews (See May 1941). (Atlas)

1941 March 23 Himmler presents Hitler with a memorandum entitled: "Some thoughts about the treatment of foreign peoples in the eastern territories." Himmler writes: "I hope to see the very concept of Jewry completely obliterated." (Science)

1941 March 24 Rommel launches another offensive in Libya and quickly captures El Agheila.

1941 March 25 Archbishop Groeber, in a pastoral letter abounding in antisemitic statements, blames the Jews for the death of Christ and adds that "the self-imposed curse of the Jews 'His blood be upon us and upon our children,' has come terribly true up until the present time, until today." (Lewy)

1941 March 25 Yugoslav Prime Minister Dragisha Cvetkovich signs Yugoslavia's agreement to the Tripartite Pact, linking that nation to the Axis. The Yugoslav's agree to permit free passage through their country of German troops heading to Greece. (Duffy)

1941 March 26 A military coup d'etat against the pro-German policies of Prince-Regent Paul takes place in Yugoslavia. General Dusan Simovic becomes prime minister under King Peter II.

1941 March 26 Reinhard Heydrich and Wehrmacht Quartermaster General Eduard Wagner have produced a draft plan outlining a partnership between the Wehrmacht and the SS, setting up the operational procedure for what are called Einsatzgruppen (special task forces). The Einsatzgruppen are to take their orders from the SS, but otherwise, they are subject to military command. The army is to control their movements and furnish them with quarters, rations, gasoline and communications assistance. These small mobile groups are charged with ridding freshly acquired eastern territories of their "undesirable" civilian elements, and will be required to operate virtually on the front lines. (Apparatus)

1941 March 26 A scientific meeting takes place to mark the inauguration of the Institute for the Investigation of the Jewish Question in Frankfurt am Main. Professor Fischer and Professor Günther are guests of honor. Dr. Gross, head of the Race-policy Bureau of the Nazi Party says: "The definitive solution must comprise the removal of the Jews from Europe," and he demands sterilization of quarter-Jews: "The reproduction of the quarter-Jews left behind in European countries must be reduced to a minimum." Professor von Verschuer reports the meeting for his journal, "Der Erbarzt" (The Heredity-Physician). (Science)

1941 March 27 Cvetkovich's government is overthrown by the Yugoslav military. Mussolini's ambitions for Croatia and other Yugoslavian territories and British intrigues in Belgrade lead to a coup by General Dusan Simovic, resulting in the overthrow of the pro-Nazi regime of Prince Paul and the beginning of hostilities with Germany. Prince Paul is replaced by his heir, 17-year-old King Peter. (Sturdza; Duffy)

1941 March 27 Roosevelts $7,000,000,000 appropriations bill for Lend-Lease is approved by Congress.

1941 March 28 The British defeat the Italian fleet off Cape Matapan in the eastern Mediterranean.

1941 March 28 Brack, who has been placed in charge of the "euthanasia" program, writes from the Reich Chancellery to the Reichsfuehrer-SS, Himmler, that the problem of sterilizing large numbers of individuals by mens of X-rays has been solved in principle. (Science)

1941 March 30 Hitler orders his generals to employ what he refers to as "merciless harshness." This speech provides part of the impetus for the Commissar Order -- the execution of alleged Soviet commissars without trial. (Architect)

1941 April British troops are movedinto Iraq to put down a Nazi-inspired coup and secure its valuable oil fields.

1941 April 1 The British withdraw from Mersa Brega, abandoning one of the last defensible positions available.

1941 April 2 Alfred Rosenberg meets with Hitler. Afterwards he writes in his diary: "What I do not write down today, I will nonetheless never forget." (Architect)

1941 April 5 The Cologne Zeitung (newspaper) reports that, "Although the Lodz ghetto was intended as a mere trial, a mere prelude to the solution of the Jewish question, it has turned out to be the best and most perfect temporary solution of the Jewish problem." (Lewy)

1941 April 6 Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece. Hitler had become concerned about British troops and aircraft being moved into the area to aid Greece, and said that he could not allow Yugoslavia and Bulgaria to revert to neutralist positions.

1941 April 11 Subotica and Novi Sad, west of the Banat region in Yugoslavia, are occupied by Hungarian forces. Soon afterward, in Subotica, the Germans execute 250 members of a Jewish youth movement who had carried out the first acts of sabotage against German occupation forces. In Novi Sad, Hungarian troops and local Germans murder 250 Jews and 250 Serbs at random. (Atlas)

1941 April 11 Rommel's siege of Tobruk begins.

1941 April 13 Russia and Japan sign a five-year non-aggression pact.

1941 April 14 The German authorities order that any Jew leaving the Lodz ghetto is to be shot on sight. (Atlas)

1941 April 14 Belgrade is occupied by the Germans. Within a few hours, Jewish shops are looted, and within a few weeks all Jewish communal activity is forbidden. (Atlas)

1941 April 15 By mid-April, Rommel has reconquered all of Libya except Tobruk. His exploits earned him the nickname "the Desert Fox."

1941 April 16 German troops enter Sarajevo and demolish the main Jewish synagogue. A few Jews escape over the mountains into Italian occupied territory, but the majority of Bosnian Jews are soon deported to concentration camps controlled by the Fascist Croatian "Ustachi." Nearly all will die. (Atlas)

1941 April 16 At Suresnes, outside Paris, the first executions of Jews in the resistance takes place. During 1941, a total of 133 Jews are shot for resistance in France, according to Gestapo records. (Atlas)

1941 April 17 Yugoslavia surrenders to the Germans. Croatia soon becomes an independent state, ruled by the pro-Nazi "Ustachi." Persecution of Croatian Jews begins immediately.

1941 April 19 British and Greek troops are outflanked in Greece and retreat towards Athens.

1941 April 23 Adolf Wagner, Gauleiter and Minister of Education and Religious Affairs in Bavaria, issues an order prohibiting the opening of the school day with a prayer and suggests the gradual removal of all crucifixes (See August 28, 1941). (Lewy)

1941 April 27 German forces occupy Athens.

1941 April 29 A violent, Pro-Fascist revolt in Iraq is put down by British troops.

1941 April 30 The new state of Croatia introduces its first racial laws, removing all Jews from public office and ordering all Jews to wear a yellow badge. (Atlas)

1941 May The "Blitz," the German bombing attacks on British cities, comes to an end when most of the Luftwaffe planes are withdrawn to prepare for the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

1941 May In Paris, thousands of foreign-born Jews are seized and interned. At the same time, thousands of Polish and German-born Jews, who had fought against the Germans in the French Foreign Legion during 1940, are deported to the slave labor camps in the Sahara Dessert (see March 22). (Atlas)

1941 May The first Croatian concentration camp is set up at Danica. It is quickly followed by four more camps at Jadovno, Gradiska, Loborgrad, and Dakovo. (Atlas)

1941 May At Pretzsch, in Saxony, special mobile killing squads, the Einsatzgruppen, are set up by the SS. Each of the squads has been assigned a particular area of the Soviet Union. Einsatzgruppe A, commanded by Walter Stahlecker, is to be responsible for the murder of Jews in the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Einsatzgruppe B, under Arthur Nebe, is assigned the area between the Baltic states and the Ukraine. Einsatzgruppe C, commanded by Otto Rasch, is to operate in the Ukraine south of Nebe's group, and Einsatzgruppe D, commanded by Otto Ohlendorf, is assigned the remainder the Ukraine and Crimea. Heydrich told those at Pretzsch that all "Communists, Jews, Gypsies, saboteurs, and agents must basically be regarded as persons who by their very existence, endanger the security of the troops and are thereby to be executed without further ado." (Secrets)

(The SS was convinced that by mass executions on the spot they could "solve" the "Jewish question" in Russia, by murdering all the Jews they could catch. No family was to be spared. Norwere any resources to be wasted by setting up ghettos, nor in the deportations of Jews to distant camps or murder sites. The killings were to be done in the towns and villages at the moment of military victory.) (Atlas)

1941 May 1 British forces complete the evacuation of Greece.

1941 May 5 Rudolf Hess has a four-hour talk with Hitler. (Wolf Hess, Children)

1941 May 10 Rudolf Hess, allegedly acting upon his own initiative, flies a Messerschmitt to Scotland in an idealistic attempt to convince the British to make peace with Germany. Hess later claims it is the indiscriminate bombing of helpless women and children, both in Germany and in England, that motivated his flight.

1941 May 11 In the Warsaw ghetto, 2,000 Jews a month are now dying from hunger and disease.Emanuel Ringelblum writes that "Death lies in every street. The children are no longer afraid of death. In one courtyard, the children played a game of tickling the corpse." (Apparatus)

1941 May 11 Hitler learns of Hess' flight to England. The story is soon given out that mystics, astrologers and nature healers had manipulated a disturbed Hess.

1941 May 12 Churchill takes the Duke of Hamilton, who had arrived at his home the previous evening, to 10 Downing Street. That evening the Duke and Ivone Kirkpatrick fly to Scotland, where hey meet with Hess for several hours shortly after midnight. (Missing Years)

1941 May 13 News of Rudolf Hess' flight to England makes front-page headlines in newspapers around the world.

1941 May 14 Martin Bormann is appointed head of the Nazi Party Chancellery in Hess' place. (Goebbels)

1941 May 15 Goebbels issues "an order against occultism, clairvoyancy, etc." in response to Hess' flight to England. "This obscure rubbish will now be eliminated once and for all. The miracle men, Hess' darlings, will now be put under lock and key, " he writes in his diary. (Goebbels)

1941 May 15 Petain announces a policy of total French collaboration with Germany

1941 May 16 Goebbels writes in his diary, "Things are due to roll in the East on May 22, dependent on the weather." (Goebbels)

1941 1941 May 17 Rudolf Hess is imprisoned in the Tower of London.

1941 May 20 Hermann Goering bans emigration of Jews from all German-occupied territories including France and makes one of the first official references to the "Final Solution" (Endlosung).

1941 May 20 The Germans launch an airborne invasion of Crete. Of the first 3,500 German paratroopers dropped on the island, most are killed, but a second wave of 3,000 quickly captures key defenses and overwhelms the remaining British troops.

1941 May 20 Rudolf Hess is transported from the Tower of London to Camp Z (Mytchett Place in Aldershot), which has been specially setup for his arrival with heavy security and bugging devices. (Missing Years)

1941 May 24 The German pocket battleship Bismarck, the pride of Hitler's navy, sinks the British battle cruiser Hood off Greenland.

1941 May 26 Himmler assigns a group of Waffen-SS to what he calls the Kommandostab Reichsführer SS, which in effect becomes his own private army. (Architect)

1941 May 27 Bismarck is intercepted, crippled, and sunk by a British task force while returning to Germany.

1941 May 30 Rudolf Hess' British captors assign Estonian-born psychiatrist Dr. Henry Victor Dicks to pose as Hess' physician. Dicks, a Jew who wrote that he despised Hess on sight, reports directly to British intelligence. (Missing Years)

1941 May 31 The surviving British troops on Crete are evacuated.

1941 Edward R. Stettinius Jr. becomes director of priorities of the Office of Production Management. Nine months later Stettinius will be named administrator of the gigantic Lend-Lease Program.

1941 June Petain's Vichy government introduces a series of "Jewish statutes." Leon Berard, Vichy ambassador at the Holy See, reports to Petain that the Vatican does not consider such laws in conflict with Catholic teaching, and merely counseled that no provisions on marriage be added to the statutes. (Poliakov)

1941 June Early in June, Goering sent word to Britain that Hitler planned to invade Russia within weeks. ( Duffy)

1941 June 1 Crete falls to the Germans. Hitler now has a strategic Mediterranean basefor the dispatch of reinforcements and supplies to his desert troops in North Africa, which are poised for an assault against Egypt and the Suez Canal.

1941 June 2 A law is passed authorizing the "administrative internment" of all Jews in France, whether French-born or foreign-born.

1941 June 2 Hitler and Mussolini again meet at theBrenner Pass.

1941 June 3 Statistics from a Gallup Poll show that 83% of the American people are against entering the war.

1941 June 6 Hitler issues the infamous Commissar Decree, ordering the execution of all captured Soviet political commissars.

1941 June 7 Martin Bormann informs the Gauleiters that the influence of the churches will have to be curtailed as much as possible, for National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable. (Lewy)

1941 June 8 British and Free French forces enter Vichy-held Syria from Iraq, imposing an armistice that gives Britain control over Syria and Lebanon. (The Vichy Government had been allowing Germans forces to use Syria as a base.)

1941 June 9 At Churchill's suggestion, Lord John Simon meets with Rudolf Hess and pretends to negotiate Hess' peace proposal. In reality, Simon is only pumping Hess for information and has no authority to negotiate. Simon is accompanied by Ivone Kirkpatrick. (Missing Years)

1941 June 11 Hitler issues Directive # 32. It begins with a flat statement: "After destruction of the Soviet Armed Forces, Germany and Italy will be military masters of the European Continent, with the temporary exception of the Iberian Peninsula. No serious threat to Europe by land will then remain." (Architect)

1941 June 11 Antonescu meets with Hitler in Munich and agrees to full ooperation of their two armies against Russia. Hitler's promises of massive armaments to Romania will not materialize until almost the end of the war.

1941 June 12 German Jews are ordered to designate themselves only as without faith (glaubenlos). (Persecution)

1941 June 13 The Soviets, who had taken over Bessarabiain June 1940 and immediately closed all Jewish institutions, arrests many of the region's leading Jewish citizens and exiles them to Siberia, where many die. (Atlas)

1941 June 14 Axis funds in the United States are frozen.

1941 June 17 Heydrich meets with the newly appointed commanders of the Einsatzgruppen and Sonderkommandos in Berlin to give them special oral instructions for their operations during the invasion. (Architect)

1941 June 18 A treaty of German-Turkish Friendship is signed.

1941 June 22 Operation Barbarossa - Germany invades Russia. Germany, Romania and Finland are now at war with Soviet Russia. Behind the lines, SS Einsatzgruppen systematically kill thousands of Jews in every city, town and village of western Russia, mopping-up all civilian resistance with remorseless cruelty.

(Italy and Hungary provide token forces for the invasion of Russia.Later, Danish, Norwegian, Belgian, Dutch, French and Spanish volunteers will join in the fight against Communism. After the war, most would be sentenced to prison or executed by their own countries. The only exception was Spain, where former Nazis were allowed safe haven.)

1941 June 22 U.S. Senator Harry Truman announces that, "If we see that Germany is going to win, we will help Soviet Russia, but if it is the other way around, we will have to help Germany. Let's leave them alone so that they will weaken each other as much as possible." (Marschalko)

(After Roosevelt's death in 1945, many Germans believed the U.S. would soon join them in the fight against Communism)

1941 June 24 German forces occupy Kaunas, Lithuania

1941 June 24 Ambassador Bergen reports to Berlin that the Vatican has welcomed the new turn of events and that a Vatican spokesman shortly after the invasion had told him that the alignment of atheistic Russia on the side of the Western democracies had robbed the latter of all justification to speak of a crusade for Christianity. (Lewy)

1941 June 24-5 The first mass executions by the Germans are carried out in the Lithuanian city of Garsden. (Architect)

1941 June 28 Encouraged by the Germans, Lithuanian police and a group of released convicts beat hundreds of Jews to death with iron bars during a bloodbath in the streets of Kaunas, Lithuania. (Apparatus).

1941 June 29 A report from Einsatzgruppe A states that by this date 2,300 Jews have been "rendered harmless" in Kaunas, Lithuania.

1941 Summer Himmler orders the enlargement of Auschwitz and the additional of a killing center.

1941 July Nazi killing squads arrive in Bessarabia. Romanian troops and militias murder thousands of Jews in the area of their advance. Following the initial killings, internment camps are set up throughout the province. At the camp in Edineti, 70 to 100 people die every day in July and August, mostly of starvation. In all, more than 148,000 Bessarabian Jews perish in the ghettos and camps of Transnistria. (Atlas)

1941 July The German advance in Russia is so rapid that less than 300,000 of Russia's 2.7 million Jews are able to escape to safety beyond the Volga River. (Atlas)

1941 July U.S. troops occupy Iceland to provide protection for American ships sailing to England. Roosevelt says it is to prevent the island's occupation by Germany.

1941 July 1 Goebbels writes in his diary: "Haushofer and his son have been forced out of public life. They are both responsible for peddling mystic rubbish and have the Hess affair (Hess' flight to England) on their consciences. (Goebbels)

1941 July 3 Latvian auxiliary police organized by Einsatzkommandos 1a and 2 plunder Jewish homes, and two other Latvian groups carried out pogroms, killing 400 Jews and destroying synagogues. (Architect)

1941 July 7 Einsatzkommandos begin the systematic slaughter of Lithuanian Jews. One of the tasks of these killing squads was the recruitment of local antisemites, whether Lithuanians, Ukrainians, or Latvians, who could help them to round up, terrorize and destroy each Jewish community, however small. (Atlas)

1941 July 8 Stalin announces a "scorched earth" policy.

1941 July 12 The Soviet-British Mutual Assistance Pact is signed.

1941 July 12 Moscow is bombed for the first time.

1941 July 14 The Suez Canal is bombed by German Ju 88 bombers from Crete. Harbor installations and several ships are damaged.

1941 July 16 In an important meeting, Hitler, Goering Bormann and Rosenberg decide on plans for the exploitation of the conquered areas of Russia. Rosenberg is put in charge of a new ministry with the task of organizing the new territories for Germany's economic benefit and eliminating the Jews and Communists from these areas. (WWIIDBD)

1941 July 16-18 Prince Kenoye reforms his Japanese cabinet, eliminating Matsuoka who has been urging that the neutrality agreement with the Soviets should be abandoned; so that Japan can join with the Germans in the attack on the USSR. Kenoye believes that without Matsuoka and his known liking for Hitler, there is a better chance of reaching an agreement with the U.S. over the pressing lack of oil reserves.

1941 July 17 Alfred Rosenberg is officially appointed Minister of the Occupied Territories.

1941 July 17 At Kishinev in the Ukraine, Einsatzgruppen D begins the first "five-figure" massacre of Jews . More than 12,250 are killed between July 17 and 31. (Atlas)

1941 July 18 The first acknowledged reports concerning the mass killings of Jews in the East begin reaching England.

1941 July 18 A group of 30 White Russians who refused to shovel earth over 45 Jews who had been tied together and thrown into a large pit are executed by the SS. All 75 are left dead in the pit. (Gilbert II)

1941 July 19 The Japanese present an ultimatum to Vichy France demanding bases in southern Indochina.

1941 July 20 Bishop Galen of Munster, known as a courageous critic of the Nazis, expresses his hope for a German victory in Russia. The Nazis use patriotic statements in his pastoral letters to enlist volunteers for SS units recruited in Holland and other occupied countries.

1941 July 21 Majdanek (Maidanek) concentration camp is established.

1941 July 24 Vichy France concedes to Japanese demands for bases in southern Indochina.

1941 July 26 Japanese assets in the U.S. are frozen.

1941 July 28 Hitler remains at Wolf's Lair until March 20, 1943.

1941 July 28 U.S. assets in Japan are frozen.

1941 July 28 Japanese assets in the Dutch East Indies are frozen and oil deals cancelled. Now, almost 75% of Japan's foreign trade is at a virtual standstill and 90% of its oil supply has been cut off.

1941 July 28 The Japanese occupy French bases in Indochina. It is clear that the main use for these bases might be as jumping off places for an invasion of Malaya, the East Indies or even the Philippines.

1941 July 29 Army Bishop Rarkowski issues a pastoral letter to the German armed forces describing Germany as "the saviour and champion of Europe." We know he added, that this war against Russia is waged by us as "a European Crusade," a task similar to that fulfilled in earlier times by the Teutonic knights. (Lewy)

1941 July 29 Japan freezes Dutch assets.

1941 July 29 The Germans execute 122 "Communists and Jews" for resistance in Serbia. (Atlas)

1941 July 30 Harry Hopkinsa arrives in Moscow for meetings with the Communist leadership.

1941 July 30 Hitler orders Bormann to stop all seizures of monasteries or other Church property without first obtaining his personal permission. Bormann passes the order along to the Gauleiters the following day.

1941 July 31 Goering instructs Heydrich "to make all necessary preparation... for bringing about a "complete" solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe." (Hilberg)

(Note: This is Goering's second known reference.)

1941 August The Germans drive the 3,000 Jews of the Banat region in Yugoslavia from their homes and take them to the Tasmajdan camp near Belgrade, where they are shot in the camp itself, and on the banks of the Danube, in daily executions. (Atlas)

1941 August 1 In the five weeks since the German invasion, the number of Jews killed exceeds the total number killed in the previous eight years of Nazi rule.

1941 August 1 Reinhardt Heydrich informs Heinrich Himmler that "It may be safely assumed that in the future there will be no more Jews in the annexed eastern territories." (Apparatus)

1941 August 1 Britain severs relations with Finland, which the Germans are using as a base for their invasion.

1941 August 3 Catholic Bishop Franz vonGalen publicly denounces the Nazi euthanasia program as both "murder under German law and in the eyes of God,"and demands the prosecution for murder of those perpetrating the killings. Galen tells in detail how the innocent sick are being killed while their families are misled by false death notices. Even invalids, cripples and wounded soldiers, he says, could no longer feel safe for their lives. News of Galens words, especially about the killing of wounded soldiers spread like wildfire. Copies of his sermon are distributed in all corners of Germany and among the soldiers at the front. (Lewy)

1941 August 4 Hitler visits the headquarters of von Bock's Army Group Center to assess the situation on the eastern front personally. Against the advice of his generals, Hitler decides to postpone the assault on Moscow and concentrate the German forces for a massive offensive in the Ukraine. Almost daily, von Bock received orders transferring unit after unit south for the drive on Kiev. (Duffy)

1941 August 6 The Japanese present proposals involving concessions in China and Indochina to the U.S., asking in return for an end to the freeze on Japanese assets. These proposals are quickly rejected by Roosevelt, and the Japanese ask for a meeting between the President and Prime Minister Kenoye to settle their differences. (See September 3)

1941 August 8-19 Several hundred Jewish men and women are executed by the Waffen-SS and Ukrainian militia at Byelaya Tserkov (Bialacerkiew) in the Ukraine. The children of those murdered are locked in a building on the edge of the village. (see August 19, 22) (Days)

1941 August 9-12 Roosevelt and Churchill hold a conference on a warship off the coast of Newfoundland. The two leaders agree to present plans for a new world order based on an end to tyranny and territorial aggrandizement, the disarmament of aggressors, and the fullest cooperation of all nations for the social and economic welfare of all. The Atlantic Charter is designed as a counterthrust to a possible new Hitler peace offensive as well as a statement of postwar aims. Although the United States has not yet entered World War II, the statement becomes an unofficial manifesto of American and British aims in war and peace. In conclusion, both agree to send strong warnings to Japan in regard to any possible attacks against British or Dutch possessions in the Far East.

1941 August 14 The Germans occupy Smolensk.

1941 August 14 The Atlantic Charter is issued. The following month the USSR and 14 other anti-Axis countries endorse its provisions. (See also January 1, 1942)

1941 August 17 The U.S. presents a formal warning to the Japanese indicating that America will almost certainly enter the war if Japan attacks British or Dutch possessions in the East Indies or Malaya.

1941 August 19 The older Jewish children left in Byelaya Tserkov are loaded into three trucks, taken to the nearby rifle-range, and executed. 90 of the younger children are held back in wretched conditions. (Days)

1941 August 20 In Berlin, Reinhard Heydrich receives a report from Einsatzgruppen RSHA IV-A-1 (Operational Report USSR no. 58) detailing the extermination of 4,500 Jews in Pinsk in retaliation for the death of a local militiaman. (Apparatus)

1941 August 20 The entire Banat region of Yugoslavia is declared Judenrein, "purged of Jews." (Atlas)

1941 August 21 Antonescu promotes himself to Marshal.

1941 August 22 The remaining 90 Jewish children held in the village of Byelaya Tserkov, most of them infants under the age of five, are executed after the action is officially condoned by the Wehrmacht. (Days)

1941 August 22 Major Ivan Kononov, commander of the 436th Regiment, and his entire regiment of Cossacks defects to the Germans after launching a successful counterattack against them. Kononov's was the first of many Cossack units to change sides during the war. By the fall of 1942 more than 200 Cossack battalions and regiments fought alongside the German army. (Huxley-Blythe)

1941 August 23 Hitler orders a halt to Aktion T-4, the euthanasia program, in Germany. More than 70,000 Germans have been gassed since the passage of the Euthanasia Decree of September 1, 1939. Bishop Galen's sermon of August 3 was probably the single most important reason Hitler is forced to abandon the euthanasia program, although it will quietly continue to operate under the code-name: 14f13. Thousands of political prisoners, habitual criminals, Jews and others too sick to work are certified insane and put to death in concentration camps gas chambers. (Lewy)

1941 August 23 Hanns Kerrl complains to the head of the Reich Chancellery that because of the continuing confiscations of Church property, which are taking place without his being consulted or eveninformed beforehand, his continuation as Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs is becoming "increasingly unbearable."

(Note: Bormann, when questioned about the continuing seizures, excuses them by saying they had been decided before Hitler's order of July 30.) (Lewy)

1941 August 24 In a broadcast to the British people, Churchill, referring to the mass murders committed by the Germans, states: "We are in the presence of a crime without a name."

1941 August 25 Both Britain and the USSR invade and occupy Iran. Its ruler, Reza Shah Pahlavi, is pro-German.

1941 August 26 The Soviets bomb Teheran, Iran.

1941 August 27 The Iranian government resigns.

1941 August 27 More than 14,000 Jewish refugees, who had fled to Hungary and Ruthenia in 1938 and 1939 from Germany, Austria, Poland and Slovakia, before being subsequently deported to Kamenets Podolsk in the Ukraine, are killed by heavily armed SS units with Ukrainian militia support. They are marched into a series of bomb craters and mowed down by machine-gun fire. Many are buried alive.(Atlas)

1941 August 27 Pierre Laval and a prominent pro-German newspaper editor are shot and wounded by a young member of the resistance. The Vichy government begins rounding up its opponents.

1941 August 28 The Bavarian order forbidding prayers in school and the gradual removal of all crucifixes is revoked. A number of public protests and a strong stand by Bishop Faulhaber prompts the revocation. (See April 23, 1941). (Lewy)

1941 August 29 Fighting in Iran comes to an end.

1941 August 29 General Milan Nedic is appointed to lead the puppet Serbian government backed by Germany.

1941 August 31 British and Soviet troops link up at Kazvin, Iran.

1941 September Niederhagen, the concentration camp for Wewelsburg castle, becomes independent.

1941 September Hitler tells Papen that he is upset about the continuing confiscations of Church property, and blames the hotheads of the Party for "this nonsense." (Papen)

1941 September 1 A new decree is issued ordering that all Jews are forbidden to leave their place of domicile without special permission; Jews six years of age or older can now appear in public only when marked with a Jewish star (Star of David). This decree covers so-called Mosaic Jews as well as baptized Jews. Only those who had converted to Christianity prior to September 15, 1935, the date of the Nuremberg laws, and "non-Aryans" married to an "Aryan" partner are exempted.

(Note: The marking of Jews had first been applied to Jews in Poland, but is now extended to the entire Reich.)

1941 September 1 Lord Beaverbrook, a leading Conservative member of Churchill's government, writes to Rudolf Hess requesting a meeting. Beaverbrook on this same day is appointed to head a Cabinet mission to Moscow to discuss aid for the Soviets. (Missing Years)

1941 September 1 Germans troops come within artillery range of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

1941 September 3 Estonia is conquered by the Germans. Following the occupation of Tallin, the remaining 1,000 Jews are murdered by SS killing squads. (Atlas)

1941 September 3 The U.S. State Department tells the Japanese that the meeting they have requested between Roosevelt and Prince Konoye cannot take place. Supposedly the Americans are concerned that Konoye, Japan's prime minister, might not be able to convince the Japanese military keep to any agreement that might be made.

