Germany 1918-1945

WW1 ends - G defeated

Kaiser abdicates

Sailors at Kiel naval base mutiny - people starving due to Royal navy blockade

Weimar Republic offically created

Friedrich Ebert elected as 1st president

Spartacist Revolt begins - Berlin, Kurt Eisner murdered

Treaty of Versailles signed

Hitler joins German Workers Party (DAP) - led by Anton Drexler

Kapp Putsch (right wing)

Communist uprising in the Ruhr

Hitler took control of the DAP - removed Anton Drexler

Hitler renamed DAP the NSDAP / 'Nazi' Party

Hitler set up the 'SA' (Brownshirts)

Mattias Erzberger assassinated - a 'November Criminal'

Reparations started - £6.6 billion in total - £50 million a year (G paid)

Prices rise - inflation

Walter Rathenau murdered - Ebert's foreign minister by right-wing extremists

French & Belgian occupation of the Ruhr industrial area - because G didn't pay 2nd installment of reparations

Hyperinflation

Stressmann recalls Reichmark brings in Rentenmark

Munich Putsch

Hitler's trial, conviction & imprisonment - meant to serve 5 years but only serves 9 months

Hitler writes 'Mein Krampf' whilst in prison, setting out his ideas and aims

US loan money (Dawes Plan) to help G recover

'Golden Years' period of economic recovery begins - lasts until 1929

Nazi Party secures 5% of the vote

Hitler released

Hitler enlarges SA & sets up **, his own personal bodyguard, led by Himmler

Stressmann signs Locarno Pact with France

Hindenburg elected as President for 7 years

Hitler gained support of Nazis in northern G (Bamberg Conference)

Hitler appointed Josef Goebbels in charge of Nazi propaganda

G allowed to johns League of Nations

G industrial exports increasing

Nazi secures only 2% of popular vote - 13 SEATS in Reichstag

G gets new US loans (Young Plan)

Hitler campaigned againist the 'Young Plan'

Stressmann dies

Unemployment rises

'Big Business' regularly funds the Nazi Party

Unemployment rising

Nazi Party get 107 seats in the Reichstag

Communists also do well in elections

Unemployment reaches 6 million

Presidental elections - Hidenburg vs. Hitler

Hidenburg wins (19 million vs. 13 million)

2 (national) Reichstag elections

Nazis remain the single largest party, with 37%-32% (approx. 200 seats)

Hitler appointed Chancellor - January 1933

Reichstag Fire - Hitler blames Communists

Book burning event organised

Elections - Nazis = 44% of popular vote (233 seats)

Goering sets up Gestapo

One day boycott of Jewish shops

Jews banned from civil service & public service jobs

ENABLING ACT

Free (left-wing, Communist) trade unions were banned

Political opponents put in Dachau

German Labour Front (DAF) was established - led by Dr. Robert Ley

Concordat agreement signed between Hitler & the Pope

National Labour Service started

Rearmament programme started

Night of the Long Knives - Rohm (leader of SA) & appox. 400 other were executed, including von Schleicher over weekend 29 - 30 June

Hidenburg dies

Hitler becomes president of 'der Fuhrer'

Army swears Oath of Allegiance to Hitler

Conscription re-introduced

Nuremburg Laws passed - took away G citizenship from Jews and banned them to marry or have sex with pure-blooded Germans

G begins to rearm

Saar area rejoins G after a vote (plebiscite)

Berlin Olympic Games

** took control of G's police force, including the Gestapo - led by Heydrich

4 Year Plan started (to rebuild G's industrial & military capacity)

G reoccupied the Rhineland - attention was on Abyssinia

Rome-Berlin Axis agreement signed - Hitler & Mussolini allies

Hitler signs Anti Comintern (anti-Communist) Pact with Italy & Japan

Krystallnacht / 'Night of the Broken Glass' - Nov '38 nationwide attacks on Jews - 91 Jews murdered, 20,000 Jews taken to concentration camps

German Jews encouraged to emigrate

Aryanisation of Jewish businesses began (Jewish businesses given to Nazis)

Anschluss with Austria

Sudetenland absorbed into a 'Greater Germany'

Rest of Czechslovakia invaded

Nazi-Soviet Pact signed

Hitler invades Poland which begins WW2

Hitler's 50th birthday!

Hitler Youth & BDM made complusory

Birth rate risen to 20 per 1,000 compared to 15 per 1,000 in 1933

Food rationing began

T-4 programme introduced - Euthanasia Programme

G invades & occupies Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium & France

Battle of Britain stops Hitler from invading Britain

Winterhilfe (Winter Help) scheme started - public donated warm clothes to soldiers fighting in the Russian winter

Nazis agree the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question' (ie. extermination of Jewish people)

Germany invaded Russia

Millions of Polish & Russian Jews rounded up and put into ghettos

Women were re-introduced into the world of work to help the war effort - contradicts Nazi ideas

USA now in war on Britain's side

Allies start to bomb German cities

Total War production began

German army destroyed at Stalingrad

Operation Valkyrie (army attempt to assassinate Hitler failed)

Hitler & leading Nazis commit suicide

G defeated - WW2 over