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Adolf Hitler: Key Dates

Under Adolf Hitler's leadership and imbued with his racially motivated ideology, the Nazi regime was responsible for the mass murder of 6 million Jews and millions of other victims.

Though Hitler’s ideology and leadership bear primary responsibility for the Holocaust and deaths of millions in World War II in Europe, the Nazi regime had substantial support from many quarters and benefitted from much indifference among civilians and professionals.

There are many myths and misunderstandings about Hitler and his life. The most common is his alleged Jewish ancestry.

The events listed below are some of the important milestones in the life of one of Europe's most ruthless dictators.

Adolf Hitler

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Third Reich

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April 20, 1889 Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) is born in the Upper Austrian border town of Braunau am Inn, the son of tax collector Alois Hitler. Contrary to popular belief, he had no Jewish ancestors.

1908 Hitler moves to Vienna. His impoverishment and residence in homeless shelters began the following year after he had squandered a generous inheritance. Hitler lives in Vienna until May 1913.

1913 Hitler moves to Munich, Germany, in May, and in the following year he enlists in the German army to fight in World War I .

Adolf Hitler was a frontline soldier during World War I

1918 Hitler is partially blinded in a mustard gas attack near Ypres in Belgium. News of the November 11, 1918, armistice reaches him as he is convalescing in a military hospital. World War I has a profound impact on Hitler and many other Germans. The impact of the conflict and its divisive peace has repercussions for decades to come, giving rise to a second world war and genocide committed under its cover.

September 12, 1919 Hitler attends an early meeting of the German Workers' Party ( Deutsche Arbeiterpartei -DAP), which will later become the Nazi Party under his leadership.

November 8–9, 1923 Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party lead a coalition group in an attempt to overthrow the government of Bavaria and initiate a “national revolution.” This so-called Beer Hall Putsch fails. Hitler and others are arrested for treason.

1923 – 25 Hitler i s convicted of high treason and sentenced to five years imprisonment, although he serves only one year . While in prison, he writes Mein Kampf (My Struggle). This infamous memoir proves significant in promoting key components of Nazism and its racial ideology. Published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, it would sell one million copies in 1933, Hitler's first year in office.

1925 Hitler establishes the SS ( Schutzstaffel ; Protection Squadrons). During the Nazi regime, the SS will become responsible not only for the German police force and the concentration camp system, but also for security, identification of ethnicity, settlement and population policy , and intelligence.

April 10, 193 2 Hitler loses a run-off election for the German presidency to the elderly incumbent, General Paul von Hindenburg .

January 1933 The Nazi Party comes to power with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor.

March 23, 1933 Following the burning of the German parliament building , the Reichstag, by unknown arsonists, t he German parliament passes the Law for Rectification of the Distress of Nation and Reich, commonly known as the Enabling Act ( Ermächtigungsgesetz ). This law allows Hitler, as Chancellor, to initiate and sign legislation into law without obtaining parliamentary consent. The act effectively establishes a dictatorship, under Hitler, in Germany.

June 30-July 2, 1934 On Hitler’s order, Nazi leaders eliminate the leadership of the SA and kill other political enemies. The murderous purge cement s an agreement between the Nazi regime and the German army that consolidates Nazi power and enables Hitler to proclaim himself Führer (leader) of Germany and to claim absolute power.

Adolf Hitler passes through the Brandenburg Gate on his way to the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games

Summer 1936 Hitler opens the Berlin Olympics. 1936 represents a rare instance in which one nation, Germany, hosted both the winter and summer Olympic Games. Nazi Germany uses the 1936 Olympic s for propaganda purposes. The Nazis promote an image of a new, strong, and united Germany while masking the regime’s targeting of Jews and Roma (Gypsies) as well as Germany’s growing militarism.

1938 Hitler meets with the leaders of Britain, France, and Italy at a conference in Munich, Germany, on September 29–30, 1938, in which they agree to the German annexation of the Sudetenland in exchange for a pledge of peace from Germany. Six months later, Hitler moves against the Czechoslovak state .

March 12, 1938 German troops march into Austria . Native son Adolf Hitler crosses the Austro-German border at midday at his hometown, Braunau on the Inn. On the following day, the annexation of Austria to the German Reich is announced. On March 15, Hitler enters the Austrian capital Vienna before a cheering crowd of 200,000.

January 23 , 1939 In a speech to the German parliament in January 1939, Hitler states that another world war will result in the elimination of Jews from Europe.