1941 September 3 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 300 Jews are gassed at Auschwitz in an experiment using Zyklon B (hydrocyanic acid), a commercial pesticide.

1941 September 6 A Japanese Imperial conference decides, in view of declining oil reserves, that war preparations should be completed by mid-October. Konoye is given six weeks to reach a settlement with the United States and is to insist on a set of minimum demands: immediate cessation of economic sanctions, a free hand for Japan in China, and rights for Japan in Indochina.

1941 September 6 Heydrich issues orders for all Jews over the age of six to wear a Star of David identity badge.

1941 September 8 Leningrad (St. Petersburg) is surrounded by a large German force.

1941 September 9 Lord Beaverbrook meets with Rudolf Hess.

1941 September 11 Charles Lindbergh, speaking in Des Moines, Iowa, tells an audience of 7,500 that Jews are seeking to force America into the war and warns them of the consequences.

1941 September 12 General Keital tells his commanders "The struggle against Bolshevism demands ruthless and energetic measures above all against the Jews."

1941 September 12 In the Ukrainian village of Zwiahel (Novograd Volynsky), SS 2nd Lieutenant Max Täubner and members of his work platoon begin conducting a series of unauthorized massacres of Jews. Täubner will later be tried and convicted by the SS and Police Supreme Court on May 24, 1943. (Days)

1941 September 16 Reza Shah Pahlavi, the pro-German ruler of Iran, is forced to abdicate in favor of his son by the British. Shah Pahlavi is sent out of the country.

1941 September 16 U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes has lunch with Bernard Baruch and asks him why Edward Stettinius, who he says has been a failure at every job he has held so far, has been moved up by the President to the important position of Administrator of the Lend Lease Act. Baruch tells him that he believes it is a ploy to ptotect Harry Hopkins. Baruch says he believes that Hopkins is now, in effect, Assistant President, but that his standing on the (Capitol) Hill is such that he needs someone to front for him. "So Stettinius has been given that title, but he can be depended upon to do whatever Harry (Hopkins) tells him to do. (Ickes)

1941 September 17 Cardinal Bertram instructs the German bishops on methods of handling the "problem" of the "non-Aryan" Catholics. He suggests using St. Paul's admonishment to the Romans and Galatians: "among those believing in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, for all are one in Jesus Christ." (Roman 10:12, Galatians 3:28) (Lewy)

1941 September 19 Heinrich Jöst, a German sergeant, smuggles a camera into the Warsaw ghetto, and against all regulations, photographs the suffering and misery of the Jews trapped inside. (Apparatus)

1941 September 19 Germans forces occupy Kiev in the Ukraine.

1941 September 24 After a conference with Himmler and Reinhardt Heydrich, Hitler names Heydrich as the new Reich Protector of Bohemia-Moravia. (Architect)

1941 September 25 In Berlin, Reinhard Heydrich receives a report from Einsatzgruppen RSHA IV-A-1 (Operational Report USSR no. 94) stating that 75,000 liquidations have been conducted in Lithuania in response to a rise in Jewish propaganda. (Apparatus)

1941 September 25 Hitler speaks of extending Europe to the Ural Mountains and creating a human barrier against Asia. (Monologue im Fuehrerhauptquartier; Architect)

1941 September 26 The Jews of Swieciany in Lithuania are rounded up, taken to a former army camp in the nearby Polygon woods, and massacred. On the evening before, several hundred young men and women had managed to break through the Lithuanian police cordon and escape eastward to towns not yet reached by the killing squads. (Atlas)

1941 September 27 Himmler comes through with a long-delayed promotion of Heydrich to Obergruppenfuehrer (Lieutenant General) and general of the police. (Architect)

1941 September 28 A curt notice, its text printed in Russian, Ukrainian and German, appears on buildings, tree trunks and fences in Kiev. It orders all Jews to report the following day to the old Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of town, not far from the railway station. The notice suggests that the Jews are going to be resettled. (Apparatus)

1941 September 29 More than 30,000 Jews are machinegunned at Babi Yar, a ravine on the outskirts of Kiev, by an SS killing squad aided by Ukrainian militiamen. (Atlas)

1941 September 30 Himmler sets out on a tour of the conquered areas of southern Russia. He takes with him Dr. Albert Widmann, head of the chemical section of the RSHA Criminal Technical Institue and one of the prime inventors of the new gas truck that recycled its own exhaust. Since it was easier to modify existing trucks in the field to serve as mobile gas chambers than to produce new trucks in Germany and then transport them to the East, Widmann went along as a technical consultant. (Architect)

1941 September 30 Guderian's and Hoth's panzers rejoin Army Group Center, and the advance on Moscow is resumed. The Germans now face a rejuvenated enemy that has profited from the respite Hitler has given them to construct strong defenses and move large numbers of troops to defend the capital. (Duffy)

1941 October The decision is made to build centers for mass murder by gas in the eastern territories. (Bauer)

1941 October Alfred Rosenberg, Reichsführer of the Easter Territories, requests T-4's assistance in liquidating the Jews in the Polish Ghettos.

1941 October 1 All Jewish immigration from Germany is banned.

1941 October 1 In the Archdiocese of Posen in Poland, 74 Catholic priests have been shot or have died in the concentration camps, and 451 are being held in prisons or camps. Of the 441 churches in this diocese only 30 are still open for Poles. (DA Trier; Lewy)

1941 October 1 Another Croat concentration camp is established at Jasenovac. (Atlas)

1941 October 2 While Himmler is in the Ukraine, Heydrich informs Hitler of the scheduled deportations of all German Jews to specific locations in the Ostland. (Architect)

1941 October 2 Himmler arrives in Kiev, which he believes is an ancient German city known as Kiroffo. (Architect)

1941 October 3 Hitler tells the German people that the enemy in the East is broken and will never rise again. (Silence)

1941 October 3 Himmler tours Kiev. It is not known whether Himmler included Babi Yar on his tour. (Architect)

1941 October 10 Thousands of Slovak Jews are sent to labor camps at Sered, Vyhne, and Novaky, while the remaining Jews living in what had once been Czechoslovakia are ordered out of their homes and sent to specially designated ghetto areas in 14 selected towns. (Atlas)

1941 October 10 Reinhard Heydrich, in Prague, tells a conference of his subordinates that Hitler wants all the Jews removed from German space by the end of the year, if possible. All pending questions, he said, had to be resolved, and transportation should not be used as a reason for delay. (Architect)

1941 October 10 Heydrich also includes the Gypsies as being subject to "evacuation" (deportation to death camps) during the Prague conference. (Science)

1941 October 14 Beginning of the general deportation of German Jews to the concentration camps. (Persecution)

1941 October 15 The German authorities in Poland decree that any Jews found outside the ghettos will be executed automatically.

1941 October 15 Mass deportations of German Jews to the east begins. Priests are told that Christian "non-Aryans" will be evacuated only when earlier conflicts with the Gestapo have occurred. For the time being, "non-Aryans" in mixed marriages will not be affected by these measures. (Lewy)

1941 October 16 Edouard Daladier, Paul Reynaud and Leon Blum, all former prime ministers of France, are arrested by order of General Petain to face charges that they were responsible for the French defeat of 1940.

1941 October 16 Odessa is taken by Romanian troops after some of the bloodiest fighting on the Eastern Front.

1941 October 16 The first deportation trains leave Germany for the ghettos in the east. (Atlas)

1941 October 16 Many foreign diplomats, Soviet government officials and their staffs begin leaving Moscow by car and train for Kuibyshev.

1941 October 16 Japanese Prime Minister Konoye is replaced by War Minister Tojo, who takes the offices of prime minister, war minister and home affairs minister. Tojo's cabinet decides to wait only until the end of November for a diplomatic breakthrough.

1941 October 18 Heydrich and Himmler speak by phone, agreeing not to allow any Jews to leave German territory by going overseas. (Architect)

1941 October 19 Stalin announces that he will remain in Moscow, even though most of the Soviet government has already fled, promising to defend the city with every effort.

1941 October 20 The German commander in Nantes, France, is shot by members of the resistance. Fifty hostages are shot in reprisal.

1941 October 22 A notice is posted in Kiev informing the citizens that 100 hostages will be shot for every act of sabotage. (See November 2) (Apparatus)

1941 October 23 All Jewish emigration Nazi-occupied territory is officially halted.

1941 October 23 Catholic Provost Bernhard Lichtenberg, who right through the stepped-up antisemitic agitation, continued to say a daily prayer for the Jews, is finally arrested. During questioning by Himmler's henchmen, the Provost asserts that the deportation of the Jews is irreconcilable with Christian moral law, and asks to be allowed to accompany the deportees as their spiritual adviser. He is sentenced to two years imprisonment for abuse of the pulpit (see November 5, 1943) (Lewy)

1941 October 25 Himmler and Heydrich meet with Hitler at his headquarters. In the course of the meeting, Hitler reminds them of his prewar prophecy that, unless war was avoided, the Jews would disappear from Europe. "This criminal race," Hitler tells them, "has the two million dead of the (First) World War on their conscience, and now hundreds of thousands more. Let no one say to me: we cannot send them into the mire. Who concerns themselves about our men? It is good if preceding us is terror that we are exterminating the Jews. The attempt to found a Jewish state will fail." (Monologue im Fuehrerhauptquartier; Architect)

1941 October 25 Despite the overwhelming odds against them, Jews at Tatarsk and Starodub, between Kiev and Moscow, rise up in revolt. German regular army units are brought in to crush their resistance. (Atlas)

1941 October 25 Dr. Wetzel, a "race-expert" in the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories, writes in a draft of a letter to Himmler: "I should like to inform you that Oberdienstleiter Brack of the Führer's Chancellery has said that he is prepared to collaborate in the provision of the necessary accommodation and appliances for gassing people... In the present situation, there are no obiections to doing away with those Jews who are unfit for work with the aid of Brack's resources... " (Science)

1941 October 25 German mass executions of prisoners in France prompt Roosevelt and Churchill to make an unusual joint public condemnation of German atrocities, and within three months, nine European governments-in-exile in London establish the Inter-Allied Conference on the Punishment of War Crimes. (Beast)

October 27 Bishop Berning reports to Cardinal Bertram that the Gestapo has refused their request for permission to allow Jewish Catholics to wear the Star of David while in Church. (Lewy)

1941 October 27 The Bishop of Limberg informs Bishop Wienken, the episcopate's troubleshooter in Berlin, that the transport of Jews from Frankfurt earlier in the month had included Catholic "non-Aryans" to whom no preferred treatment had been granted. Their fate was especially sad, he said, because they were regarded by the other Jews as apostates (turncoats).

1941 October 27 Harold H. Tittmann, assistant to Roosevelt's special emissary to the Vatican, attempts to get the Pope to issue a public protest against the German's mass shooting of hostages. He is told that this could not be done since it would jeopardize the situation of the German Catholics. (U.S.D.P)

1941 October 29 The first of the Soviet reserve divisions from Siberia go into the line west of Moscow.

1941 October 30 The German offensive toward Moscow is halted until winter permanently hardens the ground, restoring mobility to the German tank forces.

1941 October 30 Bishop Wienken informs Bishop Hilfrich of Limburg that negotiations concerning the deportations of Catholic "non-Aryans" have been started at the highest levels. (Lewy)

1941 October-November The extermination camp of Chelmno (Kulmhof) is set up in Wathegau (Poland). (Days)

1941 November Georg Hauserstein, Jr., a long-time ONT member and former head of the presytery at Hertesburg, founds a schismatic order at Petena called the Vitalis New Templars. (Roots)

1941 November Heydrich reports to the Foreign Ministry that a thirty-point program for a so-called neo-pagan "National Reich Church," circulated as a leaflet in Germany and attributed by Allied propaganda to Rosenberg, was actually written in 1937 by an eccentric from Stettin (G). Heydrich attributes its reappearance to Catholic elements out to discredit the regime. (Lewy)

(Note: William Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, accepted this leaflet as a genuine work by Rosenberg.)

1941 November By this time, more than 15,000 Jews have been deported from throughout Serbia to the concentration camp at Zemun west of Belgrade. (Atlas)

1941 November As an experiment, 1200 prisoners at Buchenwald are taken to the "euthanasia" institute at Bernberg, and gassed. (Atlas)

1941 November 1 Vichy France opens a punishment and isolation camp at Hadjerat-M'Guil in Algeria. It contains 170 prisoners nine of whom are tortured and murdered in conditions of the worst brutality. Two of the murdered were Jews, one of whom had earlier been released from a concentration camp in Germany in 1939 and fled to France. (Atlas)

1941 November 1-15 The Jews of Bukovina, like those of Bessarabia, are uprooted from their homes in more than 100 communities, then marched away and interned. Within a year, more than 120,000 of them had died. (Atlas)

1941 November 2 Major General Friedrich Eberhardt, military commander of Kiev, issues an order declaring that 300 hostages will be shot for the next act of sabotage. By the end of the month, the number has been raised to 400. (Apparatus)

1941 November 15 Himmler and Rosenberg hold a four-hour meeting to discuss Jewish policy and several other areas of their disagreement. (Architect)

1941 November 17 Alfred Rosenberg is appointed to head a new Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. His jurisdiction includes the Baltic States and White Russia, where his task will be to exploit the area for Germany's economic benefit and rid of them of "undesirable elements" such as Communists and Jews.

1941 November 17 Himmler telephones Heydrich and tells him about the results of his meeting with Rosenberg, the situation in the Government General, and the "elimination of the Jews." (NA; Architect)

1941 November 18 The British offensive in North Africa begins in Libya. It is code-named Operation Crusader.

1941 November 18 Rosenberg tells German journalists at a confidential briefing that the "Final Solution" has begun; a "biological extermination of all Jews in Europe." No Jew could remain on the continent to the Ural Mountains; they would either be forced beyond the Urals or exterminated. The press was not to write about the extermination in detail, but the reporters could use stock phrases such as the "definite solution" or the "total solution of the Jewish question." (NA RG 242, T-77/R 1175/433; Architect)

1941 November 21 Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes personally hand-delivers to President Roosevelt a confidential letter given to him by someone named Bruce Johnston. Johnson takes the position that: "while under the constitution the power to declare war lies with Congress, the power to wage a defensive war is with the Executive. He pointed out that in several declarations of war by the Congress the recitation was "Whereas, a state of war exists," thus proving that wars do not wait to be started until there is an actual declaration. The President remarked that it was good letter and sound but that "it was simply a question of timing.' " (Ickes)

1941 November 21 German forces take Rostov am Don.

1941 November 23 In the Moscow sector, Germans forces continue to advance. Some are within 35 miles of Moscow.

1941 November 24 Theresienstadt, the largest of the new concentration camps in what had been Czechoslovakia, is established. (Atlas)

1941 November 25 The Bishops of Cologne and Paderborn recommend that "non-Aryan" or "half-Aryan" priests and nuns volunteer to accompany the German deportees in order to hold services and provide religious instruction for the children. (Lewy)

1941 November 25 Regulations are issued by the German government concerning confiscation of the property of Jews who are deported. (Eyes)

1941 November 26 U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull formally reiterates the U.S. position, saying that Japan must withdraw from China and Indochina, recognize the regime of Chiang Kai-Shek in China, renounce all territorial expansion, and accept the Open Door policy of equal commercial access to Asia.

(Note: U.S. cryptographers had already broken Japan's major diplomatic code and U.S. authorities knew full well that rejection of Japan's minimum demands would probably lead to war.)

1941 November 26 A powerful Japanese carrier task force leaves the Kuril Islands and makes for Pearl Harbor.

1941 November 27 U.S. military authorities issue a war warning to their overseas commanders.

1941 November 27 Hitler meets in succession with high officials from Spain, Hungary, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, Finland and Romania. (Architect)

1941 November 28 Hitler meets with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, telling him that Germany has declared an uncompromising war on the Jews. Britain and Russia were both power bases of Jewry, Hitler said, and he would carry on the fight until the last traces of Jewish hegemony were eliminated. The German army would in the future break through the Caucasus into the Middle East and help to liberate the Arab world. Germany's only other objective in the region would be the annihilation of the Jews. (Fleming; Architect)

1941 November 29 German authorities deport 714 Jews from Nuremberg to labor camps.

1941 November 29 Reinhard Heydrich sends out invitations to the Wansee conference on the Jewish question. It is originally scheduled for December 9, but is postponed due to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. (Architect)

1941 November-December The RSHA puts gassing-vans at the disposal of the Security Police and the SD Einsatzgruppen. (Days)

1941 December SS Major Christian Wirth, former Chief of the Criminal Police in the city of Stuttgart, working on behalf of the gauleiter of Warthegau, who had recently obtained Himmler's permission to kill 100,000 Jews in his jurisdiction, sets up operation in the village of Chelmno (Kulmhof), forty miles northwest of the Lodz ghetto. On the old castle grounds in the village, Wirth installs several vans of the type the Einsatzgruppen had experimented with in Russia. They are rigged to direct carbon-monoxide fumes from the engine's exhaust into a large sealed cabin in the rear. The larger vans accommodate up to 150 people who are gassed on the way to burial grounds. (Apparatus)

(Note: Wirth had conducted the first gassing experiments on the incurably insane in 1939 at the "euthanasia" institution at Brandenburg an der Havel in Prussia.)

1941 December Stalin calls on the Orthodox Patriarch of Russia to bless the Red Army.

1941 December German soldiers returning from the Eastern Front begin telling "horrible stories" about the fate of deported German Jews who had been shot by mobile killing detachments near Riga and at Minsk. (Herman; Lösener; Lewy)

1941 December 1 A Japanese imperial conference puts the Japanese war machine into motion.

December 2 The Japanese task force receives a coded message issuing the order to attack Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

December 5 The Soviets stage a counter-offensive at Moscow.

December 5 Weizsäcker reports to the Foreign Ministry that he has informed Papal Nuncio Orsenigo that the Vatican has so far conducted itself "very cleverly" concerning the "rumors" of mass shootings and deportations of the Jews. The Nuncio "pointed out that he had not really touched this topic and that he had no desire to touch it." (Hilberg; Lewy)

December 5 The first Jews are transported to Chelmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp. (Days)

1941 December 6 General Georgy Zhukov launches a huge Soviet counteroffensive, pushing back the freezing Germans from Moscow. Constant pressure during the winter forces the Germans back to 40 miles from Moscow.

1941 December 7 The Japanese launch a surprise air-attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. More than 350 Japanese bombers, torpedo planes, and fighters strike in two successive waves. Altogether, 18 U.S. ships are sunk or disabled. U.S. naval power in the Pacific is crippled, except for the Americans aircraft carriers which are on missions elsewhere.

(Note: The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps lose 2,117 men, the Army 218, and 68 civilians are killed. More than 1,200 are wounded, and about 200 aircraft are destroyed, most on the ground. The Japanese loseonly 29 planes.)

1941 December 7 Almost simultaneously with the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese naval and air forces attack Wake Island, Guam, British Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, Burma, Thailand, and the Philippines.

1941 December 7 Hitler issues the infamous Nacht und Nebel decree.

1941 December 7 Great Britain declares war on Romania.

1941 December 8 President Roosevelt tells a joint session of Congress that December 7th is "a date which will live in infamy." The U.S. Congress votes to declare war on Japan.

1941 December 8 Hitler issues Directive #39. It begins with these words: "The severe weather which has come surprisingly early in the East, and the consequent difficulties in bringing up supplies, compel us to adandon immediately all major offensive operations and go over to the defensive." (Directives)

1941 December 8 SS Major Christian Wirth supervises the murder of 700 Jews in his specially designed gassing vans at Chelmno (Kulmhof) for the first time. The first "death camp" is soon established at Chelmno using these mobile gassing vans. The victims' bodies are dumped into open pits some two miles away in a wooded forest. (total victims: 360,000; survivors: 3) (See Wirth, December 1941)

1941 December 10 The small U.S. garrison on Guam surrenders.

1941 December 10 Himmler orders that commissions, made up of physicians who were formerly concerned with "euthanasia" are to be set up to "comb out" prisoners in concentration camps who are unfit for work, are ill, or are "psychopaths." Tens of thousands of prisoners, picked out in this way by Professor Heyde, Professor Nitsche and other physicians, are killed by gas in the extermination centers at Sonnenstein and Hartheim. (Science)

1941 December 10 The British battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse are sunk by Japanese planes off the coast of Malaya.

1941 December 11 Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S.

1941 December 11 In a speech to the Reichstag, Hitler attacks Roosevelt as a "warmonger" who is backed by the Jews and millionaires responsible for starting the war. He seizes this opportunity to vent the storehouse of anger that has built up in him over the previous three years against Roosevelt, who had ceaselessly attacked Hitler as a "gangster." (Shirer I; Duffy)

1941 December 11 A small U.S. Marine detachment holds off the first Japanese landing attempt on Wake Island.

1941 December 12 All branches of American banks in France are ordered closed by the Nazis, except Morgan et Cie and Chase of New York.

1941 December 12 Romania's Antonescu, pressured by Germany and Italy, declares war on the U.S.

1941 December 12 Finland refuses to declare war on the U.S.

1941 December 14 Rosenberg raises the Jewish question with Hitler, who tells him that the Jews had brought this war on Germany, and caused the destruction, and that they had only themselves to blame if they had to suffer the consequences. (Architect)

1941 December 16 Hans Frank tells his cabinet in Kracow: "the Jews must be done away with, one way or another... we must annihilate the Jews whereever we find them..."

1941 December 19 Hitler dismisses General Walteer von Brauchitsch and assumes supreme command of the German armed forces.

1941 December 19 General Claire L. Chennault and his "Flying Tigers," a group of "volunteer" pilots, set up headquarters 150 miles from Rangoon, Burma. From December 19, 1941, to July 4, 1942, they destroy 297 Japanese planes and kill 500 of the enemy.

1941 December 21 Hitler issues a proclaimation to the armed forces after taking over as Commander-in-Chief of the army, saying, "After fifteen years of work I have achieved, as a common German soldier and merely with my fanatical will-power, the unity of the German nation, and have freed it from the death sentence of Versailles."

1941 December 22 Roosevelt and Churchill meet in Washington for the Arcadia Conference, the first Anglo-American conference after U.S. entry into the war. It is agreed to give first priority to the European theater of war; to forge a constricting ring around Germany using air attacks and blockade; to stage an eventual invasion of the European continent; and to land their forces in North Africa. The two powers also decide to form a Combined Chiefs of Staff, paving the way for one of the closest military collaborations in history.

1941 December 22 Plans are discussed for the Allied invasion of French North Africa. American planners are opposed to this operation because in their opinion it detracts from the primary objective of establishing a Second Front as soon as possible.

1941 December 22 In the Philippines, the Japanese, controlling both air and sea, begin landing troops in force on Luzon, the main island.

1941 December 23 The Japanese capture Wake Island. The fall of Wake severs the U.S. communications line between Hawaii and the Philippines.

1941 December 25 The Japanese capture the British crown colony of Hong Kong.

1941 December 26 German Jews are no longer allowed to use public telephones. (Persecution)

1941 December 27 Wave after wavesof Japanese aircraft strike Manila. The attacks continue throughout the following day.

1941 December 30 U.S. forces are pulled back from Tarlac to their last prepared line before the Bataan Peninsula.

1941 December President Roosevelt asks the U.S. Senate to authorize sending a U.S. expeditionary corps to Europe.

1941 Winter Dr. Ritter takes part in a conference which considers a plan to drown 30,000 German Gypsies by sending them out into the Mediterranean Sea on ships and then bombing the ships. (Science)

1941 Ho Chi Minh organizes the Viet Minh to combat the Japanese in Indochina (Vietnam).

1942 Leadership of the Zionist movement relocates to the United States. A conference in New York City demands the founding of a Jewish state in all of Palestine and unlimited Jewish immigration.

1942 January 1 Twenty-six nations sign the United Nations Declaration in Washington, D.C. The Atlantic Charter and its eight principles: (1) the renunciation of territorial aggression; (2) territorial changes only with consent of the peoples concerned; (3) restoration of sovereign rights and self-government; (4) access to raw materials for all nations; (5) world economic cooperation; (6) freedom from fear and want; (7) freedom of the seas; and (8) disarmament of aggressors are also endorsed by the signatories at the Arcadia Conference. (See August 9, 1941)

1942 January 2 Japanese forces take Manila and the naval base of Cavite in the Philippines.

1942 January 7 The Arcadia Conference comes to an end. During the proceedings each of the 26 signatory nations has agreed to use all of their military and economic resources to defeat the Axis, pledging not to make a separate peace or armistice with the enemy.

1942 January 10 German Jews are ordered to turn in all of their wool and fur clothing. (Persecution)

1942 January 14 Dr. Mennecke, a physician involved in the euthanasia program, writes in a letter: "The day before yesterday, a large contingent from our euthanasia program has moved under the leadership of Brack to the Eastern battle-zone... It consists of doctors, office personnel, and male and female nurses, from Hadamar and Sonnenstein, in all a group of 20-30 persons." (Science)

1942 January 16 Donald Nelson is appointed head of the new U.S. War Production Board.

1942 January 17 Field Marshal von Reichenau dies of a stroke while returning to Germany from the Eastern Front.

1942 January 18 The Russian counteroffensive in the Moscow sector reaches a point 70 miles from Smolensk.

1942 January 19 Field Marshal von Bock is appointed to replace von Reichenau.

1942 January 20 The Wansee Conference on the "Final Solution" of the Jewish question is held at Interpol headquarters in Wansee, a quiet Berlin suburb. Reinhard Heydrich presents a plan for the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem."

(These plans provide for the transportation of all of Europe's Jews to extermination camps. Adolf Eichmann will be in charge of the department of the SS responsible for the execution of the plan.)

1942 January 21 Rommel attacks the British in Libya.

1942 January 23 Hungarian Fascists at Sovi Sad in occupied Yugoslavia drive 550 Jews and 292 Serbs to the river and onto the ice. After firing on the ice to break it up, they shoot all those who manage to stay afloat. A total of 2,550 Serbs and 700 Jews are killed by the Hungarians at Novi Sad. (Atlas)

1942 January 26 The Board of Inquiry investigating the Pearl Harbor attack finds Admiral Husband E. Kimmel (Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Fleet) and General Short (Commander-in-Chief Hawaiian Department) guilty of dereliction of duty. Both have already been dismissed.

1942 January 26 Himmler notifies Richard Glücks, inspector of the concentration camps, that the camps are now to take on great economic tasks; he should expect to receive a hundred thousand male Jews and fifty thousand female Jews in the next four weeks to use as laborers. (Architect)

1942 January 27 Rosenberg, with Bormann's concurrence, issues an order forbidding any further discussion of religious questions in the Party's work of ideological indoctrination. (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Lewy)

1942 January 28 Hiram J. Perez de Cruet enlists in the U.S. Army.

1942 January 30 Hitler, at the Berlin Sports Palace, reaffirms his prewar prophecy concerning the Jews; once again telling an audience that "the result of this war will be the complete annihilation of the Jews."

1942 January 31 The Japanese clear the British from Malaysia.

1942 American and Filipino forces retreat from Manila to the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.

1942 February Himmler tells his masseur, Dr. Felix Kersten, that Hitler has ordered the immediate execution of all Jews in their possession. (Kersten Memoirs)

1942 February The 38,000 Jews of Libya once again come under Italian control. Jewish shops are plundered and 2,600 Jews are deported to a forced labor camp at Giado, building military roads. Many die from starvation and typhus. (Atlas)

1942 February 2 Hitler tells Himmler and other evening guests: "Today, we must conduct the same struggle that Pasteur and Koch had to fight. The cause of countless ills is a bacillus: the Jew... We will become healthy if we eliminate the Jew." (Architect)

1942 February 4 A meeting takes place at the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories where the "scrapping by labor" of the Eastern peoples is openly discussed. Professors Fischer and B. K. Schultz are among those present. (Science)

1942 February 11 Archbishop Jäger of Paderborn issues a pastoral letter for Lent, which characterizes Russia as a country whose people, "because of their hostility to God and their hatred of Christ, had degenerated into animals." (Lewy)

1942 February 15 The Japanese capture Singapore, the key to British and Dutch defenses in the Far East.

1942 February 17 German Jews are no longer allowed to subscribe to newspapers and magazines. (Persecution)

1942 February 19 Josef Perau, a German military chaplain in Russia, writes of witnessing several hundred corpses being brought to a mass grave near his station everyday, "the total number being already 19,000." (Lewy)

1942 February 19 General Gamelin, Leon Blum and Paul Reynaud are put on trial at Riom by the Vichy government, charged with being responsible for the French defeat of 1940. The trial is never concluded. Blum defends himself so brilliantly that the trial is suspended. He remains a prisoner until 1945.

1942 February The U.S. position in the Philippines is so serious that President Roosevelt orders General MacArthur to escape and proceed to Australia to take supreme command of the Allied forces in the southwestern Pacific. "I shall return," MacArthur promises.

1942 February 28 More than 13,000 Jews have now been deported to Chelmno and gassed since December 8, 1941. Adolf Eichmann himself witnessed the process. (Atlas)

1942 March A conference of "experts" decides to close the loop-hole in the Nuremberg laws that has allowed existing mixed marriages between "Aryans" and Jews. These so-called experts order the compulsory dissolution of racially mixed marriages, to be followed by the deportation of the Jewish partner. If the "Aryan" partner failed to apply for a divorce within a certain period of time, the public prosecutor was to file a petition for divorce, which the courts would be obliged to grant. (Lewy)

1942 March The Lumenclub and the Order of the New Templars (ONT) in Austria are said to have been suppressed by the Gestapo in accordance with a party edict of December 1938. (Daim, Roots)

1942 March The Dutch East Indies surrender to the Japanese.

1942 March 2 5,000 Jews are taken from the ghetto in Minsk to a newly dug pit on the outskirts of town and machine-gunned. No ammunition is wasted on the hundreds of Jewish children seized that day: they are thrown into the pit alive to die of suffocation. (Atlas)

1942 March 6 Adolf Eichmann chairs a conference dealing with the "problem" of half-Jews who are not of the Jewish faith and who are not married to a Jewish partner. (Hilberg)

1942 March 7 The Japanese enter Rangoon in Burma.

1942 March 14 A number of Jews, who had been sent to work on a farm near Ilja in western Russia, escape into the woods and join a partisan group. (Atlas)

1942 March 15 Archbishop Konrad Groeber issues a pastoral letter for People's Memorial Day praising the "victorious German soldiers who are fighting a crusade against Bolshevism, protecting Europe from the Red tide."

1942 March 17 Beginning of "Aktion Reinhard" (Operation Reinhard). Jews from Lublin are transported to Belzec. (Days)

1942 March 17 Two Jewish leaders at Ilja, who had refused to hand over partisan sympathizers to the SS, escape into the forest to join the partisans. As a reprisal, the Germans shoot all old and sick Jews they find in the streets, and force 900 more into a building, lock it, and set it on fire. All 900 perish. (Atlas)

1942 March 17 A second death camp goes into operation just south of the village of Belzec in Galicia. 6,786 Jews are murdered during the first set of deportations. (total victims: 600,000; survivors: 2)

(Two other death camps, Sobibor and Treblinka are now under construction. These are not slave labor camps; their single purpose is to kill every Jew within a few hours of arrival.) (Atlas)

1942 March 18 Martin Bormann issues an order declaring a letter allegedly written by Werner Mölders, the recently killed number one ace of the Luftwaffe, as a forgery. A reward of 100,000 marks is offered for information leading to the apprehension of the real author.

(The Nazis were upset because in this letter, Mölders had reported with pride that Catholics, on account of their dedication, were now finally being accepted as full-fledged Germans and were enjoying the respect of those who earlier had taunted them as meek and other worldly.) (Lewy)

1942 March 23 Rosenberg, minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories, writes about the possible employment of staff for his projected Reich Center for Research on the East: "...I have thought of Geheimrat Eugen Fischer, a person who represents biological research and is a leading member of the KWG." (Science)

1942 March 24 320 German Jews are deported from Würzburg to the death camp at Belzec. Not a single one survives.

(Throughout March, Jews are deported to Belzec from Eastern Galicia and the Lublin area, where within two weeks almost all of the city's large Jewish community is transported.) (Atlas)

1942 March 24 The first Slovak Jews are deported to Auschwitz.

1942 March 25 U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold announces that William Stamps Farish has pled "no contest" to charges of criminal conspiracy with the Nazis. Arnold discloses that Standard Oil of New Jersey (later Exxon) of which Farish is president and CEO has agreed to stop hiding patents from the U.S. for synthetic rubber, which the company has in its possession, and which are already in use by the Nazis at Auschwitz.

1942 March 26 The first deportations of Jews to Auschwitz begins. The first group is from Bratislava in Slovakia. Once at Auschwitz, all are sent to the barracks. No gassing take place until May 4, 1942. (Atlas)

1942 March 26 All Jewish dwellings in Germany must now be marked by a Star of David. (Persecution)

1942 March 27 Jews from France are deported to Auschwitz. All are foreign-born Jews who had been rounded up seven months earlier, and interned. (Atlas)

1942 March 31 The Gestapo raids the ghetto in Minsk, capturing several Jewish leaders who have attempted to organize a resistance group. (Atlas)

1942 April / May The death camp at Sobibor goes into operation. (total victims: 250,000; survivors: 64)

(Some sources say the camp opened in April. Others such as Apparatus say it opened during the first week of May)

1942 Spring The "White Rose" resistance group begins distributing leaflets composed by a group of students and a professor of philosophy at the University of Munich. Their leaflets tell of the murders of 300,000 Jews in Poland and ask why the German people remain so apathetic in the face of these "revolting crimes." (Scholl; Lewy)

1942 Spring In Slovakia, 52,000 Jews are deported and transported to the East.

1942 Spring Locally stationed Security Police and SD units take over the job of murdering Jews in the USSR. (Days)

1942 April 1,750 Jews are taken from Tripoli in North Africa to forced labor sites at Homs, Benghazi, and Derna. Hundreds die from starvation and heat exhaustion. Others are killed in Allied air raids. (Atlas)

1942 April Hitler orders Dr. Heinz Fisher to conduct "Hollow Earth" experiments on the Baltic Island of Rugen.

1942 April Pierre Laval is reinstated to the Vichy government under German pressure. Laval tends more to expediency than Petain, dealing with and yielding to Nazi demands and seeking a comfortable place for France in Hitler's "new order."

1942 April 3 129 German Jews from Augsburg are deported to Izbica and Belzec. The once 1000-strong Jewish community ceases to exist. (Atlas)

1942 April 5 Hitler issues a directive for the summer offensive.

1942 Allen W. Dulles joins Col. William (Wild Bill) Donovan's Office of Strategic Services (OSS, 1942-45).

1942 April 9 American and Filipino armies having retreated from Manila to the Bataan Peninsula surrender to the Japanese after holding out for three months.

1942 April 10 1,700 Jews from Leczyca and 1,240 from Grabow are transported for execution to Chelmno (Kulmhof). (Atlas)

1942 April The Bataan death march begins. Harsh treatment and starvation cause the deaths of nearly 10,000.

1942 April 16 Berlin is informed by the local SS that "the Crimea is purged of Jews." (Atlas)

1942 April 16 2,000 Jews from Gostynin are deported to Chelmno (Kulmhof) for execution. (Atlas)

1942 April 17 2,000 Jews from Gabin and 250 from Sanniki are deported to Chelmno (Kulmhof). (Atlas)

1942 April 18 909 Jews are deported from Ceske Budejovice in Bohemia to Izbica and Belzec. (Atlas)

1942 April 18 U.S. Col. James H. Doolittle leads a B-25 strike on Tokyo. Afterward, all of the planes are ditched over China and the crews bail out. Seventeen of the 79 airmen are lost or killed by the Japanese. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese are killed in retaliation for helping the Americans.

1942 April 22 3,000 Jews from Wloclawk are transported for execution at Chelmo (Kulmhof). (Atlas)

1942 April 24 650 Jews are deported from Nuremberg to Izbica and Belzec. (Atlas)

1942 April 24 German Jews are no longer allowed to use public transportation. (Persecution)

1942 April 25 105 Jews from Bamberg are deported to Izbica and Belzec. (Atlas)

1942 April 26 Hitler demands and receives powers of Supreme Law Lord of Germany.

1942 April 27 In his "Comments on the General Plan for the East", a plan formulated by the SS, Dr. Wetzel mentions the anthropological investigation, supported by the DFG, and conducted by Professor Abel (a department head at the KWI of Anthropology). It involved Soviet citizens in German prisoner-of-war camps: "...he [Abel] gave a stern warning that the Russians should not be underrated... In these circumstances, Abel saw only two possible solutions: either the extermination of the Russian people or a Germanization of its Nordic elements." (Science)

1942 April 28 Several hundred Jews are shot at Przemysl, about 150 miles east of Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1942 May The Allies receive the first authoritative and exact report of the German annihilation of Jews in Poland. More than 700,000 have already been murdered. This information has been smuggled out of Poland by the underground Jewish Socialist Party. (Bauer)

(Only one death camp, Belzec, was mentioned in the report, but it warned that the mass killings were still in progress.) (Atlas)

1942 May During a visit to Sweden, Pastor Dietrich Bonhöffer (Bonhoeffer) takes with him peace proposals from a group of German conspirators led by General Hans Oster, Chief of Staff of the Abwehr, and General Ludwig Beck, but they were rejected by the British Foreign Office.

1942 May 3-9 The Battle of the Coral Sea begins. This battle is the first naval engagement in history in which surface ships do not exchange a shot. The carrier forces are evenly matched, but the American fliers force the Japanese to make a hasty retreat. More than 25 Japanese ships are sunk or disabled. Damage to its heavy carriers hampers Japan's operations for the next several months. The Coral Sea is the first defeat for the Japanese in the South Pacific, and halts the extension of Japan's power southward.

1942 May 4 The killing center at Auschwitz goes into operation, first at Auschwitz itself, then at the nearby camp of Birkenau, where four gas chambers and crematoria are built during late 1942 and early 1943. (total victims: 1.5 - 2 million, survivors: 2,000+) (Atlas)

(Jews from each deportation were selected to live as slave laborers, some at Birkenau itself, others at nearby factories, including a synthetic oil and rubber plant later built at Monowitz. At Birkenau many Jews, particularly women, were selected by SS doctors for bizarre and painful medical experiments. During the War, Birkenau was known as Auschwitz II and Monowitz as Auschwitz III or "Buna.") (Atlas)

1942 May 4 1,200 Jews chosen from recent transports from Germany, Slovakia and France are gassed at Auschwitz.

1942 May 6 After the fall of Bataan, U.S. forces on Corregidor are cut-off. With no way to receive supplies, Lt. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright surrenders with more than 10,000 troops, medical personnel, and civilians.

1942 May 9 Wearing of the yellow star of David is made compulsory for Jews living in Holland. (Atlas)

1942 May 9 German Jews are forbidden to enter beauty parlors and barber shops. (Persecution)

1942 May 10 3,000 Jews are killed at Dunajevtsi in the Ukraine.

1942 May 15 German Jews are forbidden by law from keeping pets. (Persecution)

1942 May 18 A public display of anti-Nazi posters in Berlin by a student group led by Herbert Baum leads to their capture (See May 27). (Atlas)

1942 May 19 The Germans attack Kharkov.

1942 May 21 4,300 local Jews from Chelm are deported and gassed at Sobibor. (Atlas)

1942 May 26 In Libya, Rommel attacks the British Gazala Line, starting a drive from Libya that will soon take him to El-Alamein, 60 miles from Alexandria, Egypt.

1942 May 27 Reinhard Heydrich, one of Hitler's favorites and now Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, is seriously wounded in Prague by Czech nationals trained as British agents in England. Hitler quickly declares a state of siege in the protectorate, offers a reward of one million marks for the capture of the assassins, and vows to slaughter 10,000 Czechs. (Apparatus)

1942 May 27 At Dubno in the Ukraine, 5,000 Jews, judged to be nonproductive for the German war effort, are taken outside the town and killed. (Atlas)

1942 May 27 All 152 members of the student group which had distributed anti-Nazi posters in Berlin, are shot.

1942 May 28 After nine days of bloody fighting, the Germans are victorious at Kharkov.

1942 May 29 All Jews in France, even the French-born, are prohibited access to all public places, squares, restaurants, cafes, libraries, public baths, gardens and sports grounds. (Atlas)

1942 May 30-31 The first 1,000-bomber raid by the RAF is made on Cologne. Much of the city is destroyed, and 45,000 civilians are made homeless.

1942 June By this time, almost all 15,000 Serbian Jews deported to the concentration camp at Zemun have been gassed in mobile gas units, disguised as Red Cross vans (see November 1941 and August 29, 1942). (Atlas)

1942 June Within days of the attack on Heydrich, more than 13,000 people are arrested, 232 are executed for expressing their approval, and 462 more are executed for possessing weapons or disobeying the police. (Apparatus)

1942 June As Heydrich passes his last hours, his colleges in the SS are shaping his final legacy. Code-named Operation Reinhard in his honor, it calls for nothing less than the systematic murder by gas poisoning of the two million Jews concentrated in the ghettos of the Government General and the incorporated territories of Poland. (Apparatus)

1942 June 3 An American patrol plane sights a Japanese force of 200 ships approaching Midway Island. B-17s from Midway unsuccessfully attack Admiral Kondo's group of heavy support ships.

1942 June 4 Reinhard Heydrich, after suffering for more than a week with a broken rib, a pierced diaphragm, and a grenade splinter jutting into his spleen, dies of blood poisoning in Prague's Bulovka Hospital. Thus died the man who had designed the "Final Solution" and created the Einsatzgruppen.

(Rumors persist in Germany that Heydrich was "allowed" to die on Hitler's orders. He seemed to be recovering until Hitler's doctor arrived from Berlin; after which his condition suddenly worsened.)

1942 June 4-7 The Battle of Midway. A naval force commanded by Adm. Chester W. Nimitz defeats the Japanese force under Adm. Yamamoto Isoroku off Midway. Four Japanese aircraft carriers are sunk with the loss of one U.S. carrier (Yorktown). This battle proves to be the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

1942 June 9 At an elaborate state funeral held for Heydrich in Berlin, Himmler calls Heydrich an "ideal always to be emulated,but perhaps never again to be achieved." (Apparatus)

1942 June 9 German Jews are required to turn in all of their "excess" clothing. (Persecution)

1942 June 9 A gassing van used earlier at Zemun for the murder of Serbian Jews is sent to Riga, for the continuing killing of not only Riga's Jews, but also tens of thousands of Jews deported to Riga from Germany six months earlier. (Atlas)

1942 June 10 Hours after Heydrich's funeral, SS security police surround Lidice, a village near Prague suspected of harboring the assassins. The entire male population is executed on the spot. Some are said to have burned alive in a barn. The women are sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Many of the children are sent to Germany and brought up under different names. The entire village is torched, razed to the ground, and plowed over with grain to remove any trace of habitation. (The official German report stated that 170 men were shot. Executed separately were eleven miners returning from work, and 15 relatives of the Czech agents.) (Apparatus; WWIIDBD)

1942 June 11 German Jews are not allowed to receive cigarette ration cards. (Persecution)

1942 June 14 Shortly after the first 1000-bomber Allied raids on Cologne and Essen, Goebbels publishes an editorial in Das Reich declaring that Germany would repay England "blow for blow" for the attacks on German cities. He went on to blame the "Jewish press" of London and New York for instigating Britain's "blood-thirsty malice" against Germany. These Jews, Goebbels continued, "will pay for it (the bombings) with the extermination of their race in all Europe and perhaps even beyond." (Beast)

1942 June 15 The SS in Riga sends for another gassing van.

1942 June 18 At dawn, SS troops open fire on the Orthodox church in Prague, where Heydrich's assassins have taken refuge with several confederates. After a two-hour siege, all are killed or have taken their own lives. Their hiding place had been betrayed by Karel Curda, a young Czech who had trained with them in Britain.

1942 June 19 German Jews are ordered to turn in all their electrical and optical appliances, as well as typewriters and bicycles. (Persecution)

1942 June 20 All Jewish schools in Greater Germany are closed. (Persecution)

1942 June 20 Tobruk is captured and the Germans breakthrough into Egypt.

1942 June 26 Rudolf Hess is transported 200 miles from Camp Z to P.O.W. Reception Station, Maindiff Court in South Wales, before the war an admission clinic for the County Mental Hospital at nearby Abergavenny. Hess abruptly quits complaining of being poisoned and drugged; begins sleeping proper hours, eats without complaint, and excercises frequently. Hess' disposition becomes sunny and cheerful, and a car is provided for chauffer-driven rides in the countryside literally whenever he pleases. (Missing Years)

1942 Summer The Vatican points out to the head of the Slovak government, Dr. Josef Tiso, a Catholic priest, that the 52,000 Jews deported from Slovakia in the spring had been sent away not for labor service but for annihilation. The deportations ground to a halt because Eichmann's emissary had instructions to avoid "political complications." Thereafter, the Slovakian Jews lived in relative security until September 1944. (Poliakov; Hilberg)

1942 Summer The U.S. Army Air Force joins in operations against Germany. B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators concentrate on high altitude daylight bombing, while the RAF strikes at night.

1942 Summer Himmler assigns Paul Blobel, a former commander of one of his mobile killer groups (Einsatzgruppen) to find the most efficient means of destroying the evidence of Nazi atrocities. Working at Chelmno (Kulmhof) under the code name Sonderaktion 1005 (Special Command 1005), Blobel and a small staff began exhuming victims of the mobile gassing vans. They finally decided upon cremations over huge fireplaces. Any remaining bones were ground up in a special bone-crushing machine. The ashes and bone fragments were buried in the same pits from which the bodies had been disinterred. (Apparatus)

1942 July Roosevelt overrides his American planners, ordering that Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa, is to take place, if possible, by October 30. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower is appointed to command the joint Allied operation.

1942 July 1-27 The First Battle of El Alamein takes place in Egypt.

1942 July 2 The BBC features a broadcast by Polish-Jewish spokesman Szmul Zygielbojm, who states bluntly that the Nazis' strategy in Poland consists of the "planned extermination of a whole nation by means of shot, shell, starvation, and poison gas. (Beast)

1942 July 4 The Germans secure Sevastopol, completing their conquest of the Crimea.

1942 July 4 In a secret conversation recorded by Bormann, Hitler declares, "Once the war is over we will put a swift end to the Concordat." The financial subsidies will be eliminated at once and all old accounts settled. Until then all provocative steps have to be avoided.

1942 July 12 General Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov, one of Stalin's favorite generals, who had been awarded the Order of the Red Banner for his successful defense of Moscow against von Bock's Army Group Center, is captured by the Germans. Vlasov soon begins to raise an army from among the Russian POWs to fight alongside the Germans against Stalin. Formed in spite of Hitler's opposition, it is named the Russian Army of Liberation. (Duffy)

1942 July 14 Thousands of Jews are rounded up and arrested in Amsterdam.

1942 July 15 The first train leaves Holland for Auschwitz. 1,135 Dutch Jews are on board.

1942 July 16 Hitler arrives at Vinnitsa.

1942 July 17 The Germans deprive all Jews in Holland of their Dutch citizenship. (Atlas)

1942 July 17 Himmler visits Auschwitz-Birkenau and gives Rudolf Höss (Hoess), the camp commandant, approval for an ambitious expansion plan. Crews begin building a complex of four state-of-the-art killing centers. Each is a brick crematorium containing under one roof all the necessary facilities for the complete process, from undressing through gassing to cremation in specially designed furnaces. (Apparatus)

1942 July 17 A transport of Dutch Jews arrives at Auschwitz, and Himmler witnesses the execution of 449 persons in Bunker 2, his first such experience. That evening, Himmler attends a dinner party at Gauleiter Fritz Bracht's luxurious villa in a forest near Kattowitz. The villa had been loaned to Bracht by Giesche, one of Germany's leading mining firms, whose chief executive officer and general manager was Eduard Schulte. The villa had originally been built for the use of Giesche's American directors. (As a result of a complex financing scheme in the 1920's Giesche's Polish operations were under American management by The Silesian-American Corporation) (See Harriman, Bush and others). (Silence)

1942 July 17 Blind and handicapped German Jews are no longer allowed to display special armbands for the disabled. (Persecution)

1942 July 18 Himmler inspects Auschwitz and the surrounding area with several officials from I.G. Farben. (Silence)

1942 July 22 The Germans begin their most ambitious project to date: the deporting of more than half a million Jews from the Warsaw ghetto. The death camp prepared for them is Treblinka, little more than 40 miles away.

(In just one month, 66,701 Jews are transported to Treblinka and gassed on arrival.) (Atlas)

1942 July 23 The death camp at Treblinka goes into operation. (total victims: 800,000; survivors: under 40)

(Note: A few days later, SS Major Christian Wirth is named inspector of the death camps at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka.) (See December 8, 1941)

1942 July 28 The Jewish Fighting Organization (JFO) is set up in the Warsaw ghetto.

1942 July 29 Eduard Schulte, general manager of the Giesche mining operation near Auschwitz, departs Breslau by train for Switzerland, where he plans to disclose the German plan for the "final solution of the Jewish question," which he apparently had learned of not long after Himmler's visit to Auschwitz on July 17. He soon gave his information to several Jewish organizations, and through them, anonymously, to the rest of the world. Schulte's warning seems to have been the first report to reach the West of an overall Nazi plan, authorized at the highest levels, to eliminate the Jewish people entirely. (Silence)

1942 July 30 Harold H. Tittmann, the assistant to Myron C. Taylor, Roosevelt's personal representative at the Holy See points out to the Vatican that its silence is "endangering its moral prestige and is undermining faith both in the Church and in the Holy Father himself." (U.S.D.P. 1942; Lewy)

1942 July 31 By the end of the month, 6,000 Dutch Jews have been transported to Auschwitz, where the majority are soon gassed. (Atlas)

1942 August Sister Teresia Benedicta (Edith Stein) is removed from a Dutch monastery, where she had sought refuge. She is later gassed at Auschwitz. (Lewy)

1942 August Eduard Schulte, in return for additional loans, irrevocably transfers ownership of Giesche's Silesian-American shares to Erzag, a Swiss firm controlled by his Swiss financial backers (La Roche). Schulte became an officer of the Swiss new corporation and even obtained German permission to export zinc, an essential war commodity, to Switzerland allegedly to finance the Swiss purchase of the American shares and bonds (Harriman) of Silesian-American. The revenue from the zinc sales stayed in Swiss banks. Almost a year after Germany declared war on the U.S., the U.S. Justice Department took over the Giesche shares of Silesian-American Corporation as enemy-owned property. (Silence)

1942 August German forces move into the Caucasus. Meanwhile, the Sixth Army, led by Gen. Paulus, marches toward Stalingrad, which Hitler hopes to use as a post for defending the occupation of the Caucasus.

1942 August Colonel Kurt Gerstein, who later claims to have joined the SS to investigate the stories of extermination for himself, tries to tell the Papal Nuncio in Berlin about a gassing he had recently witnessed near Lublin. Monsignor Orsenigo refuses to see him so he tells his story to Dr. Winter, the legal advisor of Bishop Preysing of Berlin and a number of others. He also requests that the report be forwarded to the Holy See.

1942 August 4 The first deportations of Jews from Belgium begin. During the next two years, a total of 26 trainloads will make their way to Auschwitz. Of 25,631 deported, only 1,244 will survive the war. (Atlas)

1942 August 7 U.S. Marines land at Guadalcanal in the Solomons.

1942 August 8 Marines on Guadalcanal overrun the airstrip, which is soon renamed Henderson Field.

1942 August 9 The Germans capture the Caucusus oilfields.

1942 August 13 The Swiss police begin turning back Jewish refugees who manage to cross into Switzerland. (Atlas)

1942 August 17 Almost a thousand people, mainly Polish-born Jews, are deported from Paris to Auschwitz. Twenty-seven are French-born children under the age of four, most of whom are deported without their parents, are all gassed within hours of their arrival. (Atlas)

1942 August 21 Himmler again visits with Odilo Globocnik in Lublin. (Architect)

1942 August 21 Photos of Jews being beaten and killed on a transport bound for Treblinka are taken by a young Austrian soldier, Hubert Pfoch, at Siedlce in Poland, while on his way to the Russian Front. (Apparatus)

1942 August 23 German troops reach the Volga above Stalingrad. The Luftwaffe begins heavy bombing of the city with high explosives and incendiaries, causing 40,000 casualties within a few hours.

1942 August 23 A swastika banner is said to have been planted atop Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains by a special SS detachment. The flag they planted was allegedly blessed according to the secret, mystical rites of the SS inner circle. Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in the Caucasus Mountains, as well as all of Europe, was also known as the "sacred hill of the Aryans," a seat of ancient civilizations, and the magic peak of a sect called by some the "Friends of Lucifer." (Pauwels)

(Mt. Elbrus is an extinct volcano formed during the Tertiary Period, it has two cones rising to 18,510 ft. and 18,481 ft. in altitude.The name Caucasia, which was first recorded by the ancient Greeks, has a disputed derivation.Caucasia, which gave its name to the white race of humankind, has long served as a center of human settlement distinguished by ethnic complexity. About 40 languages are still spoken in the region, many of them in the so-called Caucasian group of languages.) (Grolier)

1942 August 26 At Treblinka, a young deportee from Kielce, having been forbidden by one of the Ukrainian guards to say farewell to his mother, attacks the guard with a knife. The whole train of deportees is machine-gunned. (Atlas)

1942 August 28 Abetz, Papal Nuncio to Vichy France, requests Laval to mitigate the severity of measures taken against the Jews during the mass deportations that had recently begun in France. (PA Bonn; Lewy)

1942 August 29 Berlin is officially informed that the Jewish problem is Serbia is "totally solved." Of Serbia's 23,000 Jews, 20,000 have been murdered. (Atlas)

1942 August 30 Rommel is repulsed at Alam Halfa, Egypt.

1942 September Harold Tittmann and several other diplomatic representatives at the Vatican, with Secretary of State Hull's authorization, formally request that the Pope condemn the "incredible horrors" perpetrated by the Nazis. (Lewy)

1942 September The death camp at Majdanek goes into operation. (victims: 500,000; survivors: fewer than 600)

1942 September 1 German troops reach the outskirts of Stalingrad.

1942 September 2 At Lachwa in Poland, 820 Jews lead by Dov Lopatin revolt against their "liquidation." 700 are killed, 120 escape. Many join a Soviet partisan unit. (Atlas)

1942 September 10 533 Jews are deported from Nuremberg to the camp at Theresienstadt. Only 27 survive the war. (Atlas)

1942 September 11 Meir Berliner, a young Jew from Argentina trapped in Warsaw by the war, uses his penknife to stab an SS officer to death at Treblinka. (Atlas)

1942 September 15 Polish-born Jews are deported from Lille, France, to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1942 September 16 The German army enters Stalingrad. Fighting soon becomes street-to-street, block-to-block, house-to-house combat.