August 23, 1939 German and Soviet foreign ministers Ribbentrop and Molotov, respectively, sign a German-Soviet Pact . The main tenet of this agreement is a ten-year non-aggression pact in which each signatory promises not to attack the other.

September 1, 1939 Nazi Germany invades Poland , initiating World War II .

Fall 1939 or early January 1940 Adolf Hitler signs a secret authorization for a “euthanasia’” program , the systematic killing of patients with mental and physical disabilities who are living in institutional settings in Germany and German-annexed territories. It is the only instance in which Hitler signs an authorization for a program of systematic mass murder.

1941 In 1941, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and other leading German authorities reach the decision to physically annihilate the Jews of Europe.

June 22, 1941 The German army invades the Soviet Union in "Operation Barbarossa." As opposed to their conquests in western Europe, Hitler and other Nazi leaders see war against the Soviet Union in racial and ideological terms.

December 11, 1941 In the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , Nazi Germany and its ally Italy declare war on the United States, despite the fact that the US had declared war only against the Empire of Japan. In less than a year, American ground troops will fight German forces in North Africa.

June 9, 1942 Hitler orders retaliatory measures against the Czech population following the death of Reinhard Heydrich, second-in-command of the SS. The towns of Lidice and Lezaky are destroyed and the inhabitants massacred or deported.

January 31–February 2, 1943 After months of fierce fighting and heavy casualties, German forces (numbering now only about 91,000 surviving soldiers) surrender at Stalingrad in a major turning point of World War II and a disaster for Hitler’s long-held goal of defeating the Soviet Union.

June 6, 1944 Allied troops successfully land on the Normandy beaches of France, opening a “Second Front” against the Germans and Hitler's regime.

July 20 , 1944 Hitler survives an assassination attempt coordinated by military and civilian officials. The failure of the attempt and the intended coup which was to follow led to the arrest of some 7,000 and the execution of nearly 5,000 individuals.

Soviet soldiers guard the entrance to Hitler's underground bunker

April 30, 1945 Hitler commits suicide in an underground bunker in Berlin rather than face capture by advancing Soviet forces.

1945 The International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg decides not to try Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels in absentia. All three had committed suicide before the end of the war. In doing so, the IMT wished to avoid creating the impression that they might still be alive.

Series: Adolf Hitler

Making a Leader

Adolf Hitler: Early Years, 1889–1913

Adolf Hitler and World War I: 1913–1919

Adolf Hitler: 1919-1924

Adolf hitler: 1924-1930.

Adolf Hitler: 1930-1933

The July 20, 1944, Plot to Assassinate Adolf Hitler

Critical thinking questions.

What societal factors and attitudes contributed to the rise of Hitler?
What pressures and laws led to the persecution of political opponents by the Nazi government?
Besides military participants, what other professionals were charged with crimes in the wake of the Holocaust?
How can knowledge of the events in Germany and Europe before the Nazis came to power help citizens today respond to threats of genocide and mass atrocity?

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Adolf Hitler

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 29, 2023 | Original: October 29, 2009

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945) in Munich in the spring of 1932. (Photo by Heinrich Hoffmann/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany’s Nazi Party , was one of the most powerful and notorious dictators of the 20th century. After serving with the German military in World War I , Hitler capitalized on economic woes, popular discontent and political infighting during the Weimar Republic to rise through the ranks of the Nazi Party.

In a series of ruthless and violent actions—including the Reichstag Fire and the Night of Long Knives—Hitler took absolute power in Germany by 1933. Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the outbreak of World War II , and by 1941, Nazi forces had used “blitzkrieg” military tactics to occupy much of Europe. Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism and obsessive pursuit of Aryan supremacy fueled the murder of some 6 million Jews, along with other victims of the Holocaust . After the tide of war turned against him, Hitler committed suicide in a Berlin bunker in April 1945.

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, a small Austrian town near the Austro-German frontier. After his father, Alois, retired as a state customs official, young Adolf spent most of his childhood in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria.

Not wanting to follow in his father’s footsteps as a civil servant, he began struggling in secondary school and eventually dropped out. Alois died in 1903, and Adolf pursued his dream of being an artist, though he was rejected from Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts.

After his mother, Klara, died in 1908, Hitler moved to Vienna, where he pieced together a living painting scenery and monuments and selling the images. Lonely, isolated and a voracious reader, Hitler became interested in politics during his years in Vienna, and developed many of the ideas that would shape Nazi ideology.