1942 September 16 Forty Bulgarian-born Jews are among those deported to Auschwitz from Paris. No Jews in Bulgaria had yet been deported to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1942 September 16 Heinrich Himmler in a speech at Hegewald says that the blood that coursed through the veins of Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, and Stalin... was German. (Architect)

1942 September 18 The first executions of Jews takes place at the Natzweiler concentration camp in Alsace. (Atlas)

1942 September 18 A decree orders that German Jews are no longer entitled to buy meat, eggs, and milk products. (Persecution)

1942 September 23 The SS launches the "Gehsperre" action designed to make the Lodz ghetto a "working ghetto." All children under 10, all men and women over 60, and the sick or disabled are deported to the death camp at Chelmno. Within two weeks more than 16,000 are gassed. (Atlas)

1942 September 24 Colonel-General Franz Halder, Chief of the general staff of the army (OKH), is fired by Hitler. (Duffy)

1942 September 25 In Paris, 700 Romanian-born Jews are seized by the SS and deported to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1942 September 25 An instruction to Swiss police states: "Under current practice, refugees on the grounds of race alone are not political refugees." (Atlas)

1942 September 26 Myron C. Taylor, Roosevelt's personal representative at the Holy See, forwards to Papal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione a memorandum of the Jewish Agency for Palestine that reports mass executions of Jews in Poland and occupied Russia, and told of deportations to death camps from Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, Slovakia, etc. Taylor asks if the Vatican can confirm these reports and if so, "whether the Holy Father has any suggestions as to any practical manner in which the forces of civilized public opinion could be utilized in order to prevent a continuation of these barbarities." (U.S.D.P. 1942; Lewy)

1942 Autumn Sobibor becomes the first Operation Reinhard camp to begin exhuming its corpses and burning them. (Apparatus)

1942 October The Germans capture the southern and central parts of Stalingrad and thrust into the industrial sectors of the north. Hand-to-hand fighting takes place in cellars, sewers, and factories. The Soviet casualty rate reaches its peak in mid-October, and the defenders of Stalingrad appear trapped.

1942 October 4 Beginning of deportation of all Jews from concentration camps in Germany to Auschwitz. (Persecution)

1942 October 6 Tittmann reports to the State Department that the Pope's silence is due in part to the desire of the Holy See to assure that Papal pronouncements stand the test of time and that that the Pope has hesitated to condemn German atrocities because he does not want to incur later the reproach of the German people that the Catholic Church had contributed to their defeat. (U.S.D.P. 1942; , Lewy)

1942 October 10 The Holy See replies to Taylor's note (September 26) that up to the present it had not been possible to verify the accuracy of the severe measures reportedly taken against the Jews. (U.S.D.P. 1942; Lewy)

1942 October 15 Ernst Woermann, director of the political department of the Foreign Ministry, records that Papal Nuncio Orsenigo in Berlin had made several inquiries about mass shootings and the fate of the deported Jews with "some embarrassment and without emphasis." (PA Bonn; Lewy)

1942 October Himmler, when received by Count Ciano on a visit to Rome, praises the "discretion" of theVatican. (Lewy)

1942 October 20 The U.S. government orders the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York which were being conducted by Prescott Bush. The U.S. Alien Property Custodian took over the Union Banking Corporation and its stock shares, all of which were owned by E. Roland "Bunny" Harriman, Bush, three Nazi executives and two other Bush associates.

1942 October 23 Field Marshal Montgomery begins his attack on El Alamein. After a 5-hour, thousand-gun artillery barrage. Two British columns move forward cutting a deep salient into the German lines.

1942 October 25 Rommel returns to North Africa from sick leave in Germany and immediately counterattacks.

1942 October 25 In Oslo, Norway, 209 Jewish men and boys over the age of 16 are deported to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1942 October 28 The U.S. government orders the seizure of two Nazi front organizations run by Prescott Bush and Averell Harriman: The Holland-American Trading Company and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation.

1942 October 30 Hitler departs Vinnitsa.

1942 November Vichy France loses almost all autonomy after German troops enter unoccupied France.

1942 November 1 Professor Fischer retires. His successor as Director of the KWI of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics is Professor von Verschuer. (Science)

1942 November 2 One of the most carefully organized and intensive Jewish roundups takes place in the Bialystok region. 110,000 Jews, who had been strictly confined to their villages, are now seized and eventually transported to Treblinka and Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1942 November 3 After standing firm for more than a week, Rommel's German and Italian forces begin a withdrawal from El Alamein and begin heading back for Libya.

1942 November 5 Rommel retreats from Fuka.

1942 November 6 Approximately10,000 Jews from Chelm are sent to Sobibor. (Atlas)

1942 November 6 Himmler gives his support to a plan to establish a collection of Jewish skulls and skeletons at the Reich Anatomical Institute in Strasbourg, not far from Natzweiler concentration camp. (Atlas) (see June 21, 1943)

1942 November 7 British forces enter Mersa Matruh, but most of Rommel's divisions have already slipped away.

1942 November 8 - 9 "Operation Torch" - U.S. and British forces land in strength in French Morocco and Algeria. Timed to coincide with Montgomery's offensive, the operation places them in a position to attack Rommel's Afrika Korps from the west.

1942 November 9 Hiram J. Perez de Cruet and Betty Jo Box (Bach) are married in Winnfield, LA.

1942 November 9 Allen Dulles arrives in Bern, Switzerland, on the last train from Vichy France, only hours before the Germans occupy southern France and cut the rail link. Ostensibly taking up a post as assistant to the American minister in Bern, Dulles's real job is to organize the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Mission in Switzerland. He soon begins setting up a professional intelligence outpost on Germany's southern border. Dulles had already met Eduard Schulte 15 years earlier at Sullivan and Cromwell, Dulles law firm, which sometimes represented Giesche's partner Anaconda Copper. (Silence)

1942 November 9 Hitler attends Blutzeuge (Day of National Memory) ceremonies in Munich.

1942 November 10 Hitler, Laval and Ciano meet in Munich to discuss the situation in North Africa.

1942 November 11 Archbishop Bertram, in the name of the episcopate, sends a letter of protest against the planned compulsory divorce legislation to the Ministers of Justice, Interior and Ecclesiastical Affairs. According to Catholic doctrine, these marriages were indissoluble. (Lewy)

1942 November 11 The Germans occupy Vichy France.

1942 November 16 The deportation of German Gypsies to Auschwitz begins.

1942 November 17 Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation, long-managed by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law, George Herbert Walker, are seized under the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act. The government announces it is seizing only the Nazi interests, leaving the Nazis' U.S. partners, Bush and his father-in-Law, to carry on the business.

1942 November 17 The Allies warn the Germans that the killing of Jews will be severely punished.

1942 November 19 The Soviet counteroffensive at Stalingrad begins. A large Soviet offensive is launched along the Don and Volga Rivers against Romanian Armies north and south of Stalingrad. Soviet tanks penetrate the front and destroy five Romanian divisions. Hungarian and Italian armies are also crushed.

1942 November 19 Hitler refuses a withdrawal plan by General Kurt Zeitzler, who had replaced Halder as Army Chief of Staff, that would have allowed General Paulus to pull out of Stalingrad and strike the Soviet forces from the rear, crippling their offensive. (Duffy)

1942 November 23 Goering volunteers the Luftwaffe to fly supplies into Stalingrad.

1942 November 25 531 Jewish women and children are seized in Norway and deported from Oslo to Auschwitz. (Atlas) (see October 25, 1942. Of the 740 Jews deported from Norway, only 12 will survive the war. As many as 930 Norwegian Jews escape into Sweden.)

1942 November 26 An article in an SS periodical, the Schwarze Korps, states that in the Napola, SS preparatory schools "pupils learn how to kill and how to die." When inaugurating a new Napola, Himmler reduced the doctrine to its lowest common measure: "Believe, obey, fight; that is all." ( Later, if proven worthy, students were admitted to the Burgs (Ordenburgs) for further SS training and education.) (Pauwels)

1942 November 29 William S. Farish, president and CEO of Standard Oil of New Jersey dies of an apparent heart attack.

1942 November 30 The New York Times runs one of the first articles on the unfolding story of the Holocaust. That article, under the headline: "1,000,000 Jews Slain by the Nazis, Report Says" is only six paragraphs long and buried on page 7. An exhibition of the clipping in June 1996 at the New York Public Library included a caption noting that The Times was criticized for having "grossly underplayed" coverage of theHolocaust, and deemed such criticism as valid. (NY Times, June 26, 1996)

1942 November 30 Romanian leader Marshal Antonescu makes his first secret contacts with the Western Powers.

1942 December Belzec shuts down its gas chambers for good and begins exhuming the estimated 600,000 bodies buried there. (Apparatus)

1942 December The researh ward run by the Heidelberg psychiatrist Professor C. Schneider in Wiesloch comes into full operation. In this ward, idiots and epileptics are physiologically and psychologically investigated. After their euthanasia elsewhere, their brains are anatomically and histologically studied. (Science)

1942 December 4 The Germans deport 817 Dutch Jews to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1942 December 4 The Congress Weekly, a publication of the American Jewish Congress, begins publishing reports from Dr. Gerhart Reigner, a representative of the World Jewish Congress in Switzerland, stating that the Nazi leadership has a plan to resolve the Jewish question in Europe by means of poison gas. In 1983, the source of this information was discovered to be a German businessman named Eduard Schulte who is said to had "close connections with the highest German authorities." Schulte was in fact closely associated with the Silesian-American Corporation which was the holding company for his own company, Giesche, which had operations both in Germany and Poland. The Silesian-American corporation was 49% owned by German Giesche, 51% was held by Anaconda Copper and Harriman and Company. (Before America entered the war, Schulte had tried to arrange a Swiss purchase of all the shares and bonds of the Silesian-American Corporation, but the transaction was blocked by the U.S. Treasury department as "of potential benefit" to Germany) (Silence)

1942 December 8 The Germans deport 927 Dutch Jews to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1942 December 8 Professor Hallervorden, Department Head at the KWI of Brain Research, writes in a progress report on his research for the DFG: "In addition, during the course of this summer, I have been able to dissect 500 brains from feeble-minded individuals, and to prepare them for examination." (Science)

1942 December The Western Allies begin vigorously denouncing the cold-blooded extermination of the Jews. (Lewy)

1942 December 12 The Germans deport 757 Dutch Jews to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1942 December 12 Hiram J. Perez de Cruet departs the U.S. for North Africa.

1942 December 16 A German decree orders that all German Gypsies are to be deported to Auschwitz. About 20,000 will be killed at Auschwitz, and many thousands more die at other camps. No more than one-fifth of the prewar population in German-held territories will survive the war (Atlas)

1942 December 16 Himmler issues an order that all persons of mixed Gypsy blood be sent to Auschwitz. (Science)

1942 December 17 The Allies pledge punishment for Nazi extermination of the Jews.

1942 December 20 A pastoral letter by the new Archbishop of Cologne, Dr. Joseph Frings, is read in his archdiocese. Itinsists that all men have the right to life, property and marriage, and that these rights can not be denied be denied even to those "who are not of our blood or do not speak our language. (Lewy)

1942 December 22 Tittmann reports to the State Department that Papal Secretary of State Maglione has informed him that the Holy See, in line with its policy of neutrality, could not protest particular atrocities and had to limit itself to condemning immoral actions in general. He assured Tittmann that everything possible was being done behind the scenes to help the Jews. (U.S.D.P. 1942; Lewy)

1942 December 24 Pope Pius XII makes another of his many calls for the more humane conduct of hostilities during a lengthy Christmas message over Vatican Radio. Humanity, he said, owed the resolution of a better world to "the hundreds of thousands who, without personal guilt, sometimes for no other reason than their nationality or descent, were doomed to death or exposed to a progressive deterioration of their condition." (DA Eichstätt; Lewy)

1942 December 26 Hiram J. Perez de Cruet arrives in North Africa.

1942 December 31 During 1942 a number of Catholic officers serving in Russia and Poland reported to the episcopate about the murder of the Jews. One such officer, Dr. Alfons Hildebrand, took special leave from his unit near Minsk to report the massacres he had witnessed to Cardinal Faulhaber. Dr. Joseph Müller, an officer in Canaris' Military Intelligence Service and a confidant of Cardinal Faulhaber, also kept the episcopate well informed about the systemic atrocities committed in Poland. Another source of information was Dr. Hans Globke, a Catholic and high official in the Ministry of the Interior entrusted with handling racial matters. (Dehler; Lewy)

1942 Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch is appointed an honorary SS "professor."

1942 German forces occupy Vichy France and the French fleet is scuttled in Toulon harbor.

1942 Manhattan Project scientists under Italian-born American physicist Enrico Fermi produce the first controlled chain reaction in an atomic pile at the University of Chicago.

1942 The U.S. government confines 110,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps.

1943 January The Russians begin the bombardment of Stalingrad with 7,000 pieces of artillery and a devastating air assault.

1943 January More than 10,000 Jews from Holland, Belgium, Berlin, and Theresienstadt are deported to Auschwitz. The last Dutch transport in January contains 869 invalids and children; all are gassed on arrival (Atlas)

1943 January 2 Marshal Antonescu meets with Hitler and reconciles their differences concerning the Romanian failures and the disaster at Stalingrad.

1943 January 3 A Jewish resistance group in Czestochowa kills 25 Germans. The SS shots 250 old people and children in reprisal. (Atlas)

1943 January 14-26 Roosevelt and Churchill meet for the Conference at Casablanca, on the Moroccan coast. Stalin, claiming that he was promised a European second front by the spring of 1942, refuses to attend. The Allies demand the "unconditional surrender" of Germany.

1943 January 18 The German siege of Leningrad is broken by the Russians.

1943 January 18 Professor C. Schneider places his first requests for the killing of patients at his research ward in Wiesloch before the Reich Commission for the Registration of Severe Disorders in Childhood. (Science)

1943 January 18 The Jewish underground in Warsaw resists a new wave of deportations. In four days, 6,000 Jews are deported and 1,000 killed in the streets. So fierceis the Jewish resistance and street fighting that deportations are suspended until April 19. (Atlas)

1943 January 19 Mihai Antonrscu, Romanian Foreign Minister, asks Mussolini to take the lead of a Latin League and to start negotiations with the Allies.

1943 January 30 The first daylight bombing on Berlin by a group British Mosquito bombers is timed to disrupt the celebration of Hitler's tenth anniversary in power.

1943 January 30 Hitler promotes General Paulus to Field Marshal.

1943 January 30 The Russians locate Paulus' Headquarters in southern Stalingrad and begin to surround it.

1943 January 31 Field Marshal von Paulus surrenders himself and the southern pocket of Germans in Stalingrad. General Strecker's group continues to hold out.

(Note: Paulus is the first German Field Marshal in history to surrender to the enemy.)

1943 February Goebbels makes an impassioned speech preaching what he calls "total war."

1943 February Han Bernd Gisevius, German vice-consul in Zurich and a senior Abwehr (military intelligence) agent, makes contact with Allen Dulles through Gero von Gaevernitz, a naturalized American citizen who has become Dulles right-hand man and chief advisor on German politics. Gisevius cautions Dulles that the American legation's codes are not secure, thereby earning Dulles's gratitude. Gisevius and his Abwehr associate Eduard Waetjen continue to supply Dulles with information until the end of the war. (Silence)

1943 February 1-15 Emissaries of Mihai Antonescu in Bern, Switzerland, make contact with the West through Papal Nuncio Bernardini and in Bucharest through the Turkish Ambassador.

1943 February 2 The last German forces in Stalingrad surrender and the Battle of Stalingrad comes to an end. Of approximately 280,000 Germans originally surrounded in the city, 90,000 are taken prisoner. About 40,000 wounded have been evacuated. The Soviets later claim to have removed 147,000 German corpses from the city for reburial. (Fewer than 5,000 of prisoners-of-war live to return to Germany, the last in 1955.)

1943 February 11 1,000 Jews from France, including several hundred children and old people are transported to Auschwitz. All the children are gassed on arrival and only 10 of the others will survive the war. (Atlas)

1943 February 14 The Battle of Kasserine. Rommel makes a sudden strike at the American lines in Tunisia, driving 59 miles through U.S. positions at Kasserine Pass.

1943 February 17 Hitler flies to Manstein's headquarters at Zaporozhye on the Eastern Front. He stays there until February 19 when he agrees to Manstein's plan for a counterattack.

1943 February 19 Leaders of the "White Rose" resistance group are arrested and tortured in Berlin.

1943 February 22 Rommel's drive at Kasserine loses momentum and he pulls back.

1943 February 24 Rommel is appointed commander of Army Group Afrika, and the Germans pull back to the Eastern Dorsale, leaving numerous booby traps behind.

1943 February 27 During the courseof deporting the last German Jews, the Gestapo in Berlin seizes 6,000 Christian "non-Aryan" men married to "Aryan" women. Then something unexpected and unparalleled happens: their "Aryan" wives follow their husbands to the place of temporary detention and stand for several hours screaming and howling for their men. With the secrecy of the whole machinery of destruction threatened, the Gestapo yields and the "non-Aryan" husbands are released. (Andreas-Friedrich; Lewy)

1943 February 27 The SS puts into operation the "Factory Action," deporting more than 10,000 Jewish factory workers in Germany to the east. Only a few survive. (Atlas)

1943 President Roosevelt appoints Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., as under secretary of state and charges him with the task of reorganizing the U.S. State Department.

1943 March Himmler speaks of a future SS state: "At the Peace Conference, the world will be apprised of the resurrection of the old province of Burgundy, formerly the land of the arts and sciences, which France has reduced to the role of a mere appendage preserved in spirits of wine. The sovereign State of Burgundy with its own army, its own laws and currency and postal system, will be the model SS State. It will be comprised of French Switzerland, Picardy, Champagne, the Franche-Comte, the Hainaut and Luxembourg. The official language, naturally, will be German. The National-Socialist Party will have no jurisdiction over it. It will be governed by the SS alone, and the world will be astonished by and full of admiration for this State in which the ideals of the SS will be embodied." (Pauwels)

1943 March After a visit by Himmler, Treblinka adopts cremation to dispose of the victims bodies. Some 700,000 bodies are unearthed by mechanical excavators and cremated, while simultaneously, bodies from the gas chambers are disposed of in the same manner. Teams of Jewish prisoners transferred the corpses on stretchers to huge steel grids, called "roasters" by the Germans, that could hold as many as 3,000 stacked-up bodies. These 100-foot-wide grids were constructed of a half-dozen railroad rails, resting on three rows of 28-inch-high concrete posts. Brushwood was placed underneath the grid to serve as kindling. (Apparatus)

1943 March During March, five trains leave Holland for Sobibor, one train leaves Paris for Auschwitz, and two trains leave Paris for Majdanek. (Atlas)

1943 March 3-4 Japanese troop transports and their naval escorts carrying reinforcements to Lae and Salamaua are attacked by U.S. B-24Liberators and B-17 Flying Fortresses. All of the transports and four destroyers are sunk, killing more than 3,500 Japanese soldiers and sailors. Only 5 aircraft are lost.

1943 March 9 Himmler specifies, in a decree, that only physicians trained in anthropology should carry out selection for killing, and supervise the killings themselves, in extermination camps. (Science)

1943 March 9 Rommel leaves North Africa and will never return. On his way home he meets with Mussolini in Rome and Hitler in East Prussia, but is unable to convince either of them to withdraw from Africa.

1943 March 10 The SS demands the deportation of all 49,000 Bugarian Jews to Poland. The Bulgarian people, the King, the Parliament, the intellectuals and even the farmers, who were said to be ready to lie down on the railway tracks to prevent the deportations. (Atlas)

1943 March 13 The first crematorium goes into operation at Birkenau (Auschwitz II). Prominent guests come from Berlin to witness the "special inaugural" program: the gassing and cremation of Jews from Kracow. The additional crematoriums are completed during the following three months. The four killing centers contain a total of six gas chambers and fourteen ovens for cremating up to 8,000 corpses a day. (Apparatus)

1943 March 13 Two explosive packets disguised as brandy bottles are put aboard Hitler's private plane in an unsuccessful, yet undiscovered, assassination attempt by officers in the anti-Hitler resistence. (Children)

1943 March 15 More than 2,800 Jews are deported during the first deportations from Salonica. They are told they will be "resettled" in Poland. (Atlas)

1943 March 17 Hofmann, head of the RuSHA, submits a proposal to Himmler for the "final solution" of the question of part-Jews prepared by his subordinate Professor B. K. Schultz: "It is proposed that: quarter-Jews should not be included in the same category as persons of German blood without exception, but that they should first undergo a racial classification. Every quarter-Jew in whom Jewish racial characteristics are clearly prominent, as judged from external appearances, should be treated in the same way as half-Jews (i.e. as Jews)". (Science)

1943 March 17 The Bulgarian Parliament votes unanimously against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews, and none are deported to gas chambers from Bulgaria itself. The country's Jewish population actually increased during the war, from 48,565 in 1934 to 49,172 in 1945. (Atlas)

1943 March 18 General Patton's II U.S. Corps takes Gafsa and pushes toward El Guettar.

1943 March 20 Hitler leaves Wolf's Lair on doctor's orders and recuperates at Obersalzberg.

1943 March 20 Montgomery attacks the defensive Mareth Line.

1943 March 23 The Germans halt Patton's American advance near El Guettar.

1943 March 23 Dr. Ritter reports to the DFG: "Registration of Gypsies and part-Gypsies has been completed roughly as planned in the Old Reich (prewar Germany) and in the Ostmark (prewar Austria) despite all the difficulties engendered by the war... The number of cases clarified from the race-biological point of view is 21,498 at the present time." (Science)

1943 March 23 SS-statistician Dr. Korherr sends the report, which Himmler had requested, on the final solution of the Jewish question to his secretary. The report states that, up to 1 January 1943, 2.4 million Jews had been "evacuated to the East", that is to say, "had received special treatment" (i.e. deportation to extermination camps). (Science)

1943 March 25 The last of 4,000 Jews from the Marseilles area are transported to Sobibor. All but 15 are gassed and only 5 survive the war. (Atlas)

1943 March 28 Professor Fischer begins an article in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung with the sentence: "It is a rare and special good fortune for a theoretical science to flourish at a time when the prevailing ideology welcomes it, and its findings can immediately serve the policy of the state." (Science)

1943 March 29 A German decree orders that all Dutch Gypsies are to be deported to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1943 April Mass killings in Galicia continue, as do deportations to Auschwitz and Treblinka; nine transports from Salonica, four from Holland, and one each from Belgium and France. (Atlas)

1943 April 3 The German defenders continue to hold off attacksby Patton's troops around El Guettar.

1943 April 4 Eisenhower's U.S. First Army joins Montgomery's Eighth Army near Gafsa.

1943 April 5 Pastor Dietrich Bonhöffer (Bonhoeffer) is arrested by the Gestapo, charged with subverting the German armed forces and imprisoned. (See May 1942)

1943 April 5 Montgomery attacks the Wadi Akarit Line.

1943 April 7 The annihilation of the Warsaw ghetto begins and will continue until June 16.

1943 April 7 Chelmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp discontinues its activities. Attempts are made to eliminate all traces of mass murder. (Days)

1943 April 7 In Tunisia, Count Claus von Stauffenberg's automobile drives into a minefield, seriously wounding him. Stauffenberg loses his left eye, his right hand, part of his arm, and several fingers on his left hand.

1943 April 7-11 Hitler and Mussolini meet at Salzburg and decide to continue holding on in North Africa.

1943 April 12 The Germans announce the discovery of a group of mass graves in the Katyn Forest containing the bodies of 4,100 Polish officers, murdered by the Soviets.

1943 April 14 The slave labor camp at Siedlce near Sobibor is "liquidated." (Atlas)

1943 April 16 The Polish government in exile in London asks for a Red Cross investigation of the mass murders in the Katyn Forest.

1943 April 18 The Soviets make an announcement on the murders in the Katyn Forest, claiming that the Germans have concocted the entire story.

1943 April 18 Admiral Yamamato is killed when his airplane is intercepted and shot down by American P-38 fighters over Bougainville.

1943 April 19 The remaining population of the Warsaw ghetto rises up against the Germans when the ghetto is attacked by a heavily armed force of more than 2,000 German soldiers,Lithuanian militia members, Polish policemen and fire fighters. The Jews, numbering about 60,000, armed only with a few pistols, rifles, machineguns, and homemade weapons, put up a heroic fight, and force the Germans out of the ghetto altogether.

1943 April 19 Within a few hours the Germans return, and begin systematically burning down the Warsaw ghetto, street by street, while at the same time killing or driving out with smoke and hand grenades the Jews who continue to fight from the bunkers and sewers. (Atlas)

1943 April 19 U.S. and British delegates at the Bermuda Conference fail to produce plans for savingvictims of the Nazis.

1943 April 20 Himmler promises to crush Jewish resistence in the Warsaw ghetto as a birthday present to Hitler.

1943 April 23 The SS begins an all-out operation to eliminate the remaining Jews still hiding in the Warsaw ghetto. Resistance continues for three more weeks. (See May 8 and May 16)

1943 April 23 Anglo-U.S. Headquarters is set up in London to plan the invasion of Europe.

1943 May The Catholic bishops of Holland forbid the collaboration of Catholic policemen in the hunting down of Jews in their country, even at the cost of losing their own jobs. (Lewy)

1943 May 7 Both Tunis and Bizerte fall to the Allies.

1943 May 8 The Germans reach the Jewish underground headquarters in the Warsaw ghetto. Mordecai Anielewicz, the underground leader, and 100 of his fighters die in the battle. (Atlas)

1943 May 13 The vaunted Afrika Korps surrenders. German resistance in Tunisia collapses and the war in Africa comes to an end. 250,000 Axis soldiers are captured in the last few days, half of them German.

1943 May 16 The German commander of Warsaw, Gen. Juergen Stroop, reports to his superiors that "the former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence." According to Stroop's figures, 56,000 Jews have been burned alive, shot as they emerged from burning buildings, or deported to Treblinka.

(As may as 15,000 Jews escaped to the "Aryan" part of Warsaw. Some were captured, but most, sheltered by the Poles, survived the war.) (Atlas)

1943 May 18 The village of Szarajowka in eastern Poland is encircled by the Germans. Young men are shot on the spot. The women and children are herded into buildings and stables, which are then set on fire. Only a few escape. (Apparatus)

1943 May 24 German Admiral Doenitz orders his U-boats to leave the Atlantic.

1943 May 24 SS 2nd Lieutenant Max Täubner, commanding officer of a supplies workshop platoon and an officer in Kommandostab RF-SS, is tried for conducting unauthorized massacres of Jews in Russia. Täubner is sentenced to a total of ten years imprisonment, expelled from the SS, and declared unfit for service. (see June 1, 1943 and January 16, 1945) (Days)

1943 May 30 SS Dr. Josef Mengele reports for duty at Auschwitz. Mengele has been persuaded to ask for this position by Professor Otmar von Verschuer, one of Europe's most eminent geneticists and a pioneer in hereditary biology at the Frankfurt University Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Purity. Verschuer's institute agreed to fund Mengele's experiments if Mengele in return would send his results and specimens to the institute "for further study." (Mengele)

(Mengele was a former assistant to Professor von Verschuer and a visiting scientist in Verschuer's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology in Berlin-Dahlem. Mengele's first act at Auschwitz was to send those Gypsies who are suspected of suffering from typhoid to the gas chambers.) (Science)

1943 June Hitler arranges a secret conference with the Russians at Kirovograd, 200 miles behind the German lines. RIbbentrop, representing Hitler, offers to end the war on condition that Germany would retain the Ukraine and all territory west of the Dneiper River. Molotov, representing Stalin, replies that they will never settle for anything short of their old, prewar frontier. (Payne)

1943 June The Germans deliberately leak information about the Kirovograd Conference to the Allies. Stalin immediately breaks off the negotiations and calls Molotov back to Moscow. Neither the Russians nor the Germans will officially admit that this meeting ever took place. (Payne)

1943 June The new crematoriums at Auschwitz have a total capacity of 4,756 persons a day. (Science)

1943 June Professor C. Schneider's research ward at Wiesloch is closed due to problems caused by the war. (Science)

1943 June Deportations of Jews from Holland and France continue throughout the month. (Atlas)

1943 June The last 600 workers who had remained at Belzec to complete the digging up and burning of corpses are transferred to Sobibor and shot. (Apparatus)

1943 June 1 The cases against four men in SS 2nd Lieutenant Max Täubner's workshop platoon who were party to his unauthorized execution of Jews in Russia are dismissed on the grounds that they were following the orders of and under the responsibilityof Täubner and "therefore their own culpability might be described as slight." (Days)

1943 June 2 Pope Pius XII tells the Sacred College of Cardinals that he has given special attention to the plight of those who were still being harassed because of their nationality and descent, and who, without personal guilt, were subjected to measures that spelled destruction. Much had been done for the unfortunates, the Pope said, that could not yet be described. Every public statement had had to be carefully weighed "in the interest of those suffering so that their situation would not inadvertently be made still more difficult and unbearable." Unfortunately, he added, the Church's pleas for compassion and the observance of the elementary norms of humanity had encountered doors "which no key was able to open." (AB Munich; Lewy)

1943 June 5 The Germans deport 1,266 Jewish children under the age of 16 from Holland to Sobibor. All are gassed on arrival. (Atlas)

1943 June 7 Professor Clauberg, a gynaecologist from Königsberg, writes to Himmler that the method which he has been developing in Auschwitz for large-scale sterilization of women is "as good as ready". "I can now see the answer to the question you put to me almost a year ago about how long it would take to sterilize 1000 women in this way. An appropriately trained doctor could most probably sterilize several hundred, although perhaps not 1000, in a day." (Science)

1943 June 21 On Himmler's orders, doctors at Auschwitz select 73 Jewish men and 30 Jewish women who are then sent to the camp at Natzweiler in Alsace. There they are measured, weighed and gassed. Their corpses are then transported to the Anatomical Institute at Strasbourg where they are stripped of flesh for the institute's collection of Jewish skulls and skeletons. (see November 6, 1942, October 15,1944) (Atlas)

1943 June 21 U.S. Marines land at New Georgia in the Solomons.

1943 June 26 Bishop Preysing sends word to the other bishops by messenger that the divorce decree has again been postponed. He asks the other bishops to each write letters to all government ministries inquiring in strong language about the whereabouts of the deportees, demanding pastoral care for the "non-Aryan" Christians and threatening a public protest. "Beyond this," he says, "one should speak clearly about the outrages inflicted upon the Jews in general." (DA Limburg; Lewy)

1943 Summer Round-the-clock bombing of German cities by the Allies steadily mounts until all Germany is subjected to massive air raids. As the effectiveness of the U.S. fighter escorts increases, the Luftwaffe becomes less and less able to counter the air attacks.

1943 July 1 Mihai Antonescu, in Rome, again asks Mussolini to begin immediate negotiation with the Allies.

1943 July 5-15 Operation Citadel - The Battle of Kursk beomes the largest tank battle of all time. Hitler intends to break up the Kursk salient with an overwhelming mass of armor, allowing his forces to sweep up behind Moscow, capturing it from the rear. The Russians learn of the plan in advance and quickly set up a trap.

1943 July 9/10 The British and Americans launch Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. The British 8th Army lands at Cape Passero and then advances up the eastern coast. The U.S. Seventh Army, led by General George S. Patton wins a beachhead at Gela. General Omar Bradley's II Corps and General Lucian K. Truscott's task force cut through the center of the island and sweep up the western coast.

1943 July 12 At Kursk, the Soviets, favored by a seemingly endless supply of troops and tanks, move in fresh tank divisions and the advantage swingsto the Russians. Manstein, having lost 70,000 men, half his tanks, and 1,000 aircraft, is forced to withdraw.

1943 July 17 Hitler tells his top generals at the Wolf's Lair that "barbaric measures" are needed to save Italy. Only by terrifying the Italian population into blind obedience, he says, can they stiffen Italian resistance.

1943 July 19 Hitler and Mussolini meet at Feltre, a small hill town north of Venice.

1943 July 22 The U.S. Seventh Army takes Palermo, Sicily.

1943 July 24-25 The Allies begin a devastating series of combined air raids on largely civilan targets in Hamburg. The British alone deploy 780 planes and drop 2,300 tons of bombs on the first night.

1943 July 25 Mussolini is kidnapped and arrested by King Victor Emmanuel. Mussolini is abandoned by most Italians and only the Black Shirts remain loyal.

1943 July 25 Pietro Badoglio becomes Italian Prime Minister and soon begins negotiating an armistice with the Allies.

1943 July 27/28 The RAF drops thousands of pounds of incendiary bombs of Hamburg, creating a "firestorm" for the first time. A firestorm occurs when the fires in a given area become so intense that they devour all oxygen nearby, creating hurricane force winds a they suck more oxygen in, feeding the fires and moving them along at great speed. (Three-quarters of Hamburg is burned to the ground. 50,000 German civilians are killed and 800,000 left homeless.)

1943 July 29-30 Allied bombers again hit Hamburg by day and night.

1943 August More than 2,000 Jews are deported from Holland to Auschwitz. Slave labor camps in the General Government are "liquidated," and their inmates murdered. (Atlas)

1943 August At Sobibor, members of the corpse-burning squad dig a tunnel, but come out in the minefield. All 150 members of the squad are executed. (Atlas)

1943 August 1 More than 175 American B-24 Liberators) bomb the Ploesti oilfields in Romania, a 2,400-mile round trip from Libya. This low-level attack severely damages the major oil center of Hitler's Europe, but the U.S. Ninth Air Force loses 54 planes during the raid. A year later, Ploesti will again be targeted and knocked out in a savage three-day assault. 2,277 American airmen and 270 planes are lost.

1943 August 2 During a Jewish uprising at Treblinka, many of the camp's 850 workers manage to break out and enjoy a brief taste of freedom before German reinforcements are brought in. Only about 100 escape the dragnet. Fewer still survive the war. (Apparatus)

1943 August 2-3 Hundreds of Allied bombers once again bomb Hamburg.

1943 August 4 The Soviets recapture Orel.

1943 August 4 The Allies bomb Peenemunde, the German rocket laboratory and test site in the Baltic. (Silence)

1943 August 5 The British Eighth Army, reinforced by Canadians, takes Catania, Sicily.

1943 August 7 The last trainload of Jews from Salonica leaves for Auschwitz, where more than 43,000 of Salonica's 56,000 Jew have already been murdered. (Atlas)

1943 August 13-24 An Allied conference (Quadrant) is held in Quebec. Roosevelt and Churchill approve the decision to establish a second front in France, as well as specific plans for an Allied landing at Normandy on May 1, 1944. Churchill accepts that the Supreme Commander of the invasion should be American.

1943 August 16 A Jewish revolt at Bialystok is crushed by the Germans with tanks and artillery (to August 23). (Atlas)

1943 August 17 The Americans capture Messina ending the Sicilian campaign.

1943 August 18 The DFG (the German Association for Scientific Research) approves Professor von Verschuer's application for a grant for the study of "specific proteins." (See March 20, 1944) (Science)

1943 August 19 Treblinka receives its last trainload of deportees, a transport from the Bialystok ghetto. (Apparatus)

1943 August 19 A joint pastoral letter from the German bishops reminds the faithful that the killing of innocents is wrong even if done by the authorities and allegedly for the common good, as in the case of "men of foreign races and descent." The bishops call for love of "those innocent humans who are not of our people and blood," and of "the resettled." (Neither the word "Jew" nor "non-Aryan" is used.)

1943 August 20 Approximately 3,000 Jews at Glebokie resist being taken out to the woods, and are massacred in a single day. A few escape and start a small partisan group. (Atlas)

1943 August 23 The Russians capture Kharkov.

1943 August 23 The Allies launch the heaviest Allied air raid to date against Berlin. Large parts of the Friedrichstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse are destroyed, including several ministries, hotels, despartment stores and other landmarks. (Silence).

1943 August 25 The Allies again bomb the German rocket laboratory on Peenemunde, setting back production by two months. Eduard Schulte passed along damage reports to Allen Dulles in Switzerland. (Silence)

1943 August 25 U.S. forces overrun New Georgia in the Solomons.

1943 August 28 Danish resistance to the German occupation undermines continued German cooperation and the Danish-German Agreement is abolished. Martial Law is declared. The SS hopes to use this opportunity to deport all 7,200 of Denmark's Jews. (Atlas)

1943 September Danish sea captains and fishermen, on the eve of the Jewish deportations, ferry 5,919 Jews, 1,301 part-Jews, and 686 Christians married to Jews to safety in Sweden (See October 1). (Atlas)

1943 September 2 At Treblinka, a group of 13 Jewish slave laborers kill their SS guard with a crowbar while working outside the camp. Their leader, 18-year-old Seweryn Klajnman, puts on the guard's uniform, and then "marches off" his fellow prisoners. All escape their pursuers and evade capture. (Atlas)

1943 September 3 Operation Avalanche - The British 8th Army invades Italy at the toe of the "boot."

1943 September 3 In Algiers, the Badoglio regime of Italy secretly signs an armistice with the Anglo-American forces. Italian capitulation is not announced until September 8th.

1943 September 8 Italy officially surrenders to the Allied Powers.

1943 September 9 The American Fifth Army lands at Salerno, south of Naples. General Mark Clark's assault force of the 36th and 45th Infantry divisions and a ranger force, reinforced by the 82nd Airborne and the 3rd Infantry divisions. Clark loses the element of surprise and his advance is stopped at the beachhead.

1943 September 9 A circular letter concerning receipt of fees for racial "expert reports" states: "In the financial year 1942, 2,340.50 RM were received by the Kaiser Wilhelm Institue of Anthropology." (Assuming an average fee of 50 RM, approximately 50 "expert reports" were drawn up, each of them determining whether the Jew concerned was to live or to die. (Science)

1943 September 12 Mussolini is rescued by SS commandos under Otto Skorzeny at Gran Sasso, Italy, and becomes head of a puppet government in northern Italy.

1943 September 15 After six days of savage, armored attacks, General Clark's forces break out of Salerno.

1943 September 16 General Clark's forces join up with the British 8th Army advancing northward from southern Italy.

1943 September 16 More than 37,000 Italian Jews come under Nazi rule. Some escape to Switzerland. Several thousand find refuge in Catholic homes. (Atlas)

1943 September 22 The Soviet army recaptures Poltava.

1943 September 23 Hitler meets with Ion Antonescu and asks him not to receive an anti-Mussolini Italian envoy, and to dismiss Mihai Antonescu. Marshal Antonescu refuses to comply.

1943 September 23 The Vilna ghetto is liquidated by the Germans.

1943 September 23 Ernst von Weizsäcker, the new German Ambassador at the Vatican, reports to Berlin that Secretary of State Maglione regards the fate of Europe as dependent upon "the victorious resistance of Germany at the Russian front." If the German armies collapse there, the only possible bulwark against Bolshevism will fall and European civilization will be lost. (Lewy)

1943 September 25 The Soviets recapture Smolensk.

1943 September 30 A work unit of 325 Jews and Soviet prisoners, who were being forced, in chains, to dig up burn victims of the massacre at Babi Yar, near Kiev, revolt when they too are about to be killed. Only 14 survive the revolt. (Atlas)

1943 October 1 The Germans begin rounding up Danish Jews and are able to find 500 in the entire country. All were sent to Theresienstadt; 423 survived the war.

1943 October 1 The Allies capture Naples.

1943 October 4 Himmler summons his SS generals to Posen and informs them of the systematic murder of the Jews; in effect making accomplices of them all. "This is a page of glory in our history that has never been written," he tells them, "and is never to be written."

1943 October 6 Himmler tells a group of Gauleiters and Reichsleiters that " The Jews must disappear from the face of the earth," and that even the children must die so that they can never grow-up to seek revenge.

1943 October 10 The provincial administrator of the Regensburg area reports that the joint pastoral letter from the bishops on August 19 castigating the killing of innocents has not had any lasting effect. He writes: "The population pays scant attention to such involved pronouncements burdened with stipulations." (Lewy)

1943 October 11 The last train of deportees to be gassed at Sobibor arrives at the camp. (Apparatus)

1943 October 13 Italy declares war on Germany.

1943 October 14 A Jewish uprising, planned by Alexander Pechersky, a Soviet officer and also a Jew, together with other prisoners, breaks out at Sobibor. Eleven or twelve SS men, and about a dozen Ukrainian guards, are killed. Of the 600 Jews in the camp, 200 are shot or blown up in the minefields while escaping. 400 escape, of whom about 100 are later captured and killed. Others join Soviet partisan groups and are killed fighting; others die of typhus, and some are killed by hostile Poles. Only 30 are known to have survived the war, including Perchersky. (Atlas)

1943 October 14 Ernst Junger, in Paris, writes in his diary: "In the evening a visit from Bogo (Frederick Hielscher)." (As a precaution Junger referred to all important personages by a pseudonym. "Bogo" was Frederick Hielscher; "Kniebolo", Hitler.) "At a time when strong personalities are so scarce, although he is one of the people I have thought a lot about, I do not seem able to form an opinion about him. I thought once that he would make his mark in the history of our time as one of those people who are little known but are exceptionally intelligent. I think now he will play a more important role. Most of the young intellectuals of the generation which has grown up since the last war have come under his influence, and often have been through his school... He confirmed a suspicion I have had for a long time, that he has founded a Church. He has now gone beyond dogma, and is mainly concerned with liturgy. He has shown me a series of songs and festivities to celebrate the "pagan year", involving a whole system of gods, and colors and animals, food, and stones and plants. I noticed that the "consecration of light" would take place on February 2nd."

Junger added: "I have noticed in Bogo a fundamental change that is characteristic of all our elite: he is throwing himself into metaphysics with all the enthusiasm of a mind brought up on rationalist lines. The same thing had struck me in the case of Spengler, and seems to be a propitious sign. It could be said, roughly, that while the nineteenth century was the century of reason, the twentieth is the century of cults, Kniebolo (Hitler) lives on them which accounts for the total incapacity of liberal-minded people to see even where he stands." (Strahlungen, Part Two of Junger's WWII Diary, 1949; Pauwels)

1943 October 15-16 The Nazis begin rounding up the Jews of Rome. (Prior to the arrests, the Jewish community was told by the Nazis that unless it could raise 50 kilograms of gold (equivalent to $56,000 U.S.) within 36 hours, 300 hostages would be taken. When it turned out the Jews could raise only 35 kilograms, the Chief Rabbi, Israel Zolli, asked for and received a loan from the Vatican treasury to cover the balance. The Pope approved the transaction.) (Hilberg)

1943 October 16 General Stahel, the German military commander of Rome, receives a letter signed by Bishop Hudal, head of the German Church in Rome. It says in part: "I would be very grateful if you would give an order to stop these arrests (of the Jews) in Rome and its vicinity right away; I fear that otherwise the Pope will have to make an open stand which will serve the anti-German propaganda as a weapon against us." (Hilberg; Lewy)

1943 October 18 More than 1,000 Roman Jews, more than two-thirds of them women and children, are shipped off to the killing center at Auschwitz. Only 14 men and one woman returned alive after the war. (7,000 of the 8,000 Roman Jews escaped capture by going into hiding. About 4,000 of them, with the knowledge and approval of the Pope, found refuge in the numerous monasteries and houses of religious orders in Rome. A few dozen were sheltered in the Vatican itself.) (Lewy)

(Within a month 8,360 Italian Jews had been deported to Auschwitz, where 7,749 are murdered.)(Atlas)

1943 October 19 Lublin SS-und Poliseifuehrer Odilo Globocnik announces the end of Aktion Reinhard and dissolution of the camps. Most SS personnel involved in Aktion Reinhard are transferred to the Adriatic coastal operation zone to fight the partisans and select and deport the Jews of that area. (Days)

1943 October 20 The United Nations (UN) War Crimes Commission is set up.

1943 October 25 Jesuit priest Alfred Delp, a member of the German resistance, tells a conference of priests at Munich that the silence of the Church on what is being done to the Poles and Jews and on the horrors committed in the concentration camps will threaten the acceptance of the Church by the new Germany that will arise after the downfall of the Nazi regime. (DA Passau; Lewy)

1943 October 28 Ambassador Weizsäcker reports: "Although under pressure from all sides, the Pope has not let himself be drawn into any demonstrative censure of the deportation of Jews from Rome. Although he must expect that his attitude will be criticized by our enemies and exploited by the Protestant and Anglo-Saxon countries in their propaganda against Catholicism, he has done everything he could in this delicate matter not to strain relations with the German government and German circles in Rome. As there is no reason to expect other German actions against the Jews of Rome, we can consider that a question so disturbing to German-Vatican relations has been liquidated." (PA Bonn; Poliakov; Lewy)

1943 November Hitler ceases issuing numbered war directives.

1943 November The trouble at Treblinka and Sobibor has so alarmed Himmler that in early November he orders the elimination of another potential source of insurrections. Some 42,000 Jews being kept alive as slave laborers at other kinds of camps in eastern Poland are shot. Thus Operation Reinhard comes to an end. During a nineteen month period, approximately 1.7 million people have died in the three "Reinhard" camps (Belsen, Treblinka, Sobibor), most of them in 1942. The ghettos have been practically eliminated, and scarcely any Jews remain in the Government General. The "new, and improved" gas chambers at Auschwitz will now be used to eliminate Jews from the rest of occupied Europe. (Apparatus)

1943 November Dr. Gertrud Luckner, an official of Caritas (the large Catholic philanthropic organization) in Freiburg, is arrested while trying to smuggle a sum of money to the few remaining Jews in Berlin. She had been helping Jews escape across the border into Switzerland for several years, and will spend the rest of the war in a concentration camp. (Lewy)

1943 November 3 At Majdanek, 18,000 prisoners are murdered in a single day of slaughter, called the "harvest festival" by the SS. (Atlas)

1943 November 6 The Russians retake Kiev.

1943 November 9 The 20th anniversary of the Munich Putsch. Hitler gives a speech at the Lowenbraukeller in Munich, which is recorded for a later radio broadcast. (During the speech Hitler announced that the German people had inflicted such suffering and destruction on the peoples of Europe that they could expect no mercy in case of defeat. If Germany was defeated, he, Adolf Hitler, would not shed a single tear, even if all the cities of Germany were laid waste, and every German man, woman and child put to the sword. The German people would only have themselves to blame. The censors deleted this outburst, but a Turkish press official was there, who later passed it on to British intelligence.) (Architect)

1943 November 11 At Theresienstadt, 300 prisoners die during an all-day roll call.

1943 November 15-6 Some 2,000 Jews arrive at Auschwitz from Holland. (Atlas)

1943 November 17 Cardinal Bertram writes to the Minister of the Interior and the RHSA that the bishops have received information that the "non-Aryans" evacuated from Germany are living in camps under inhuman conditions and that a large number had already succumbed. (DA Limburg; Lewy)

1943 November 18 After a lull in the bombings to Berlin, the Allies once again begin to inflict heavy damage. Nightly bombings become regular events. (Silence)

1943 November 20 A force of 5,000 U.S. Marines lands on Tarawa in the Gilberts. Fighting is ferocious and casualties high.

1943 November 22 More than 100 Jewish mental home patients are deported from Berlin to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1943 November 26 Tarawa is taken by the Marines. Only 17 Japanese and 129 Korean workers survive out of the original garrison of 5,000.

1943 November 28 - December 1 Churchill and Roosevelt meet with Stalin for the first time at the Tehran Conference in Iran. During the deliberations, a date for the invasion of France, code-named Operation Overlord, is confirmed. Stalin agrees to launch a simultaneous attack on Germany's eastern front and is assured that a second invasion of France (from the Mediterranean), known as Operation Anvil, will also take place. Stalin reaffirms that the Soviets will join in the fight against Japan after Germany is defeated, but asserts that the USSR wants Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and a year-round Pacific port on the mainland of Asia. The restoration of Iran is also discussed.

(Roosevelt also agrees to most of Stalin's territorial demands in Europe and asks that the arrangements be kept secret until after the next presidential elections in the United States. In Ankara, Anthony Eden tells the Turkish foreign minister that the Soviets will be given a free hand in the Balkans after the war.)

1943 December The Fifth Army advance in Italy is stopped at the Gustav Line based on Mt. Cassino. Despite heavy bombardment by air and artillery, the Germans doggedly hold their defenses.

1943 December 1 An Italian law is passed providing for the internment of all Jews in concentration camps and for the confiscation of their property. Occasional searches for Jews take place during the following months.

1943 December 1 The Tehran Conference comes to an end. Churchill and Roosevelt knowingly agree to hand over 120 million Europeans to Stalin and the Communistts.

1943 December 2 Eduard Schulte, the man who first warned the world about the systematic killing of the Jews, flees to Switzerland after being warned by Eduard Waetjen, an associate of Gisevius, that the Gestapo has ordered his arrest. (Silence)

1943 December 3 The Luftwaffe bombs Allied merchant ships in the harbor at Bari, Italy. It is the worst Allied naval disaster of the war except for Pearl Harbor, and seriously delays Allied efforts to overrun Italy. During the attack, almost 100 tons of American poison gas accidentially escapes from the American merchant ship John Harvey, subjecting the entire population of Bari to the poison. The deaths of hundreds of Italian civilians becomes one of the best kept secrets of WWII. (Secrets)

1943 December 3 Units from X Corps reach the top of Monte Camino, and II Corps captures Monte Maggiore.

1943 December 5 Monte Camino is the site of heavy action as both sides fight for possession of the summit.

1943 December 5 Catholic Provost Bernhard Lichtenberg dies while in transport to Dachau concentration camp. He had been seized by the Gestapo immediately after his release from prison in October. (Lewy)

1943 December 6 The British 56th Division captures Monte Camino.

1943 December 7 The U.S. II and VI Corps attack Monte Sammucro and San Pietro, but German resistance is fierce.

1943 December 10 Eighth Army crosses the Moro River in strength.

1943 December 12 The U.S. 36th Infantry Division attacks Monte Lungo.

1943 December 15 The Allied II Corps renews the drive toward San Pietro and Monte Lungo.

1943 December 15-18 5,000 Jews are transported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, almost all are gassed on arrival. (Atlas)

1943 December 17 The Germans begin withdrawing troops from San Pietro. Monte Sammucro is now in Allied hands.

1943 December 22 The 2nd Canadian Brigade fights a house to house battle against the German 1st Paratroop Division in Ortona, Italy.

1943 December 23 The 1st Canadian Division seizes most of Ortona.

1943 December 24 Washington and London announce that General Dwight D. Eisenhower will be the Supreme Allied Commander for the invasion of Europe, with British Air Marshal Tedder as his deputy.

1943 December 24 Secret negotiations begin in Stockholm between Marshal Antonescu's Romanian emissaries and the Soviet Embassy.

1943 December 25 Bishop Frings, in his Christmas sermon, again emphasizes that it is wrong to kill innocents just because they belong to another race, but again he fails to mention the word "Jew" or "non-Aryan." (Lewy)

1943 December 26 The German battlecruiser Scharnhorst is sunk in a gun duel with the British battleship Duke of York in the Arctic off Norway. Only 36 of her 2,000 man crew survive.

1943 December 28 Canadian troops complete the capture of Ortona.

1943 Robert Oppenheimer establishes the Los Alamos laboratory to build the U.S. atomic bomb.

1943 Ezra Pound is indicted and charged with treason for his support of Mussolini and the Fascist system of government.

1943 American war correspondent Ernie Pyle publishes "Here Is Your War," a collection of his front-line dispatches that are popular with both soldiers and civilians alike,

1944 Konrad Morgen, a 34-year-old SS magistrate, brings 800 cases of corruption and murder in the concentration camps to trial. 200 will result in sentences and the commandants of camps at Buchenwald and Majdanek, among others, are executed.

1944 Early in 1944, Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch and his private library of 40,000 anti-Jewish and conspiracy theory books, the heart of a proposed "institute for conspiracy study" are evacuated from Berlin to Schloss Gneisenau at Erdmannsdorf (Riesengebirge) in Silesia for safekeeping. Later in the year, Bostunitsch is promoted to SS-Standartenfuehrer (colonel) upon the personal recommendation of Heinrich Himmler. (Roots)

1944 January In Switzerland, Han Bernd Gisevius and his Abwehr associate Eduard Waetjen begin supplying Dulles with information about the German resistence's plans for a coup against Hitler. (Silence)

1944 January 3 The Red Army reaches the former Polish border.

1944 January 22 The American VI Corps lands 50,000 troops at Anzio between the German Gustav Line to the south and Rome 33 miles to the north, but fails to break the stalemate. The assault troops consist of U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, U.S. Rangers, paratroops, and a British division.

1944 January 26 Himmler makes an address to more than 260 high-ranking army and navy officers in Posen. Himmler tells them that Hitler, himself, had given him the mission to exterminate the Jews. "I can assure you," Himmler told them, "the Jewish question has been solved. Six million have been killed." According to an eyewitness, all, but five officers, applauded enthusiastically. (Toland )

1944 January 27 The Soviet Army relieves Leningrad after the German siege which has lasted 890 days. Since September 1941 the people of Leningrad had withstood German artillery and air bombardment. More than 200,000 of them had been killed in the siege; half a million more die from cold, starvation, fatigue and exhaustion.

1944 January 29 Cardinal Bertram writes to the Government that he has received reports that the ordinances enacted for the Jews are now to be applied to the Mischlinge (half-Jews and quarter-Jews). These Christians, he writes, have already been declared unworthy of military service, could not attend institutions of higher learning, etc. Now one hears that they are to be conscripted into special formations for labor service. "All these measures," he continues, aim clearly at segregation which in the end threatens extermination." The Mishlinge were German and Christians, he says, and always rejected by the Jews. "The German Catholics indeed numerous Christians in Germany," Bertram warns, "would be deeply hurt if these fellow Christians now would have to meet a fate similar to that of the Jews." (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; Lewy)

1944 January 31 U.S. amphibious landings begin in the Marshall Islands.

1944 January 31 Dr. Ritter mentions "23,822 conclusively 'clarified' Gypsy cases" in a report to the DFG (the German Association for Scientific Research). (Science)

1944 February Hitler abolishes the Abwehr (army intelligence). Its head, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, may have been a double agent. He was later arrested and executed.

1944 February 1 The Times of Londons discloses that the last will and testament of Austrian-born Sir Henry Strakosch had converted "interest free" loans to Winston Churchill and Lord Simon into gifts. Simon had received 10,000 pounds, and Churchill twice as much. Strakosch was a multimillionaire who made his fortune in gold mining in South Africa. (Missing Years)

1944 February 1 The first of 40,000 Americans land on Kwajaleinl. Within a week the atoll is taken, and more than 8,000 Japanese troops are killed.

1944 February 3 Another trainload of Jews leaves Paris for Auschwitz. It is the 67th such deportation in almost two years. Of 1,214 deported only 26 survive the war. (Atlas)

1944 February 17 An air armada from U.S. carriers attack on the Japanese naval base of Truk in the Caroline Islands. About 250 enemy planes and 200,000 tons of Japanese merchant shipping are destroyed, and Truk itself is rendered useless.

1944 February 29 U.S. forces land on the Admiralty Islands.

1944 March With the rapid advance of Soviet forces westward, the Germans begin a systematic evacuation of all concentration and slave labor camps.

1944 March 7 In Warsaw, the historian Emanuel Ringelblum, who had struggled to collect and preserve as much material as possible about the Warsaw ghetto, and who had managed to hide in "Aryan" Warsaw after the revolt, is discovered by the Gestapo, and together with his family, is tortured and killed. (Atlas)

1944 March 8 The Japanese mount an offensive in Burma.

1944 March 9 Professor Hallervorden writes to Professor Nitsche, the organizer of euthanasia at that time: "I have received 697 brains in all, including those which I took out myself in Brandenburg." (Science)

1944 March 11 300 Jewish women and children from Dalmatia, who have been interned at Gospic, are deported to the Croat concentration camp at Jasenovac. None survive. The men have already been deported to the Sajmiste death camp near Belgrade. (Atlas)

1944 March 12 Bishop Frings again emphasizes that it is wrong to kill innocents just because they belong to another race, but once again he fails to mention the word "Jew" or "non-Aryan." (Lewy)

1944 March 15 German authorities in Greece begin a systematic search for 10,000 Jews Greek Jews. 5,000 are soon caught and deported to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1944 March 16 On the 700th anniversary of the burning of the Cathars at Montsegur, Hitler makes a speech during which he declares that "mankind undergoes a spiritual renewal every 700 years."