Military Career of Adolf Hitler

In 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, in the German state of Bavaria. When World War I broke out the following summer, he successfully petitioned the Bavarian king to be allowed to volunteer in a reserve infantry regiment.

Deployed in October 1914 to Belgium, Hitler served throughout the Great War and won two decorations for bravery, including the rare Iron Cross First Class, which he wore to the end of his life.

Hitler was wounded twice during the conflict: He was hit in the leg during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and temporarily blinded by a British gas attack near Ypres in 1918. A month later, he was recuperating in a hospital at Pasewalk, northeast of Berlin, when news arrived of the armistice and Germany’s defeat in World War I .

Like many Germans, Hitler came to believe the country’s devastating defeat could be attributed not to the Allies, but to insufficiently patriotic “traitors” at home—a myth that would undermine the post-war Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitler’s rise.

After Hitler returned to Munich in late 1918, he joined the small German Workers’ Party, which aimed to unite the interests of the working class with a strong German nationalism. His skilled oratory and charismatic energy helped propel him in the party’s ranks, and in 1920 he left the army and took charge of its propaganda efforts.

In one of Hitler’s strokes of propaganda genius, the newly renamed National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party , adopted a version of the swastika—an ancient sacred symbol of Hinduism , Jainism and Buddhism —as its emblem. Printed in a white circle on a red background, Hitler’s swastika would take on terrifying symbolic power in the years to come.

By the end of 1921, Hitler led the growing Nazi Party, capitalizing on widespread discontent with the Weimar Republic and the punishing terms of the Versailles Treaty . Many dissatisfied former army officers in Munich would join the Nazis, notably Ernst Röhm, who recruited the “strong arm” squads—known as the Sturmabteilung (SA)—which Hitler used to protect party meetings and attack opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch

On the evening of November 8, 1923, members of the SA and others forced their way into a large beer hall where another right-wing leader was addressing the crowd. Wielding a revolver, Hitler proclaimed the beginning of a national revolution and led marchers to the center of Munich, where they got into a gun battle with police.

Hitler fled quickly, but he and other rebel leaders were later arrested. Even though it failed spectacularly, the Beer Hall Putsch established Hitler as a national figure, and (in the eyes of many) a hero of right-wing nationalism.

'Mein Kampf'

Tried for treason, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison, but would serve only nine months in the relative comfort of Landsberg Castle. During this period, he began to dictate the book that would become " Mein Kampf " (“My Struggle”), the first volume of which was published in 1925.

In it, Hitler expanded on the nationalistic, anti-Semitic views he had begun to develop in Vienna in his early twenties, and laid out plans for the Germany—and the world—he sought to create when he came to power.

Hitler would finish the second volume of "Mein Kampf" after his release, while relaxing in the mountain village of Berchtesgaden. It sold modestly at first, but with Hitler’s rise it became Germany’s best-selling book after the Bible. By 1940, it had sold some 6 million copies there.

Hitler’s second book, “The Zweites Buch,” was written in 1928 and contained his thoughts on foreign policy. It was not published in his lifetime due to the poor initial sales of “Mein Kampf.” The first English translations of “The Zweites Buch” did not appear until 1962 and was published under the title “Hitler's Secret Book.”

Obsessed with race and the idea of ethnic “purity,” Hitler saw a natural order that placed the so-called “Aryan race” at the top.

For him, the unity of the Volk (the German people) would find its truest incarnation not in democratic or parliamentary government, but in one supreme leader, or Führer.

" Mein Kampf " also addressed the need for Lebensraum (or living space): In order to fulfill its destiny, Germany should take over lands to the east that were now occupied by “inferior” Slavic peoples—including Austria, the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia), Poland and Russia.

The Schutzstaffel (SS)

By the time Hitler left prison, economic recovery had restored some popular support for the Weimar Republic, and support for right-wing causes like Nazism appeared to be waning.

Over the next few years, Hitler laid low and worked on reorganizing and reshaping the Nazi Party. He established the Hitler Youth to organize youngsters, and created the Schutzstaffel (SS) as a more reliable alternative to the SA.

Members of the SS wore black uniforms and swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler. (After 1929, under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler , the SS would develop from a group of some 200 men into a force that would dominate Germany and terrorize the rest of occupied Europe during World War II .)