1944 March 19 Hitler sends German troops into Hungary and forces the establishment of a more compliant government. Suddenly more than 750,000 Jews, who previously had seemed relatively safe from Nazi terror and deportation, come under Nazi domination. (Atlas)

1944 March 20 Professor von Verschuer sends a progress report to the DFG. He writes: "My assistant, Dr. Mengele, has joined this part of the research as a collaborator. He is employed as an SS-Captain and camp doctor in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. With the approval of the Reichsfuehrer-SS (Himmler), anthropological studies have been carried out on the very diverse racial groups in this camp, and blood samples have been sent to my laboratory for processing." (Science)

1944 March 20 The death camp at Majdanek is evacuated. The sick are sent to Auschwitz for immediate gassing. Able-bodied men are sent to Gross Rosen, and women are sent to Ravensbrück and Natzweiler. (Atlas)

1944 March 22 At the Koldyczewo slave labor camp, 10 SS guards are killed, and hundreds of prisoners escape. (Atlas)

1944 March 29 Russian troops enter Romania.

1944 March 30 Hitler dismisses Manstein and Kleist from their commands of Army Groups North and South Ukraine. Model takes over from Manstein and Schoerner replaces Kleist.

1944 March 31 The RAF loses 96 of 795 planes taking part in a raid on Nuremberg. They are said to be the worst losses suffered by the RAF during the entire war.

1944 Spring Himmler orders SS magistarte Konrad Morgen to cease all further investigations into the concentration camps and their personnel, unless specifically ordered to do so by Himmler himself.

1944 April A direct rail spur is built to Birkenau (Auschwitz II). It runs almost to the gates of two of the four gas chambers. (Atlas)

1944 April 4 An American reconnaissance plane flies over Auschwitz, photographing the I.G. Farben synthetic rubber (Buna) plant at Monowitz. Both the plant and the nearby main camp are clearly visible, but the gas chambers at Birkenau are not recognized for what they really are. (Apparatus)

1944 April 15 Tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews are forced to leave their homes, and move into specially designated ghetto areas. (Atlas)

1944 April 15 Giovanni Gentile, the self-proclaimed philosopher of Italian Fascism and the major figure in the rise of Hegelian thought in Italy, dies.

1944 April 15 A group of prisoners, assigned the task of destroying evidence of mass murder at Ponary, try to escape. 25 are killed outright, 15 got away. Five days later, the remaining 40 members of the unit are killed. (Atlas)

1944 April 17 Dr. Max Josef Metzger, a Catholic priest, longtime pacifist, and founder of the Una Sancta movement is executed for having "seditious" contacts with the Bishop of Upsala in Sweden. (Lewy)

1944 May The German army estimates 5.16 million Russian prisoners of war have been captured since 1941. Fewer than 1.8 million are still alive.

1944 May 7 Rudolf Hess voluntarily agrees to be injected with Evipan, a proprietary brand of the so-called "truth drug," Pentothal (sodium Thiopental). Hess convinces the doctors, including Dr. Dicks, that he is suffering from profound amnesia. (Missing Years)

1944 May 12 President Roosevelt writes to King Peter of Yugoslavia politely ordering him to dismiss General Draza Mihailovich, the legendary hero of the Yugoslavian resistance, as Minister of National Defense, and to replace him with Josip Broz (Tito), the Communist leader.

1944 May 15 The deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz begins. By the end of June, a total of 381,000 Jews have been deported to Auschwitz, including more than 289,000 from Ruthenia and northern Transylvania. (Atlas)

1944 May 15 869 Jews are deported from Paris to Proyanovska slave labor camp near Kovno. There, 160 are shot, and the rest are evacuated six weeks later. Only 15 survive the war. (Atlas)

1944 May 18 The Allies overrun Cassino and link up with the Anzio forces a week later. The Fifth Army then advances 75 miles toward Rome.

1944 May 19 Eight civilians are shot at Natzweiler concentration camp in Alsace. Numerous Jewish and non-Jewish women active in the French resistance, and many Russian and Polish prisoners were shot in this camp. (Atlas)

1944 May 21 The Gestapo imprisons all 260 Jews of the city of Canea, Crete, and 5 families from Rethymnon.(Atlas)

1944 June Chelmno (Kulmhof) resumes operations and by August, an additional 7,000 Jewish victims have been killed. (Days)

1944 June Professor H. F. K. Günther declares his readiness to speak on "The encroachment of Jewry on the cultural life of the nation" at an "Anti-Jewish Congress" to convene in Cracow. Alfred Rosenberg is scheduled to speak on "Biological humanism." (This congress never took place due to the war situation.) (Science)

1944 June 3 496 more Jews from Holland are transported to Auschwitz.

1944 June 4 The Allies enter Rome.

1944 June 5 King Victor Emmanuel is forced to relinquish power in Italy to his son, Prince Humbert.

1944 June 6 D-DAY - the Allies land at Normandy on the French coast. From the air and from a fleet of about 4,000 ships, the Allies storm ashore in what is called "Operation Overlord," the largest amphibious operation in history. (11,000 Allied aircraft operated over the invasion area while more than 150,000 troops soon disembark.)

1944 June 6 The imprisoned Jews of Crete, 400 Greek hostages, and 300 Italian prisoners-of-war are put on a ship at Heraklion and sent 120 miles across the Aegean Sea, where the ship is deliberately sunk. All prisoners on board are drowned. Only seven Jews from Crete survive the war, in hiding. (Atlas)

1944 June 6 All 1,800 Jews on the island of Corfu, in the Ionian Sea, are seized by the Gestapo. (Atlas)

1944 June 8 Hiram J. Perez de Cruet has his photo taken at Foto Luxardo in Rome.

1944 June 10 The Germans kill more than 600 French villagers at Oradour-sur-Glane. Women and children are burned alive in the church, and the men are machine-gunned, as a reprisal against the killing of an SS army commander by a resistance sniper in another village. Seven of the victims are Jews who had been hiding among the friendly villagers. (Atlas)

1944 June 10 Professor Eugen Fischer accepts the chairmanship of a workshop at the "Anti-Jewish Congress" to be convened in Cracow: "Dear Reichsminister! That you intend to create a scientific front line for the defense of European culture against the influence of Jewry, and to call togetherfor that purpose scientists from all the nations fighting Jewry, seems to me a very good idea and absolutely necessary, if I may allow myself to express such opinions... I am delighted to accept your invitation to attend this congress..." (See June 1944) (Science)

1944 June 13 Just 7 days after D-Day, Hitler orders the release of the first V-1 rockets, or "buzz bombs," from bases along the French coast in the Pas de Calais sector. These robot bombs reach speeds of 400 mph on a predetermined course aimed a London. RAF pilots quickly learned to shoot them down. (V-1's kill nearly 6,000 Londoners, injuring 40,000, and destroying more than 75,000 homes.)

1944 June 13 Men from the slave labor camps at Auschwitz are transferred to Mauthausen. (Atlas)

1944 June 14 All 1,800 Jews of the island of Corfu are deported for "resettlement" in Poland. (Atlas)

1944 June 15 U.S. forces land on Saipan in the Marianas.

1944 June 17 Field Marshal Rommel in a meeting with Hitler near Margival, France, ties to convince Hitler that the war is lost. Rommel tells him that the Allies will soon break through in Normandy, and nothing could stop them from advancing into Germany. Hitler tells Rommel, "It is not your privilege to worry about the future of the war!" (Payne; Duffy)

1944 June 19 U.S. forces under Admiral Nimitz defeat a Japanese fleet in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the biggest carrier engagement of the war. U.S. planes destroy more than 350 Japanese aircraft in what came to be known as "the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot."

1944 June 27 American infantry captures Cherbourg, giving the Allies a major port for the flow of men and supplies.

1944 June 29 1,600 of the 1,800 Jews of Corfu are gassed shortly after their arrival at Auschwitz. The rest are forced into slave labor. (Atlas)

1944 June 29 20,000 Jewish women are evacuated from the slave labor camps at Auschwitz to Stutthof. That spring, the Germans had started building 60 new slave labor camps in the area, to replace those already overrun by the Soviets. (Atlas)

1944 June 30 More than a thousand Jews (1,153) are deported from Paris to Auschwitz.

1944 Summer Dr. Mengele begins having his Jewish slave-assistant, Dr. Nyiszli, send large quantities of scientific material to Professor von Vershuer at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology in Berlin. This material includes eyes from murdered Gypsies, internal organs from murdered children, the skeletons of two murdered Jews, and sera from twins infected with typhoid by Dr. Mengele. (Science)

1944 July Soviet troops approach Shauliai, Kovno, Vilna and Lublin. Many Jewish partisans are active behind the lines. (Atlas)

1944 July 1-22 The Bretton Woods Conference, officially called the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, meets at Bretton Woods, N.H. It is attended by delegates from 44 states and nations. This conference provides the foundations for the postwar international monetary system and establishes both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

1944 July 2 The SS takes the last 3,000 Jews of Vilna, laborers in a factory, and murders them at Ponary. Thousands are killed in Shauliai and Kovno. Thousands more are evacuated to labor camps near Stutthof and Dachau. (Atlas)

1944 July 4 More than 2,800 Jews from the Papa region of Hungary are deported to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1944 July 8 The Hungariangovernment orders an immediate halt to the deportation of Hungarian Jews. The Germans give way, and 300,000 Jews, most of them in Budapest awaiting deportation, are saved. 437,000 Hungarian Jews had already been deported. (Atlas)

1944 July 9 Hitler rejects Rommel's urgent request to withdraw his troops in Normandy, in order to regroup.

1944 July 9 Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest. His nominal role is as an attache for the Swedish legation, but he is in Budapest primarily at the instigation of the War Refugee Board, a new U.S. government agency established to help Jewish victims. He quickly begins issuing safe conduct passes. (Apparatus)

1944 July 9 German Army Group North is cut off in the Baltic.

1944 July 9 Hitler returns to the Wolf's Lair from Obersalzberg.

1944 July 11 Colonel Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg brings a bomb to Berchtesgaden, and although he is with Hitler and Goering for half an hour, but does not release the bomb because Himmler is not present. (Children)

1944 July 15 Stauffenberg takes a bomb to a meeting in Rastenburg. Himmler and Goering are not present and Hitler leaves before the bomb can be planted. (Children)

1944 July 18 The U.S. First Army fights its way into the village of St.-Lo, France.

1944 July 18 British and Canadian troops cross the Orne River at Caen and drive toward the south.

1944 July 20 Colonel Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg attempts to assassinate Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, his East Prussian headquarters. The bomb explodes only a few feet from Hitler, but only slightly wounds him. This stroke of luck only strengthens Hitler's conviction that fate wants him to continue his struggle to the very end.

1944 July 21 Hundreds of suspected plotters in the assassination attempt, and their families, are arrested throughout Europe. Within two months the Gestapo arrested more than 7,000 suspects, and "people's courts" sentence 4,980 to death. (Children)

1944 July 21 General Franz Halder is arrested by the Gestapo. He will be held in several different concentration camps until released by the Allies in 1945. (Duffy)

1944 July Following the plot against Hitler, Goebbels is named "General Plenipotentiary for the Mobilization of Total War." (Goebbels)

1944 July 22 As Russian troops approach Lublin and the nearby death camp at Majdanek, the Germans march 1,200 Jews westward toward Kielce, where 180 are murdered. The survivors are sent by train to Auschwitz, where 200 more are gassed on arrival. (Atlas)

1944 July 23 Soviet forces enter Majdanek. The SS now begins accelerating evacuations from Auschwitz, yet deportation trains from France and Belgium, as well as Radom, continue to be sent to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1944 July 23 1,700 Jews from the island of Rhodes and 120 from the island of Kos are sent to Auschwitz and its gas chambers, as more and more "death marches" away from the camp are ordered. (Atlas)

1944 July 25 The U.S. First Army breaks through the German lines between Caen and Saint Lo, and out of the Normandy beachhead.

1944 July 29 The Germans begin a "death march" evacuation of 3,250 slave laborers from Warsaw. (Atlas)

1944 July 31 General Patton's Third Army storms through the gap in the German lines and captures Avranches.

1944 July 31 1,300 Jews are deported from Drancy to Auschwitz. Among them are more than 300 Jewish orphans seized in Paris between July 20 and 24. (Atlas)

1944 August SS officer Adolf Eichmann informs Himmler that six million Jews have already been killed: 4 million in the camps, 2 million in mobile gassing operations.

1944 August 1 In Pisa, Italy, Germans murder Catholic philanthropis Pardo-Roques and six Jews he has been sheltering. (Atlas)

1944 August 1 The Polish uprising in Warsaw, generally known as the Warsaw Uprising, is begun by the underground anti-German resistance movement, as elements of the Soviet army approach the city. The Germans kill tens of thousands of Poles while, the Soviet army remains inactive at the city gates until October 2, when the rebellion collapses.

(The Warsaw Uprising was led by anti-Communist, General Tadeusz Komorowski, and supported by the Polish government-in-exile in London.)

1944 August 3 Of the total of 20,943 Gypsies registered as prisoners in Auschwitz, the last 2,897 are sent to the gas chambers. 3,461 had been transferred to other camps, while all the others died in Auschwitz from starvation, infectious disease, or by gassing. (Science)

1944 August 4 A daring attack by American tank forces cuts off the Germans on the Brittany Peninsula.

1944 August 4 The Germans evacuate 3,000 Jewish slave laborers by train from Warsaw to Dachau. More than 1,000 die during the five-day trip. (Atlas)

1944 August 5-6 Hitler and Ion Antonescu hold their last meeting.

1944 August 6-30 70,000 Jews from Lodz, the last of the "working" ghettos, are sent to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1944 August 9 The XV Corps, on the left flank of the Third Army, pushes east to capture Le Mans, then north toward Argentan.

1944 August 12 Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., eldest son of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, is killed when his PB4Y1 bomber, the Zootsuit Black, literally a flying bomb, loaded with 21,170 pounds of dynamite, explodes over the English Channel during a secret mission against German V-2 sites.

1944 August 15 The American Seventh Army invades the South of France in "Operation Anvil." American infantry divisions from Italy make the attack aided by American paratroops as well as British and French units. Knifing through weak German defenses, the Seventh Army races up the Rhone Valley toward Germany. German troops in all of western France are now threatened with isolation by the Allied pincer.

1944 August 17 The American XV Corps and the Canadian 1st Army trap the German 7th Army in a pocket between Argentan and Falaise.

1944 August 17 Hitler replaces Field Marshal von Kluge, and Field Marshal Walter Model takes command of the Western Front.

1944 August 18 Field Marshal Kluge commits suicide after writing an apologetic letter to Hitler.

1944 August 19 General Eisenhower changes his mind and decides not to bypass Paris after receiving word of an uprising in the city. He orders in the Second Free French Armored Division, supported by U.S. troops.

1944 August 20 American B-17 bombers make a raid near Auschwitz during the first of four attacks on I.G. Farben's plant at Monowitz, only a few miles east of the gas chambers. (Apparatus)

1944 August 20 A great Russian offensive begins in Moldavia.

1944 August 20 Paris is surrounded by the Allies.

1944 August 21 Allied representatives meet at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington to discuss plans for postwar security. American, British, Soviet, and Chinese representatives lay the basis for future discussions leading to the foundation of the United Nations. Meetings will continue until October. Edward Stettinius, Jr., leads the American delegation.

1944 August 22 The defeat of Falaise-Argentan breaks the back of the Nazi defenses in France. The Allies capture more than 100,000 prisoners.

1944 August 23 Ion Antonescu and his Foreign Ministers are summoned by King Michael. They are kidnapped in the palace and delivered to a Communist agent named Bodnaras. King Michael makes a radio broadcast announcing that an armistice has been signed with the Russian command and orders the Romanian Army to cease all resistance. No armistice had been signed. Sixteen Romanian divisions were deceived into surrendering and were quickly transported to camps in Russia and Siberia.

1944 August 24 Horia Sima now in Germany begins the formation of the Romanian National Army composed of all Romanian volunteers then in Germany and those who could escape and join them.

1944 August 25 Paris falls to the Allies. Destruction is minimal, due primarily to the efforts of the German commandant, General Dietrich von Choltitz, who disobeys Hitler's orders to "fight to the last man" and "raze the city."

1944 August 25 Romania declares war on Germany.

1944 August 26 The great Rothschild Mansion in Paris is discovered to contain almost all of its original art and furnishings--untouched after five years of occupation as Luftwaffe headquarters in Paris and numerous visits by Hermann Goering. (Cowles)

1944 August 26 During a Slovak revolt, a Jewish battalion, as well as hundreds of individual Jews, take part in the capture of three major towns. (Atlas)

1944 August 28 Hundreds of Jews die when the Germans evacuate slave labor camps in Estonia by sea. (Atlas)

1944 August 29 The Soviets and the Polish Communists jointly announce they have discovered that the Germans have killed 1.5 million people in the concentration camp at Majdanek (Maidanek). This is the first in a series of such announcements.

1944 August 30 A new Romanian regime declares war on Germany.

1944 August 30 General de Gaulle's Provisional Government in Paris.

1944 August 31 Russian troops enter Bucharest and soon occupy all of Romania. Since no armistice has been signed, the Russians behave as if on enemy territory -- raping, plundering, looting and murdering.

1944 August 31 Natzweiler concentration camp in Alsace is liberated. At least 25,000 prisoners, Jews and non-Jews had died there of starvation, ill-treatment, murder or execution. (Atlas)

1944 Autumn General Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Supreme Commander of the Polish troops fighting on the Western Front tells his soldiers that "Poland entered the war four years earlier because of the urging of Great Britain." At Churchill's insistence, General Sosnkowski is relieved of his command. (Sturdza)

1944 September The deportation of Jews from Slovakia begins once again (See Spring and Summer 1942). (Hilberg)

1944 September 2 Professor C. Schneider writes in a letter about the reverses which his research proiect has suffered: "The people in Eichberg... maintain that they knew nothing of our experiments being continued, even though one of our collaborators had been going there from time to time... so, I have to reckon with the fact that only half the idiots whom we have investigated here will be available to us for a full examination." (Science)

1944 September 3 The British capture Brussels.

1944 September 3-4 3,000 more Jews are deported from Westerbork in Holland on two separate trains. Anne Frank, who has since become world-famous because of her diaries written in Amsterdam during the German occupation, is aboard one of these trains. Her parents had brought her to Holland as a refugee from Germany before the war. She later dies in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. (Atlas)

1944 September 8 Bulgaria declares war on Germany.

1944 September 8 The V-2, a far heavier and more deadlier supersonic rocket, is put into action by the Germans. From its bases in the Low Countries, the V-2 with speeds of 5,600 km/h (3,500 mph) buried its 1-ton warhead into the ground before violently exploding. More than 1,000 V-2s will fall on England, and about 500 hit London, causing 10,000 casualties. Many are also directed at Antwerp.

1944 September 11 British troops enter Holland.

1944 September 11 The American Seventh Army joins up with the U.S. Third Army near Dijon.

1944 September The Germans leave Istanbul. Sebottendorff, who has been working for German Intelligence, is given funds to support himself for a year. (Rittlinger; Roots)

1944 September 13 American B-24s attacking the I.G. Farben plant at Monowitz accidentally drop several bombs inside the main camp at Auschwitz, destroying a barracks, killing 15 SS men and injuring 28. A cluster of bombs is also mistakenly dropped farther west at Birkenau, damaging the railroad but missing the crematoria. (Apparatus)

1944 September 13 An armistice is signed in Moscow between Romania and the Soviets, three weeks after ithad been falsely announced by the King. It is essentially an unconditional capitulation and puts Romania entirely in the hands of the Soviets.

1944 September 15 U.S. troops enter Germany.

1944 September 16 Hitler decides on a counteroffensive in the West. The Eastern Front is far too vast, Hitler says, and the Russians much too superior in number for such an operation to succeed. Chances are much better in the West.

1944 September 17 Operation Market-Garden, an Allied airborne operation to seize river crossings in Holland, begins.

1944 September 19 Finland signs an armistice with the Allies.

1944 September 19 As Soviet forces approach Klooga, in Estonia, the Germans kill almost all of the 3,000 surviving slave laborers, including 1,500 Jews from Vilna, 800 Soviet prisoners-of-war, and 700 Estonian political prisoners. Only 85 inmates survive. (Atlas)

1944 September 20 The U.S. 82nd and 101st divisions of the First Allied Airborne Army cross the Rhine River in the Nijmegen-Arnhem area.

1944 September 25 The U.S. 82nd and 101st divisions are driven back across the Rhine.

1944 September 28-29 4,000 Jews from Theresienstadt are sent to Auschwitz on two separate trains. Almost all are gassed, including all the old people and children. (Atlas)

1944 October Almost 9,000 Jews are sent from Slovakia to Auschwitz during October in reprisal for the Slovak revolt.

1944 October 1-30 More than 18,000 Jews from Theresienstadt are sent to Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1944 October 2 The Warsaw Uprising collapses. Virtually the entire remaining population of Warsaw is deported by the Germans to forced labor or concentration camps and the city is systematically razed. The Soviet army then resumes its offensive,

1944 October 7 A Jewish revolt breaks out at Auschwitz. Recently arrived Jews from Poland, Hungary and Greece, who are being forced to drag bodies from the gas chambers to the crematoria, having secretly obtain explosives from four Jewish girls working in a nearby munitions factory, blow up one of the four crematoria. All are killed, except for one man, who later starves to death at Ebensee. (Atlas)

1944 October 11 The veteran 1st U.S. Infantry Division of the First Army enters the outskirts of Aachen. Hitler's has ordered Aachen's defenders to resist to the last man.

1944 October 14 Field Marshal Rommel is forced to commit suicide.

1944 October 15 As Allied forces approach Strasbourg, Himmler orders the Anatomical Institute to destroy its collection of Jewish skulls and skeletons, but many related documents survive the war. (See June 21, 1943)

1944 October 19 Alfred Naujocks deserts to the Americans and at Nuremberg the following year gives a number of sworn affidavits. In one he gives his account of the "faked incident" at Gleiwitz on the evening of August 31, 1939, which Hitler had used to justify his attack on Poland. (Shirer I) (See November 20, 1945)

1944 October 20 U.S. troops enter Aachen after a savage pounding by American artillery. Little is left standing and the city lies in ruins, but the German defenders continue to fight fiercely, often to the last man.

1944 October 20 The U.S. makes landings on Leyte in the Philippines.

1944 October 21 The last, steadfast German defenders are driven out of hiding in Aachen. The U.S. First Army captures the first major German city to fall to the Allies.

1944 October 23 The Japanese fleet fails to destroy transports landing American soldiers on the island of Leyte during the Battle of Leyte Gulf (to October 26).

1944 October 23 Rosenberg writes to Martin Bormann proposing to draft the entire German clergy for forced labor because of severe manpower shortages. (Lewy)

1944 October 26 Himmler issues orders to destroy the crematoriums at Auschwitz-Birkenau in an attempt to eliminate the evidence of Nazi mass murder.

1944 October 27 Bormann writes to Rosenberg informing him that Hitler has rejected the idea of using clergymen for forced labor. (Lewy)

1944 October Rundstedt, who has been restored as Commander-in-Chief in the West, is given overall responsibility for the planned counteroffensive in the West. The armies involved are the Fifth Panzer Army, commanded by Hasso von Manteuffel, Sixth Panzer Army, under Waffen-SS General Sepp Dietrich, and General Erich Brandenberger's Seventh Army, consisting mostly of SS formations. The attack through the Ardennes is scheduled for November 25th.

1944 October 30 The last transport of Jews from Theresienstadt arrive at Auschwitz; on that day and the next, 1,689 of them are sent to the gas chambers. (Apparatus)

1944 November After protest from his generals, Hitler postpones the Ardennes Counteroffensive from November 25 to December 10.

1944 November Roosevelt names Edward R. Stettinius Jr. as Secretary of State, replacing Cordell Hull.

1944 November 2 Himmler's order of October 26 arrives at Auschwitz: "I forbid any further annihilation of Jews." Upon his further orders, all but one of the crematoriums are dismantled, the burning pits covered up and planted over with grass, and the gas pipes and other equipment shipped to concentration camps in Germany. The single remaining crematorium is for the disposal of those who die of natural causes and the gassing of about 200 surviving members of the Sonderkommando. The final solution is formally over. Yet tens of thousands of Jews will continue to die of brutality and neglect. (Apparatus)

1944 November 2-8 Tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews are driven out of Bupapest by the SS as Soviet forces approach the city. Whipped and shot by the SS, they are forced westward toward Vienna. Some 4,000 are saved by the intervention of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, but more than 10,000 die during six days of terror. (Atlas)

1944 November 20 Hitler leaves the Wolf's Lair and travels to his headquarters near Bad Nauheim.

1944 November Hitler's generals again convince him to postpone the Ardennes counteroffensive. This time from December 10 to December 16.

1944 November 24 Himmler issues orders to close the remaining crematorium at Auschwitz, and gives instruction to destroy any remaining evidence. (Apparatus)

1944 November 28 The last gassings take place at Auschwitz. More than 8,000 have been gassed since the first of November. (Atlas)

1944 December More than 3,500 Jews, who had been evacuated from Auschwitz to Lieberose, are again evacuated, and forced to march in snow and ice to Sachsenhausen north of Oranienburg, outside Berlin. Several hundred, too sick to leave the infirmary, are shot and the building set on fire. Each morning, those who are too weak to walk are shot, and by the time the group reaches its destination, only 900 are still alive. (Atlas)

1944 December 10 Horia Sima and seven other Romanian delegates sign a formal constitution in Vienna for a new Romanian National Government-in-exile. Five of the eight are Legionaries.

1944 December 15 U.S. forces land on Mindoro in the Philippines.

1944 December 16 Hitler launches the Ardennes Counteroffensive, now known to Americans as "The Battle of the Bulge."

1944 December 17 By afternoon, one of Gen. Sepp Dietrich's SS Panzer groups, commanded by SS Col. Joachim Peiper, has penetrated almost to Malmedy, Belgium. Peiper becomes notorious for ordering the machine-gunning of a number of captured G.I.s from the U.S. 7th Armored Division in a field near Malmedy.

1944 December 20 By this date, SS Col. Peiper has allegedly murdered approximately 350 prisoners of war and at least 100 unarmed Belgian civilians at twelve different locations along his route. (Secrets)

1944 December 24 The German offensive in the Ardennes is brought to a halt at the end of the day.

1944 December 24 Now with the defeat of Nazi Germany almost certain, Pope Pius XII in his Christmas message acknowledges "that a democratic form of government is considered by many today to be a natural postulate of reason itself." (Moody; Lewy)

1944 December 25 Leading elements of Manteuffel's army is still four miles short of the Meuse River at Dinant. It is to be the highwater mark of the German advance.

1944 December 25 The Allies begin a strong counteroffensive in the Ardennes. The U.S. 4th Armored Division, part of Patton's Third Army, from around Mortelange is designated to relieve Bastogne.

1944 December 26 Units of the 4th Armored Division breaks through to relieve Bastogne and then continues its rapid push toward the north.

1944 December 26 Budapest is almost completely encircled by General Tolbukhin's Third Ukraine Front.

1944 December 27 The British XXX Corps drives the 2nd Panzer Division out of Celles.

1944 December 29 Russian emissaries attempting to negotiate with the German garrison in Budapest are killed after a misunderstanding of some kind takes place.

1944 December 29 In Greece, Prime Minister Papandreou announces he will resign as soon as a new regent is chosen.

1944 December 30 The VIII Corps from Patton's Third Army begins a new attack northward in the direction of Houffalize.

1944 December 31 Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens is sworn in as regent and Papendreou resigns.

1944 December 31 In Poland, the Communist dominated Committee of National Liberation based in Lublin assumes the title of Provisional Government. The government-in-exile in London protests to no avail.

1944 December 31 Hungary declares war on Germany.

1944 December 31 The British XXX Corps captures Rochefort at the western end of the Ardennes salient.

1944 Pierre Laval is arrested by the retreating Germansin France, but will escape to Spain in 1945.

1944 British forces occupy Athens and intervene in the communist inspired civil war.

1944 The word "genocide" is coined by Polish-American scholar Raphael Lemkin.

1945 January 1 The Soviets set up a Soviet-dominated government (the Lublin Committee) in Poland, meeting with little effective resistance.

1945 January 1 Luftwaffe attacks on airfields in Belgium, Holland and France destroy more than 300 Allied aircraft. It is the last major Luftwaffe of the war.

1945 January 1 German Army Group G in Alsace begins an offensive in the Sarreguemines area and Eisenhower orders units of the U.S. Seventh Army to retreat.

1945 January 1 Hungarian-Jewish leader, Otto Komoly, is murdered by Hungarian fascists.

1945 January 2 The U.S. Third Army in the Ardennes takes Bonnerue, Hubertmont and Remagne.

1945 January 2 Hitler turns down requests from Generals Model and Manteuffel to withdraw from west of Houffalize.

1945 January 2 Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Naval Commander-in-Chief of Allied forces in Europe, is killed in an air accident on his way to meet with General Montgomery.

1945 January 2 In Budapest, the surrounded German garrison goes on the offensive, counterattacking the Soviets.

1945 January 3 Desperate German attacks in the Ardennes fail to cut the Allied corridor to Bastogne.

1945 January 3 German attacks in Alsace continue to force the U.S.Seventh Army to retreat.

1945 January 3 The Dutch and Belgian governments sign a mutual agreement for repatriation of incarcerated civilians.

1945 January 4 Units of Sepp Dietrich's Sixth SS Panzer Army are withdrawn from the Ardennes and transferred to the Eastern Front.

1945 January 4 German attacks in Alsace continue near Bitche.

1945 January 5 The Germans attack north of Strasbourg.

1945 January 5 The Soviets recognize the Lublin Committee as the Provisional Government of Poland, while the U.S. and Britain continue to publicly recognize the exile government in London.

1945 January 5 Fighting between the British and Greek Communists come to an end in Athens.

1945 January 5 5,000 Jews "protected" by Swedish papers are driven from their so-called "neutal houses" into Budapest's central ghetto

1945 January 5 The last transport of Hungarian Jews is sent to Auschwitz.

1945 January 6 Field Marshal von Runstedt again requests permission to withdraw from the Ardennes. Hitler again refuses.

1945 January 6 Several hundred Jewish women are evacuated by train from the forced labor camp at Sered in Slovakia to Ravensbrück, north of Berlin. (Atlas)

1945 January 6 Rosa Robota, a member of the Jewish underground in Auschwitz, is executed by the Germans for her part in the unsuccessful Sonderkommando revolt in Birkenau.

1945 January 7 Arrow Cross terror squads attack Swedish "protective houses" in Budapest during what is called the Jokai Street massacre.

1945 January 8 Battles continue north and south of Strasbourg and the U.S. Seventh Army remains under strong pressure near Rimling and Gambsheim.

1945 January 9 U.S. forces land on Luzon during Operation Mike 1.

1945 January 10 U.S. First and Third Armies continue to advance in the Ardennes.

1945 January 11 Units of the U.S. Third Army join up with the British XXX Corps near St. Hubert further reducing the German salient in the Ardennes.

1945 January 12 The Soviets begin a major offensive all along the front from the Baltic to the Carpathians. German troops fight fiercely although outnumbered by at least four to five to one.

1945 January 13 German defense lines all along the Polish Front are devastated by the strength of the Soviet advance.

1945 January 14 Soviet forces in Poland cut the rail lines to Krakow.

1945 January 14 A cease-fire is negotiated between British troops and the Communist ELAS in Greece.

1945 January 15 The Red Army invades East Prussia.

1945 January 16 Patton's Third Army joins up with General Courtney Hodges' First U.S. Army and the Ardennes Counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge) comes to an end.

1945 January 16 Hitler departs Bad Nauheim for Berlin.

1945 January 16 Shortly after the last slave laborers are evacuated from Czestochowa, Soviet troops enter the city.

1945 January 16 Himmler pardons 2nd Lieutenant Max Täubner for his unauthorized execution of Jews in Russia and grants him fouteen days of leave before returning to the front. (Days)

1945 January 17 A Jewish uprising breaks out at Chelmno (Kulmhof) in Poland. The last 47 Jewish slave laborers, knowing they are about to be shot by the SS, take refuge in a building as Soviet troops draw nearer. The SS sets fire to the building and machine-guns those who attempt to escape the flames. Only one prisoner survives. (Atlas)

1945 January 17 Devastated Warsaw is "liberated" by Soviet forces.

1945 January 17 The SS records a total of more than 30,000 slave laborers still in the Auschwitz region. (Atlas)

1945 January 18 The Great Russian offensive against Berlin begins. In only 18 days, Soviet troops will advance more than 300 miles.

1945 January 18 The Germans issue orders for the immediate evacuation all slave labor camps in Upper Silesia. Hundreds die of exhaustion, freeze to death, or are murdered by their guards along the way. (Atlas)

1945 January 18 The evacuation of Auschwitz begins. (Days)

1945 January 19 Marshal Ivan Konev takes both Tarnow and Krakow. To the south, Zhukov's troops takes Lodz, and the Fourth Ukraine Front takes Nowy Sacz. Wloclawek on the Vistula also falls to the Soviets.

1945 January 20 President Roosevelt is inaugurated for a fourth term. Harry S Truman is sworn is as Vice President.

1945 January 20 The Soviet offensive in East Prussia breaks through and Tilsit is taken. In the West, Patton's Third Army takes Brandenburg.

1945 January 20 4,200 Jews are shot to death at Birkenau. A total of more than 98,000 Jews have been evacuated from Auschwitz. (Atlas)

1945 January 20-27 29,000 Jews, most of them women are evacuated from Stutthof by boat and train to Germany. 26,000 of them perish during the journey. (Atlas)

1945 January 21 The Hungarian Provisional Government concludes an armistice with the USSR, the U.S. and the U.K. Hungary agrees to pay reparations and join the war against Germany.

1945 January 21 Gumbinnen is taken by the Soviets in East Prussia.

1945 January 22 Gneizo is taken by Marshal Zhukov in his drive for Poznan. To the north, Insterburg, Allenstein and Deutsch Eylau are all taken by the Soviets.

1945 January 22 The U.S. First Army attacks along the front between Houffalize and St. Vith. The British Second Army takes St. Joost and other towns near Sittard.

1945 January 23 St. Vith is taken in an attack by armored units of the U.S. XVIII corps. Allied air attacks inflict extremely heavy losses to the Germans falling back over the Our River.

1945 January 24 SS leader Heinrich Himmler who has no operational talent or experience is appointed by Hitler to lead a new Army Group Vistula to oppose the main Soviet thrusts. This is seen as an extreme insult by members of the German General staff.

1945 January 24 The French First Army takes several crossings over the Ill River in Alsace.

1945 January 25 German forces in East Prussia are cut off and begin evacuations by sea using the cruisers Emden and Hipper, as well as a large number passenger ships and almost the entire remaining surface fleet. Many fall victim to RAF dropped mines and submarines of the Soviet Baltic fleet.

1945 January 26 The Soviets under Marshal Rokossovsky reach the Baltic north of Elbing, completely cutting off the remaining Germans in East Prussia.

1945 January 27 Advancing Soviet troops enter Auschwitz-Birkenau. They find the bodies of 468 dead inmates: Jews, Poles and Gypsies. (Atlas)

(Only about 2,800 people remain alive at Auschwitz. Abandoned by the SS, they have been left behind without food, water, or heat. In storehouses that the SS had failed to destroy, the Soviets discover 836,255 women's coats and dresses, 368,820 men's suits, and seven tons of human hair.) (Apparatus)

1945 January 27 The Lithuanian port of Memel falls to the Soviets.

1945 January 27 Patton's Third Army crosses the Our River and captures Oberhausen.

1945 January 27 Oscar Schlindler, a German Catholic and member of the Nazi Party, who owns a number of factories in the area, saves 85 Jews from a train at Brünnlitz. They had been locked in their cattle-cars for a week, and more than 20 had already died. Schindler releases the Jews and gives them food and shelter at the risk of his own life. He is later made famous in the award-winning film Schindler's List. (Atlas)

1945 January 28 Katowice is taken by Marshal Konev's forces, and in the north the First Belorussian Front enters German Pomerania.

1945 January 29 Bischofsburg falls to the Soviets.

1945 January 30 Churchill and Roosevelt, with their advisors, meet in Malta to prepare for a meeting with Stalin at Yalta.

1945 January 31 Zhukov's forces reach the Oder River less than 50 miles from Berlin.

1945 January 31 The U.S. First Army enters Germany east of St. Vith and the French First Army gains ground in Alsace near Colmar.

1945 January 31 The Czechoslovakian Government in London recognizes the Lublin Government in Poland.

1945 February 1 The U.S. VI Corps of the Seventh Army crosses the Moder River and advances almost to Oberhofen.

1945 February 2 Churchill and Roosevelt depart Malta for Yalta.

1945 February 2 Jesuit priest Alfred Delp, a convert to Catholicism, is hanged and his ashes scattered in the wind. (Lewy)

1945 February 2 Klaus Bonhöffer (Bonhoeffer) older brother of Dietrich Bonhöffer, is sentenced to death by the German People's Court.

1945 February 3 More than 1,000 American bombers level much of Berlin's city center (the Zentrum).

1945 February 4-12 Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill meet for the last time at Yalta in the Crimea. U.S. Secretary of State, Edward R. Stettinius Jr. leads the American delegation and is accompanied by Averell Harriman. The Yalta agreement gives the Soviets almost half of prewar Poland and eastern Europe in general is torn asunder. Stalin is also promised Japan's Kuril Islands and control of Manchuria. Harry Hopkins and Alger Hiss, who is later convicted for denying under oath that he was a Soviet agent, are both deeply involved in negotiations with the Communists. Subsequently millions of people are displaced and disappear into Siberian work camps. Roosevelt and Churchill reply to criticism by saying that Russia has been allowed "to use manpower" as a partial payment of war indemnities.

1945 February 12 Professor von Verschuer informs the general administration of the KWG that the contents of the KWI of Anthropology have been sent by truck from Berlin to the West. Before or after this move, all incriminating documents (correspondence with Dr. Mengele, expert reports, memoranda) are destroyed. (Science)

1945 February13-14 Allied bombing raids on Dresden create a fire storm that kills between 35,000 and 135,000 German civilians. Other sources claim casualties as high as 300,000.

1945 February 13 Budapest falls to the Russians.

1945 February 16 One of the last decrees of the National Socialist regime states that: Anti-Jewish material should be destroyed, "so that it is not captured by the enemy." (Persecution)

1945 February 18 More than 500 Jews, hitherto protected because of their marriages to Christians, are seized throughout Germany and deported to Theresienstadt. (Atlas)

1945 February 19 U.S. forces land on Iwo Jima, an island fortress defended by 23,000 picked soldiers. For 74 consecutive days the Allies have bombarded the island before 30,000 U.S. Marines are sent ashore.

1945 February 22 Operation Clarion begins and the Allies attack targets in Germany with up to 9000 aircraft.

1945 February 23 American GIs reach the peak of Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi after some of the war's bloodiest fighting.

1945 February Corregidor is retaken by U.S. troops.

1945 March Hitler visits the Oder front. One of the last photos of Hitler is taken during this trip.

1945 March 1 Zhukov's forces in Pomerania breakthrough north of Arnswalde and move toward Kolberg.

1945 March 2 Patton's Third Army captures Trier.

1945 March 2 King Michael of Romania is forced by the Soviets to dismiss his government.

1945 March 3 2,000 Jews evacuated from Gross Rosen concentration camp arrive at Ebensee, one of the satellite camps of Mauthausen. 182 die during the disinfection procedure. (Atlas)

1945 March 3 Manila is secured by the Americans.

1945 March 5 U.S. troops enter Cologne.

1945 March 6 King Michael appoints a new government dominated by the Romanian Communist Party. This is the first indication since Yalta that Stalin will not honor his assurances about doing nothing to hinder the process of democracy in Eastern Europe.

1945 March 6 The first regiment of the new Romanian Nationalist Army takes a position along the Oder River and is inspected by General Platon Chirnoaga, Minister of Defense in the new Romanian government-in-exile.

1945 March 7 U.S. troops cross the Rhine River at Remagen near Cologne. The Ludendorff Bridge is still standing and it is captured before itsGerman defenders can blow it up.

1945 March 8 Hitler's high command issues orders for the execution of soldiers who surrender without being wounded or desert their units. They were to "be shot at once." In one incident four officers are summarily executed for allowing the Americans to capture the Rhine bridge at Remagen before they could blow it up. (Duffy)

1945 March 9 Several days of U.S. firebomb raids on Tokyo begin.

1945 March 19 Hitler issues a decree ordering that Berlin is to be defended "to the last man and the last round of ammunition." Speer later claims that it was he who had prevented Hitler's "scorched earth" policy from being fully implemented.

1945 March 20 Hitler makes his last appearance in public to award combat decorations to a group of children who had shown special bravery under Russian fire.

1945 Mach 22 Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Yemen form the League of Arab States

1945 March 23 British troops cross the Rhine at Wesel.

1945 March 26 The remaining Japanese troops on Iwo Jima stage a final suicide attack. They are wiped out by the 5th Marine Division and the island is finally secured. Japan has lost almost 21,000 soldiers with only 200 taken prisoner.

1945 March 27 Argentina declares war on Germany.

1945 March 27 The last V2 rockets fall on London. (Eyes)

1945 March 29 The Red Army enters Austria.

1945 April 1 The U.S. makes amphibious landings on Okinawa in the Pacific theater's largest amphibious operation.

1945 April 1 The final Allied offensive in Italy begins.

1945 April 2 Hitler prophesies the world's eternal gratefulness for having instigated the stamping out of the Jews. (Days)

1945 April 4 Kassel (G) is taken by troops from Patton's Third Army.

1945 April 4 American troops discover mass graves in Ohrdruf. 4,000 inmates had been murdered in the previous three months, and hundreds were shot on the eve of the American arrival. Some victims were Jews, others Polish and Russian prisoners of war. General Eisenhower, who visited the camp, was so shocked by the sight of the emaciated corpses that he sent photos to Churchill, who arranged for several Members of Parliament to visit the camp. (Atlas)

1945 April 5 Molotov tells the Japanese Ambassador in Moscow that the USSR does not plan to renew its 1941 Non-aggression Pact with Japan.

1945 April 6 The giant battleship Yamamoto leaves the Japanese Inland Sea on a suicide mission to Okinawa.

1945 April 7 U.S. planes intercept and sink the Yamamoto in the Battle of the South China Sea.

1945 April 8 The Jewish inmates at Buchenwald, many of whom had reached the camp from Auschwitz or Stutthof just three months before, are marched out, leaving the non-Jewish prisoners to await the arrival of the Americans. (Atlas)

1945 April 9 Nordhausen and Dora-Mittelbau (Dora-Nordhausen), where thousands of slave laborers have already died in the underground V-2 plants is liberated by the Americans.

1945 April 9 Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, former head of the Abwehr, General Hans Oster, and Pastor Dietrich Bonhöffer (Bonhoeffer) are hanged at Flossenbuerg concentration camp.

1945 April 9 The Germans begin evacuating Mauthausen concentration camp.

1945 April 10 Hiram J. Perez de Cruet departs Europe by troopship for the United States.

1945 April 10 American Jewish organizations are invited to send representatives to the opening of thwe San Francisco Conference.

1945 April 11 American forces liberate the remaining prisoners at Buchenwald concentration camp, freeing more than 21,000 German, Russian, Polish, Czechoslovakian, French, Italian, and Jewish inmates. 56,549 prisoners have died of starvation, disease, or deliberate sadism during its eight years of operation.

1945 April 12 U.S. forces reach the Elbe River only 60 miles from Berlin. Eisenhower informs Stalin that he is leaving the capture of Berlin to the Soviets. Systematic bombing by Soviet artillery and Allied air power soon reduces the German capital to ruins. The Luftwaffe, with its corps of pilots depleted, its airfields destroyed, and its fuel supply nonexistent, is unable to protect the city.

1945 April 12 President Roosevelt dies suddenly. Cause of death was said to be a massive cerebral hemorrage that struck the 63 year-old President while he was vacationing at Warm Springs, Georgia. He was succeeded the same day by Vice President Harry S Truman.

1945 April 13 Russian troops enter Vienna.

1945 April 14 Franz von Papen is arrested by the Americans.

1945 April 15 Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated by British forces, who discover the unburied corpses of 10,000 inmates. Most have died of starvation. There had been no food or water for more than five days, and evidence of cannibalism is found. Even after the liberation, an average of 500 die each day of typhus and starvation for more than a week.

1945 April 15 As the Allied armies draw together, 17,000 female inmates and 40,000 men are marched westward by the Germans from Ravenbrück and Sachsenhausen. Many hundreds die of exhaustion and hundreds more are shot by the wayside. (Atlas)

1945 April 16 General Zhukov launches his final attack on Berlin.

1945 April 18 German forces in the Ruhr pocket surrender.

1945 April 18 Field Marshal Walther Model commits suicide.

1945 April 19 Himmler plots to establish a new German government and negotiate an "honorable" peace with the Western Allies.

1945 April 20 The first Russian shells fall on Berlin. Adolf Hitler celebrates his 56th birthday. (Eyes)

1945 April 20 The U.S. Seventh Army captures Nuremberg.

1945 April 21 The last Western air raid strikes Berlin.

1945 April 21 Russian troops enter the outskirts of Berlin.

1945 April 21 Hiram J. Perez de Cruet arrives back in the United States with decorations for combat in the Tunisian, Sicilian, Naples-Foggia, and Rome-Arno campaigns.

1945 April 22 Himmler sends a message to Allies through the Red Cros offering a German surrender, but only to the British or Americans.

1945 April 22 Fewer than 1,000 of Bosnia's 14,000 Jews are still alive at the concentration camp of Jasenovac, near Zagreb. 600 prisoners, Jews and non-Jews, rise up in revolt. 520 are killed, and only 80 escape, including 20 Jews. (Atlas)

1945 April 23 SS guards execute Albrecht Haushofer and a group of antifascist prisoners, including Klaus Bonhöffer (Bonhoeffer), brother of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, outside Lehrterstrasse prison in Moabit during the battle for Berlin.

1945 April 23 Goering sends a message to Hitler offering to take over the leadership of Germany. Hitler, in a fury, orders Goering's immediate arrest.

1945 April 24 Goering is offically removed from all his military and Party offices by Hitler. (Duffy)

1945 April 25 U.S. and Russian troops join-up at Torgau on the Elbe River.

1945 April 25 In southern Germany, French troops stumble across evidence of mass murder and recent killings at four villages in the Swabian Alps and along the Danube. Mass graves are found of Jews evacuated from the east. With typical Gestapo thoroughness, thenames, ages and birthplaces of all the victims had been recorded. The villages were Tuttlingen, Schömberg, Schörzlngen, and Spaichlingen. (Atlas)

1945 April 25 Six Jews are shot by the Gestapo at Cuneo in northern Italy. (Atlas)

1945 April 25 Delegates from 50 nations assemble in San Francisco to endorse the United Nations charter.

1945 April 26 Generals Zhukov and Konev surround Berlin.

1945 April 26 American troops reach the concentration camp at Dachau. Among many others the camp still holds 326 German Catholic priests. A still larger number had passed through the camp, had died in it of starvation and disease, or had been murdered. Soon after Pope Pius XII invoked these and many other acts of persecution to show that the Catholic Church in Germany had strongly resisted the Nazi regime. (Lewy)

(Most other sources, such as Martin Gilbert, state that the Americans didn't liberate Dachau until April 29.) (See April 29)

1945 April 26 The Germans evacuate the last survivors from Stutthof by sea to Lübeck. Hundreds die during the voyage. (Atlas)

1945 April 27 During a death march from Rehmsdorf, a satellite camp of Buchenwald, 1,000 prisoners are killed with machinegun fire and grenades at Marienbad station. Another 1,200 are killed as the march continues toward Theresienstadt, where 500 are killed on arrival. (Atlas)

1945 April 27 The Western Allies reject Himmler's peace proposals.

1945 April 28 The International Red Cross arranges with the SS for the transport of 150 Jewish women from Ravensbrück to Sweden. They are the first of 3,500 Jewish and 3,500 non-Jewish women to be transferred to safety in the last ten days of the war. (Atlas)

1945 April 28 Benito Mussolini and his mistress are killed by Italian partisans near Dongo, Italy. Mussolini is later buried at Predappio, his birthplace.

1945 April 28 Otto Hermann Fegelein, the brother-in-law of Eva Braun and also Himmler's liaison officer in the bunker, is arrested in civilian clothes while preparing to leave the country. He is brought back to Hitler's bunker and is saved only by Eva who pleads for mercy because her sister is pregnant.

1945 April 28 At 9 PM, a BBC report, heard in Hitler's bunker, announces that Himmler has just offered to surrender Germany unconditionally to the Allies.. Hitler now believes Fegelein's attempt to escape is part of Himmler's treachery and within an hour Fegelein is tried and sentenced to death. His body has never been found and the circumstances of his death are still uncertain.

1945 April 28 Just before midnight, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun are married after a brief ceremony that is officiated by a minor official named Wagner. Only eight guests are allowed to attend: Bormann, the Goebbels and his wife, Gerda Christian, Chief Adjutant Bergdorf, General Krebs, Arthur Axmann, head of the Hitler Youth, and Fraulein Manzialy, the cook.

1945 April 29 At 4 AM, Hitler signs his last political will and testament, which had been quickly typed by Traudl Junge, one of his personal secretaries. Goebbels, Bormann, and Generals Burgdorf and Krebs sign as witnesses. (See Last Will and Testament)

1945 April 29 Russian troops drive toward Hitler's bunker in three main attacks.

1945 April 29 At 6 PM, Hitler announces to his staff that he and his wife, Eva, are going to die unless some miracle intervenes. He then passes out vials of cyanamide.

1945 April 29 German forces in Italy sign an unconditional surrender at Caserta.

1945 April 29 Dachau is liberated by the U.S. 45th Infantry Division. Some 20-30 SS men were said to have been captured. Eyewitnesses said 34 of the 200 guards captured were murdered by the Americans after surrendering. The camp inmates are said to have torn apart 15-20 informers and killed all the Capos, who were described for the most part as common German criminals.

1945 April 29 Thousands of photographs are taken at Dachau, and throughout the following week. Hundreds of bodies still lie in the perimeter ditch and are scattered in the spaces between the huts. Some are so horrible that they have never been reproduced. During the last year of the war about 40,000 inmates perished at Dachau, 80 percent were Jews.

(After the war, Dachau serves as a German prisoner-of-war camp, and during a series of war crimes trials, 260 SS functionaries are sentenced to death.) (Atlas)

1945 April 30 By late morning, the Soviets have overrun the Tiergarten in Berlin, and one advance unit is reported on one of the streets next to Hitler's bunker under the Reich Chancellery.

1945 April 30 Soviet forces enter Ravensbrueck concentration camp north of Berlin. In this one camp 92,000 Jews and non-Jews, mostly women and children, have died in just under two years. (Atlas)

1945 April 30 At 3:00 PM, American forces in Nuremberg discover the tunnel and underground bunker where the spear of Longinus (the Holy Lance) has been hidden to prevent its capture by the Allies.

1945 April 30 At 3:30 PM, Adolf Hitler and his new wife, Eva Braun, are believed to have committed suicide in his private quarters under the Chancellery. Their bodies are said to have been taken above ground by Hitler's aides, quickly burned with gasoline, and buried in a shallow grave.

1945 May The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is revived in Georgia.

1945 May 1 Joseph Goebbels and his wife commit suicide in the garden of the Reich Chancellery after poisoning all six of their young children.

1945 May 1 General Krebs meets with Zhukov in an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate surrender terms for Berlin.

1945 May 1 Martin Bormann disappears. Rumors of his survival flourished after the war, and a number of sightings were reported as recently as the mid 1990's.

1945 May 1 The Russian army secures Berlin.

1945 May 1 As American troops approach Mauthausen concentration camp, the last death marches of World War II begin. More than 30,000 have died in the camp during the last four months. (Atlas)

1945 May 1 Russians troops find the bodies of 1,000 volunteers of Himalayan origin in Berlin wearing German uniforms, but without any papers or identifying badges. Their identities have never been determined. (Pauwels)

1945 May 1 Hamburg radio announces the death of Adolf Hitler, and the appointment of Admiral Doenitz as second Fuehrer of the German Reich.

1945 May 2 A mysterious SS convoy leaves the Berghof (Hitler's Eagle's Nest). Later that night, members of this SS detachment bury several crates and metal boxes at the foot of the Schleigeiss glacier.

1945 May 2 Berlin falls to the Red Army

1945 May 2 British Second Army takes Lübeck and Wismar on the Baltic Coast. Canadian forces take Oldenburg.

1945 May 3 Soviet forces have reached the Elbe River west of Berlin and make contact with the U.S. First and Ninth Armies.

1945 May 3 The British XII Corps occupies Hamburg.

1945 May 3 Innsbruck, Austria, falls to the U.S. Seventh Army, while other units advance on Salzburg.

1945 May 4 An SS detachment burns Hitler's Berghof.

1945 May 4 General LeClerc's French 2nd Armored Division enters Berchtesgaden and discovers Hermann Goering's private train, loaded with priceless art objects, on a siding at the railway station. (Secrets)

1945 May 5 The Soviets take Swinemuende and Peenemuende on the Baltic coast.

1945 May 5 The American 101st Airborne Division arrives at Berchtesgaden and removes Goering's art treasures valued at $500 million to a Luftwaffe building in nearby Unterstein. (Secrets)

1945 May 5 German Army Group G surrenders to the Americans at Haar in Bavaria.

1945 May 5 Mauthausen, together with satellite camps at Gunskirchen and Ebensee, are the last concentration camps to be liberated by the Allies. (Mauthausen is liberated by elements of thge U.S.11th Aromored Diviion.) The bodies of 10,000 prisoners are found in a huge communal grave. Of the 110,000 survivors, 28,000 of whom are Jews, 3,000 die after liberation. (Atlas)

1945 May 5 The U.S. War Department announces that 400,000 men will remain in Germany as an occupation force.

1945 May 5 Fighting breaks out in Copenhagen and is brought to an end when British forces arrive by air.

1945 May 5 Elsie Mitchell and five children are killed by a bomb dropped from a Japanese balloon near Lakeview, Oregon.

1945 May 6 Admiral Doenitz issues an order forbidding futher resistance by the SS. Doenitz also writes a letter to Himmler officially relieving him of all his offices and titles. He closes by thanking Himmler for his services to the Reich. (Secrets)

1945 May 6 Aircraft from four British carriers attack Japanese bases between Mergui and Victoria Point in Burma.

1945 May 6 British battleships and cruisers shell Port Blair in the Andaman Islands.

1945 May 7 Admiral Friedeburg and General Jodl sign the unconditional German surrender at Gen. Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims. British, French, and Soviet representatives are also present. All operations are to end at 2301 (11:01PM) on May 8th.

1945 May 7 The U-2336 sinks two merchant ships off the Firth of Forth; the last U-boat casualties of the war.

1945 May 8 VE Day - Victory in Europe Day is celebrated by the British and Americans. Truman, Churchill and King George VI each make special announcements.

1945 May 8 German forces in Prague surrender.

1945 May 8 German Army Group Kurland, long cutoff in Latvia, surrenders to Soviet forces.

1945 May 8 Crown Prince Olaf, accompanied by British and Norwegian troops, lands in Norway.

1945 May 9 The German surrender is ratified in Berlin. Keitel, Friedeburg and Stumpf sign for Germany. Spaatz, Tedder, Zhukov and de Lattre sign for the Allies.

1945 May 9 The last German forces in East Prussia and Pomerania capitulate.

1945 May 9 The Soviets celebrate VE-Day.

1945 May 9 Hermann Goering and General Kesselring surrender to elements of the U.S. Seventh Army.

1945 May 9 Baron Rudolf von Sebottendorff (Rudolf Glauer) is said to have committed suicide by drowning himself in the Bosporus. (Herbert Rittlinger in a letter to Ellic Howe dated June 20, 1968)

1945 May 9 American poet and critic Ezra Pound in an interview in the Philadelphia Record and Chicago Sun says, "Adolf Hitler was a Jeanne d’Arc, a saint. He was a martyr. Like many martyrs, he held extreme views."

1945 May 10 Vidkun Quisling and his supporters are arrested by members of the Norwegian resistance.

1945 May 11 Schoerner's Army Group Center is caught in a pocket near Prague and surrenders to the Soviets.

1945 May 12 Several German units in Yugoslavia continue to fight for a few more days, but the war in Europe is over.

1945 May 13 Units of the U.S. 40th Division capture Del Monte airfield on Mindanao in the Philippines.

1945 May 15 Heavy fighting continues on Okinawa.

1945 May 16 The last major surface action of the war takes place between the British and Japanese in the Malacca Straits. The Japanese cruiser Haguro is sunk.

1945 May 18 The U.S. 6th Marine Division takes Sugar Loaf Hill on Okinawa after several days of bitter fighting.

1945 May 20 Heinrich Himmler is captured by British soldiers at Berweverde bridge, 25 miles west of Luneberg.

1945 May 22 President Truman reports to Congress that up to March 1945 Britain has received $12,775,000,000 under the Lend-Lease program. The Soviet Union $8,409,000,000. Reverse Lend-Lease, mostly from Britain, amounted to almost $5,000,000,000 during the same period, Truman says.

1945 May 23 Heinrich Himmler commits suicide with a hidden vial of cyanide while still in British custody.

1945 May 23 Colonel-General Alfred Jodl is dismissed as Chief of the armed forces supreme command (OKW) by Hitler.

1945 May 23 Churchill resigns from office to prepare for a new election in Britain and forms a new caretaker government to hold office until the elections in July.

1945 May 26 Himmler is buried in an unmarked grave in a forest near Luneberg. Its exact location is unknown.

1945 May 27 Units of the U.S. I Corps takes Santa Fe on Luzon. Heavy fighting continues on Mindanao.

1945 May 29 Admiral Ozawa replaces Admiral Toyoda as commander of the Combined Fleet.

1945 May Ezra Pound is arrested for treason and confined at the Detention Training Center near Pisa, Italy. During Summer and Fall, he writes the Pisan Cantos.

1945 Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) is evicted from his SS guest-house on the Worthersee in Austria by British troops and assigned to an Allied refugee camp at St. Johann near Velden. While there, the 78-year-old Weisthor suffers a stroke which results in partial paralysis and loss of speech. Weisthor, a former SS Brigadier, and his SS housekeeper are released by the British and allowed to return to his old family home in Salzburg (Mund; Roots)

1945 June 5 The Allied Control Commission meets for the first time in Berlin and announces it is assuming the government of Germany.

1945 General Patton is appointed military governor of the State of Bavaria. Patton's outspoken opposition to the official policy of denazification forces his superiors to later relieve him of any real responsibility.

1945 June 8 The Japanese cruiser Ashigara is sunk by a British submarine after evacuating 1200 men from Batavia.

1945 June 12 Many of the Japanese troops on Okinawa's Oruku Peninsula commit suicide to escape capture.

1945 June 14 Units of the U.S. XXIV Corps capture Mount Yagu on Okinawa.

1945 June 16 Mount Yuza on Okinawa is taken by U.S. forces.

1945 June 18 General Simon B. Buckner, commander of the U.S. Tenth Army on Okinawa, is killed by Japanese artillery and replaced by General Joseph Stilwell.

1945 June 18 William Joyce, Lord Haw Haw, is tried for treason in London. He will later be convicted and executed for broadcasting Nazi propaganda from Germany.

1945 June 20 Hiram J. Perez de Cruet is discharged from the U.S. army at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

1945 June 21 The last Japanese HQ on Okinawa is taken by U.S. forces and General Ushijima's body is found nearby.

1945 June 22 Fighting on Okinawa comes to an end. Japanese losses are 120,000 military and 42,000 civilian dead. 12,500 Americans die in the fighting.

1945 June 26 The United Nations Conference ends in San Francisco. It is presided over by Alger Hiss, the Acting Secretary General. The Soviet Union is admitted as a partner, with three seats instead of one as is the case with every other member. The UN charter is signed by representatives of 50 countries.

1945 June 29 Invasion plans for Japan are presented to President Truman and approved. The island of Kyushu is to be attacked on November 1 and Honshu near Tokyo on March 1, 1946.

1945 July 5 General MacArthur announces that the Philippines have been completely liberated. Not only has the Japanese army lost more than 400,000 of its best troops in the campaign, but with the fall of the Philippines, Japan's supply lines are cut.

1945 July 5 The British election is held, but the results will not be released until July 26, because of the time required to bring home and count the soldier's votes.

1945 July 5 Both Britain and the U.S. recognize the new Polish government.

1945 July 10 British and American carrier forces attack the Japanese home islands. Tokyo is attacked by more than 1,000 aircraft.

1945 July 11 The first meeting of the Inter-Allied Council is held in Berlin. The Soviets agree to turn over control of the allocated areas of the city to the British and Americans who have made arrangements to give some of their sectors to the French.

1945 July 14 General Eisenhower announces closure of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and eases restrictions on fraternization between American soldiers and German civilians.

1945 July 14 50,000 tons of Japanese shipping is sunk in the Tsugaru Straits.

1945 July 16 The first experimental atomic bomb is successfully exploded by the U.S. at Alamagardo, New Mexico.

1945 July 17 The Potsdam Conference (to August 2) - Truman, Churchill and Stalin divide Germany into four zones of Allied occupation. Russia is invited to participate in the war against an already defeated Japan, which only two months before had already offered to negotiate for peace through Moscow. Edward R. Stettinius Jr., the U.S. Secretary of State, and Averell Harriman are both active in the negotiations. In addition, Truman, himself, informs Stalin that the U.S. has just tested an atomic bomb.

1945 July 20 10,000 people attend a rally at Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles to protest Gerald L. K. Smith's racist and antisemitic activities in Southern California.

1945 July 26 Allied leaders at Potsdam demand that Japan must immediately surrender, unconditionally, or face what they call: "utter destruction."

1945 July 26 The British electorate ousts Winston Churchill and replaces him with Clement R. Attlee of the Labour Party. Attlee takes over the Potsdam meetings.

1945 July 26 Charles Lindbergh gives an interview in the offices of the publisher of the Chicago Tribune voicing his opposition to establishment of the United Nations (U.N.).

1945 July 28 The United Nations(U.N.) charter is approved by the U.S. Senate.

1945 July 29/30 The cruiser Indianapolis, returning to the U.S. after delivering the Atom bomb to the Marianas air base, is sunk by the Japanese submarine 1.58.

1945 July 30 A meeting of American nationalists and antisemites in Chicago leads to the formation and establishment of American Action, Inc.

1945 July 31 Pierre Laval surrenders to U.S. forces in Austria and is handed over to the French authorities.

1945 August The United States, Britain, Russia, and France charter an Allied War Crimes Commission and setup a court for war criminals at Nuremberg.

1945 August Eduard Schulte, the man said to have first warned the West about the Holocaust, becomes an important official in the new German central government set up by the Allies. He is recommended or the position by Allen Dulles, head of the OSS in Switzerland. (Silence)

1945 August 2 In Berlin, President Harry S Truman, Joseph Stalin, and Prime Minister Clement Attlee of Britain establish a new de facto western frontier for Poland along the Oder and Neisse Rivers.

1945 August 6 The first atom bomb is dropped by the Enola Gay, a B-29, on the Japanese army base at Hiroshima.This single bomb destroys almost three-fifths of the city and kills an estimated 80,000 people.

1945 August 8 President Truman signs the UN Charter, making the U.S. the first nation to ratify its signature.

1945 August 8 The Soviet Union declares war on Japan and begins several attacks on the Japanese in Manchuria.

1945 August 9 The U.S. drops a second and more powerful atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, leaving the city in ruins, and killing an estimated 40,000 people.

1945 August 9 Japanese defense lines in Manchuria are smashed by Soviet forces numbering almost 1.5 million.

1945 August 10 Japanese radio stations announce that a message has been sent accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration provided this "does not compromise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of the Emperor as sovereign ruler."

1945 August 11 The Allies inform Japan that the Imperial authority would be subject to the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in the occupation force.

1945 August 12 Japanese leaders choose not to accept the Allied demand which amounts to unconditional surrender.

1945 August 13 An air raid on Tokyo destroys scores of Japanese aircraft while still on the ground.

1945 August 14 Kumagaya and several other targets northwest of Tokyo are bombed in the last air raid of the war.

1945 August 14 Emperor Hirohito orders an end to the war and then records a radio message saying that the Japanese people must "Bear the unbearable."

1945 August 14 During the night a group of Japanese officers attack the Imperial Palace in an unsuccessful attempt to steal the Emperor's radio announcement and prevent its broadcast.

1945 August 15 VJ Day (Victory over Japan). Emperor Hirohito announces the surrender of Japan. For the first time in history, the emperor of Japan makes a personal radio broadcast to the people of Japan.

1945 August 15 Pope Pius XII, in a letter to the Bavarian bishops, pays tribute to "those millions of Catholics, men and women of every class" who loyal to their bishops, had fought against the demonic powers that ruled Germany. (Wuestenberg and Zabkar; Lewy)

1945 August 16 The U.S.S.R. and Poland sign a treaty delimiting the Soviet-Polish frontier. Poland is shifted westward. In the east it loses 69,860 square miles; in the west it gains (subject to final peace-conference approval) 38,986 square miles.

1945 August 16 Prince Norukiko Higashi-Kuni forms a new government and Emperor Hirohito orders a cease-fire to all Japanese troops.

1945 August 20 The U.S. War Production Board removes most of its controls on manufacturing activity. The U.S. quickly coverts to a peacetime economy.

1945 August 21 President Truman orders an immediate end to the Lend-Lease Program.

1945 August 22 The Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria surrenders to the Soviets.

1945 August 27 The Allied fleets anchor in Tokyo Bay.

1945 August 28 The principal speaker of the evening at a meeting of American Action at the Clark Hotel in Los Angeles tells guests and members that Jews, international bankers and Jewish Communist immigrants from Russia had acquired almost complete control of American business, government and labor.

1945 August 30 Rudolf Hess is one of the first twenty-two German defendants charged as war criminals. (Children)

1945 September 2 Japan formally surrenders aboard the US battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. (September 1 in the U.S.)

1945 September 12 The Japanese forces in Southeast Asia surrender to Admiral Mountbatten in Singapore.

1945 October General Patton is relieved of his post as the military governor of Bavaria, allegedly, for failing to remove former Nazi officials from the local government.

1945 October 2 Pope Pius XII declares that totalitarianism cannot satisfy "the vital exigencies of any human community" since "it allows the state power to assume an undue extension" and forces "all legitimate manifestations of life -- personal, local and professional -- into a mechanical unity or collectivity under the stamp of nation, race or class." (Lewy)

1945 October 8 Rudolf Hess arrives in Nuremberg.

1945 October 15 Pierre Laval, who had been returned to France and tried for treason in a hostile court, is executed after an abortive suicide attempt.

1945 October 24 The United Nations (U.N.) Charter comes into force with just 29 signatories at this point. The organization's stated purposes are to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war," develop friendly relations among states, cooperate in solving international economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems, and promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

1945 October 24 Vidkun Quisling is executed by a firing squad in Norway.

1945 November 20 Nuremberg Trials begin for 22 of the most important accused German war criminals. The defendants include Hess, Goering and Speer.

1945 November 20 Alfred Naujocks, SS secret-service veteran and member of the SD, signs a sworn affidavit stating that Reinhard Heydrich had personally ordered him to fake a Polish attack on the German radio station at Gleiwitz on the German-Polish border on August 31, 1939. Hitler, he said, planned to use this faked attack as his public justification for attacking Poland. (Shirer I)

1945 Winter Ezra Pound is forcibly returned to the U.S. to stand trial for treason. (See May 1943 and February 1946)

1945 December 9 General George S. Patton is injured in a car-truck collision near Mannheim, Germany.

1945 December 21 General Patton dies from his injuries in a hospital at Heidelberg, Germany, and is buried in Luxembourg. His memoirs, "War As I Knew it," is published posthumously in 1947.

1945 December A Republican citizen's committee in Whittier, California, approaches Richard Nixon as a candidate for Congress in the 12th Congressional District. Nixon accepts.

1945 December After a brief stay at his old family home in Salzburg, Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) and his housekeeper, Elsa Baltrush, travel to Arolsen, Germany, home of the Baltrush family. The journey proves too much for the old man and he is hospitalized upon arrival.

1945 The U.S. Treasury Department accuses Allen Dulles of laundering money from the Nazi Bank of Hungary into Switzerland. The Charges are later dropped by the U.S. State Department.

1946 January 3 Karl Maria Weisthor (Wiligut) dies in Arolsen, Germany. Elsa Baltrush, his SS-assigned housekeeper, had been a member of Himmler's personal staff until she was appointed as Weisthor's housekeeper and traveling companion after his retirement from SS active duty in August 1939. (Mund; Roots)

1946 January 8 Articles of incorporation for American Action, Inc. are filed in Delaware and headquarters are established in Chicago.

1946 Leon Blum serves briefly as interim French premier, playing a key role in the establishment of the Fourth Republic.

1946 February The Soviets are said to have buried the remains of Adolf Hitler and his wife, Eva, as well as those of Joseph Goebbels and his family, at a site near Magdeburg in the Soviet zone of occupation.

1946 February Ezra Pound, after a psychiatric exam, is judged unfit to stand trial, and is confined to St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Washington, D.C., for the next 12 years. Pound continued to write, but was not released until April 1958. He then returned to Italy where the Pisan Cantos, written while in custody resurrected his career after publication in 1948. It was awarded the Bollingen Prize in 1949.

1946 February 18 Pope Pius XII, during a reception for the diplomatic corps, declares that he has always condemned acts of injustice and moral outrages and merely avoided expressions (during the war) that could have done more harm than good. (Lewy)

1946 March 14 Karl Haushofer kills his wife, Martha, and then commits ritual suicide (Hari Kari) in the traditional Japanese manner.

1946 March 19 Chaim Hirschmann, one of only two survivors of the death camp at Belzec, is killed in Lublin during continuing antisemitic violence. (Atlas)

1946 April 18 The League of Nations is formally terminated and is succeeded by the United Nations (U.N.).

1946 May The British and Americans agree to end the taking of war reparations from their zones in Germany and agree to unite their administrations to share costs. This is the first definitive step toward the creation of a divided Germany.

1946 May 9 King Victor Emmanuel is forced to formally abdicate in his favor of his son, Prince Humbert.

1946 May 14 SS Col. Joachim Peiper goes on trial for war crimes at Dachau. Peiper, like many others, claims he was only following orders. (Secrets)

1946 May 23 A branch office of American Action is opened in Los Angeles with the announcement that American Action had been formed "to combat the inroads that have been made on the U.S. government by alien-minded pressure groups." (McWilliams)

1946 June The U.S. begins war crimes trials for Japan's war-time leaders (to November 1948). Seven military leaders, including former prime minister Tojo Hideki receive death sentences. Sixteen received life sentences, and two others received prison terms. Regional tribunals are established by the U.S. to try other Japanese wartime leaders.

1946 June 2 Italy votes to become a republic, forcing the former King Victor Emmanuel and his son, King Humbert into exile.

1946 July 11 SS Col. Joachim Peiper is ordered hanged for the shooting of American prisoners at Malmedy. Peiper is taken to Landsberg Prison to await execution. (Five years later, in 1951, he was still waiting, and in December 1956, he was paroled.) (Secrets)

1946 July 19 Eduard Schulte, the man said to have first warned the West about the Holocaust, returns to Zurich from Germany. (Silence)

1946 July 26 Four Negroes are viciously murdered near Monroe, Georgia, allegedly by the newly revived KKK.

1946 August 17 A corporate charter is issued in Atlanta, Ga., to an organization calling itself the Columbians, Inc. According to its articles it was formed "to encourage our people to think in terms of race, nation and faith to work for a moral reawakening in order to build a progressive white community that is bound together by a deep spiritual consciousness of a common past and a determination to share a common future." (McWilliams)

1946 October 1 The War Crimes Commission in Nuremberg delivers its verdict. Eleven of the defendants are to be hanged, eight are sentenced to long prison terms, and three (Schacht, Papen and Fritzsche) are acquitted.

1946 October 15 At 10:45PM, Hermann Goering commits suicide with a cyanide capsule in his cell at Nuremberg just two hours before his scheduled execution. How he was able to obtain the cyanide is still a mystery.

1946 October 16 1:11AM, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop; Hitler's chief military advisor, Field Marshal General Wilhelm Keitel; General Alfred Jodl; Gestapo Chief Ernst Kaltenbrunner; Hans Frank, governor-general of occupied Poland; slave-labor czar Fritz Sauckel, Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, Austrian Nazi leader Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and anti-Jewish propagandists Alfred Rosenberg and Julius Streicher are all hanged in the gymnasium of Landsberg Prison in Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. Streicher's last word was "Purimfest."

(U.S. Master Sgt. John C. Woods and 28-year-old MP Joseph Malta served as executioners. The ten hangings took just one hour and 15 minutes.)

1946 October 31 Arthur Weiss, Commander of Jewish War Veterans Atlanta Post No. 112, and 125 Jewish war veterans confront the Columbians at a meeting in Atlanta. Police intervene and violence is avoided.

1946 November 2 Homer L. Loomis, Jr., the self-styled Fuehrer of the Columbians and three other uniformed members are arrested for intimidating, by threats of violence, a Negro family from moving into a home in an Atlanta neighborhood. (Atlanta Constitution, November 3, 1946)

1946 November 5 The New York Times reports that the stated objectives of the Columbians were to make the U.S. into an "American nationalist state," to deport all blacks to Africa and to make America "a one-race nation"

1946 November 22 Homer L. Loomis tells a meeting of the Columbians that "Everybody in America is free to hate. Hate is natural. It's not un-American to hate. Why does the Jew think that he alone is above criticism and being hated?" (McWilliams)

1946 The United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly holds its first meeting in London, with Norway's Trygve Lie elected secretary general.

1946 John D. Rockefeller gives $8.5 million for a United Nations (U.N.) center in New York City.

1946 December 9 An American military tribunal in Nuremberg opens criminal proceedings against 23 leading German physicians and administrators for participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. During what is called the "Doctors Trial" the defendants are accused of planning and enacting the "Euthanasia" Program, the systematic killing of those they deemed "unworthy of life." The victims included the mentally retarded, the institutionalized mentally ill, and the physically impaired. (See August 20, 1947)

1946 December 31 President Truman issues a proclamation officially terminating U.S. participation in World War II. (McWilliams)

1947 Frederick Hielscher, who was never prosecuted after the war, gives evidence on behalf of SS Colonel Wolfram Sievers at the "Doctors Trial" in Nuremberg. Hielscher confines his testimony to political matters and intentionally absurd statements about race and ancestral tribes (See June 2, 1948). (Pauwels)

1947 Treaties with Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Finland become effective. Italy loses all of its African possessions and its privileges in China and has to cede European territory to France, Greece, and Albania. The other Axis powers, except Bulgaria, also lose territory. All five nations are required to pay reparations.

1947 February 15 Homer L. Loomis is sentenced to serve one year in public works camp for incitement to riot. The revolt which the Columbians had attempted to organize was crushed and the so-called Atlanta Putsch comes to an end.

1947 April 17 Dr. Leo Alexander, an American doctor who had worked with the prosecution during the "Doctors Trial" submits a memorandum to the United States Counsel for War Crimes outlining six points defining legitimate scientific research.

1947 August 19 The judges of the American military tribunal in the case of the USA vs. Karl Brandt et. al. (the "Doctors Trial") confront the difficult question of medical experimentation on human beings. Several of the doctors had argued in their own defense that their experiments had differed little from previous American or German experiments. Furthermore they showed that no international law or informal statement differentiated between legal and illegal human experimentation.

(Note: Before announcing their verdict, the judges reiterated almost all of the points in Dr. Alexander's memorandum of April 17 in a section entitled "Permissible Medical Experiments," which revised his original six points into ten. Subsequently, these ten points became known as the "Nuremberg Code." Although the code addressed the defense arguments in general, remarkably none of the specific findings against Brandt and his codefendants mentioned the code. Thus the legal force of the document was not well established and failed to find a place in either the American or German national law codes. Nevertheless, it remains a landmark document on medical ethics and one of the most lasting products of the "Doctors Trial.")

1947 August 20 After almost 140 days of proceedings, including the testimony of 85 witnesses and the submission of almost 1,500 documents, the American judges in the "Doctor's Trial" in Nuremberg pronounce their verdict. Sixteen of the doctors are found guilty. Seven are sentenced to death. (See June 2, 1948)

(Defendants Paul Rostock, Kurt Blome, Siegfried Ruff, Hans Wolfgang Romberg, Georg August Weltz, Konrad Schaefer, and Adolf Pokorny were judged not guilty of the charges listed in the indictment.)

1947 September 29 Tribunal II of the War Crimes trials begins in Nuremberg. 24 SS defendents including SS Colonel Otto Ohlendorf appear before Justice Michael A. Musmanno, President Judge of the tribunal.

1947 November 29 The United Nations ratifies the partition of Palestine between the Arabs and Jews.

1948 April 10 Otto Ohlendorf is sentenced to death by hanging by the War Crimes Tribunal II at Nuremberg. (Secrets)

1948 May 14 The state of Israel is officially proclaimed. Chaim Weizmann becomes its first President.

1948 June 2 All seven doctors sentenced to death at the "Doctor's Trial" (Karl Brandt, Karl Gebhart, Rudolf Brandt, Joachim Mrugowsky, Wolfram Sievers, Viktor Brack, and Waldemar Hoven) are hanged at Landsberg prison in Bavaria. The sentences of the remaining defendants are reduced during the appeal process.

(After Sievers conviction, Friederick Hielscher received permission to accompany Sievers to the gallows as his spiritual advisor, and it was with him that the condemned man said prayers to the mysterious cult, which was never mentioned throughout his trial. Hielscher then returned to obscurity.) (Pauwels)

1949 The Weizmann Institute of Science, incorporating the Sieff Institute, is founded at Rehovot, Israel. Chaim Weizmann is appointed director.

1949 The Western powers consolidate their sectors into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), a constitutional democracy. The Soviets establish the Communist-run German Democratic Republic in their eastern zone.

1949 November The widow of the late General Ludendorff, on trial at Nuremberg, explains why her husband broke with Hiter, stating, "...as early as the summer of 1929 James P. Warburg had undertaken an assignment from financial circles in America, which desired to exercise solitary influence on Germany in the unleashing of a national revolution. Warburg's task," she said, "was to find the suitable man in Germany, and he entered into contract with Adolph Hitler who subequently received sums of money amounting to 27 million dollars up to January 30, 1932, and still another seven million thereafter, enabling him to finance his movement." (Williams Intelligence Summary, Feb. 1950)

1951 June 8 Otto Ohlendorf, commander of Einsatzgruppe D, after all appeals have been heard, is hanged at Landsberg Prison. (Secrets)

1951 July 23 General Henri Philippe Petain dies in prison.

1951 A peace treaty with Japan is signed by 50 nations, led by the United States but excluding the Soviet bloc. Japan is required to abandon claims to China and to renounce the use of force to settle international disputes. Reparations are not imposed and the treaty does not recognize Soviet occupation of the Kuril Islands or southern Sakhalin.

1952 A treaty between Japan and the Allies goes into effect and Japan regains full sovereignty.

1952 November 9 Chaim Weizmann dies in Rehovot, Israel. (See Blutzeuge)

1953 April 25 Watson and Crick define the three-dimensional structure of DNA, the hereditary material first identified in 1944. Rapid, almost explosive, advances in the science of genetics begin. Soon, semi-synthetic hereditary material engineered for specific purposes can be introduced into plant and animal tissues, even into the germ line, where it is inherited by the next generation. (Science)

1954 April 22 Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels (Adolf Joseph Lanz) dies in Vienna. His request to be buried at Heilegenkreuz monastery is refused. Rumors soon circulate that his body was secretly disinterred and reburied at Heiligenkreuz. (Howe)

1955 An treaty between the former Allies and Austria treats Austria as a liberated nation and not a defeated one. Austria receives independence, and the four-power occupation is terminated.

1955 April 12 The Salk vaccine against polio is declared safe and effective.

1956 Eduard Schulte marries a Jewess (Doris), who has been his mistress since before the war. His wife, Clara Ebert Schulte died the previous year. (Silence)

1957 March 26 The West German Constitutional Court upholds the continued validity of the Vatican Concordat for the German Federal Republic.

1958 October 9 Pope Pius XII dies at Castel Gandolfo.

1959 Franz von Papen is appointed Papal Privy Chamberlain.

1960 June 1 Paula Hitler, Adolf Hitler's only surviving full-sibling, dies. Since neither Adolf or Paula had children, there are no known living descendants of Alois and Klara Hitler. (Payne)

1961 April 12 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to fly in space, orbiting the Earth once before making a successful landing.

1965 November 9 The "Great Northeast Power Outage" blacks-out New York City, several states in the northeast, and parts of Canada after a series of mysterious power failures that last up to 13 1/2 hours. The black-outs struck just before dusk. (See Blutzeuge, November 9th)

1968 Soviet journalist Lev Bezymenski publishes "The Death of Adolf Hitler" which discloses previously unavailable information concerning the autopsies of what are said to be the bodies of Adolf Hitler and his entourage.

1970 April 4-5 Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev orders the bodies of Hitler and his entourage exhumed from their hiding place at Magdeburg, and incinerated.

1970 November 9 Former French president Charles De Gaulle dies at age 79. (See Blutzeuge)

1976 July 13-14 Former SS Colonel Joachim Peiper is murdered at his home near Traves, France. His house is burned down around him, and one of his arms and a leg are missing when the body is found. It was rumored that French patriots or a Jewish revenge squad were responsible. (Secrets)

1988 December Mikhail Gorbachev, in an address at the United Nations, states,"Further global progress is now possible only through a quest for universal consensus in the movement towards a new world order."

1989 April 12 Radical (leftist) activist Abbie Hoffman, 52, is found dead at his home in New Hope, Pa.

1989 November 9 Without warning the Berlin Wall suddenly comes down. The swiftness of its fall stuns the world and many find it suspicious that this remarkable event coincides with the date of Hitler's most "sacred Aryan" holiday. (November 9th was a date connected with the National Socialist movement from its very beginning and with Adolf Hitler as far back as World War I.) (Blutzeuge)

1993 February 19 Russian officials show what they say are two pieces of Hitler's skull to the world press. Many historians remain skeptical of their authenticity.

1994 Otto Remer flees to Spain to escape a 22-month jail sentence in Germany for "inciting hate, violence and racism" by publicly denying that Nazi gas chambers ever existed or that the holocaust occurred.

1994 April 12 Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell declines to be nominated to the Supreme Court.

1997 October 4 Otto Remer dies at his home in Marabella, Spain. He is said to have become an icon to several thousand Spaniards who adhered to Neo-Nazis doctrine. (N.Y. Times)

1997 October 16 A Polish government panel finds no evidence that Communist authorities instigated the 1946 pogrom against Jews in Kielce (P), but acknowledged the Communists did not act quickly enough to control the violence. 42 Jews were killed during what is considered the last pogrom in Europe. A number of Polish army officers and security officers are known to have taken part in the attacks.

1999 November 9 The tenth anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall. Neo-Nazis, both in America and Europe, believe this date will mark a day of special importance to their movement. (See Blutzeuge, Munich Putsch, Kristallnacht)

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