Hitler spent much of his time at Berchtesgaden during these years, and his half-sister, Angela Raubal, and her two daughters often joined him. After Hitler became infatuated with his beautiful blonde niece, Geli Raubal, his possessive jealousy apparently led her to commit suicide in 1931.

Devastated by the loss, Hitler would consider Geli the only true love affair of his life. He soon began a long relationship with Eva Braun , a shop assistant from Munich, but refused to marry her.

The worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929 again threatened the stability of the Weimar Republic. Determined to achieve political power in order to affect his revolution, Hitler built up Nazi support among German conservatives, including army, business and industrial leaders.

The Third Reich

In 1932, Hitler ran against the war hero Paul von Hindenburg for president, and received 36.8 percent of the vote. With the government in chaos, three successive chancellors failed to maintain control, and in late January 1933 Hindenburg named the 43-year-old Hitler as chancellor, capping the stunning rise of an unlikely leader.

January 30, 1933 marked the birth of the Third Reich, or as the Nazis called it, the “Thousand-Year Reich” (after Hitler’s boast that it would endure for a millennium).

HISTORY Vault: Third Reich: The Rise

Rare and never-before-seen amateur films offer a unique perspective on the rise of Nazi Germany from Germans who experienced it. How were millions of people so vulnerable to fascism?

Reichstag Fire

Though the Nazis never attained more than 37 percent of the vote at the height of their popularity in 1932, Hitler was able to grab absolute power in Germany largely due to divisions and inaction among the majority who opposed Nazism.

After a devastating fire at Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag, in February 1933—possibly the work of a Dutch communist, though later evidence suggested Nazis set the Reichstag fire themselves—Hitler had an excuse to step up the political oppression and violence against his opponents.

On March 23, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving full powers to Hitler and celebrating the union of National Socialism with the old German establishment (i.e., Hindenburg ).

That July, the government passed a law stating that the Nazi Party “constitutes the only political party in Germany,” and within months all non-Nazi parties, trade unions and other organizations had ceased to exist.

His autocratic power now secure within Germany, Hitler turned his eyes toward the rest of Europe.

In 1933, Germany was diplomatically isolated, with a weak military and hostile neighbors (France and Poland). In a famous speech in May 1933, Hitler struck a surprisingly conciliatory tone, claiming Germany supported disarmament and peace.

But behind this appeasement strategy, the domination and expansion of the Volk remained Hitler’s overriding aim.

By early the following year, he had withdrawn Germany from the League of Nations and begun to militarize the nation in anticipation of his plans for territorial conquest.

Night of the Long Knives

On June 29, 1934, the infamous Night of the Long Knives , Hitler had Röhm, former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and hundreds of other problematic members of his own party murdered, in particular troublesome members of the SA.

When the 86-year-old Hindenburg died on August 2, military leaders agreed to combine the presidency and chancellorship into one position, meaning Hitler would command all the armed forces of the Reich.

Persecution of Jews

On September 15, 1935, passage of the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship, and barred them from marrying or having relations with persons of “German or related blood.”

Though the Nazis attempted to downplay its persecution of Jews in order to placate the international community during the 1936 Berlin Olympics (in which German-Jewish athletes were not allowed to compete), additional decrees over the next few years disenfranchised Jews and took away their political and civil rights.

In addition to its pervasive anti-Semitism, Hitler’s government also sought to establish the cultural dominance of Nazism by burning books, forcing newspapers out of business, using radio and movies for propaganda purposes and forcing teachers throughout Germany’s educational system to join the party.

Much of the Nazi persecution of Jews and other targets occurred at the hands of the Geheime Staatspolizei (GESTAPO), or Secret State Police, an arm of the SS that expanded during this period.

Outbreak of World War II

In March 1936, against the advice of his generals, Hitler ordered German troops to reoccupy the demilitarized left bank of the Rhine.

Over the next two years, Germany concluded alliances with Italy and Japan, annexed Austria and moved against Czechoslovakia—all essentially without resistance from Great Britain, France or the rest of the international community.

Once he confirmed the alliance with Italy in the so-called “Pact of Steel” in May 1939, Hitler then signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union . On September 1, 1939, Nazi troops invaded Poland, finally prompting Britain and France to declare war on Germany.

Blitzkrieg

After ordering the occupation of Norway and Denmark in April 1940, Hitler adopted a plan proposed by one of his generals to attack France through the Ardennes Forest. The blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) attack began on May 10; Holland quickly surrendered, followed by Belgium.

German troops made it all the way to the English Channel, forcing British and French forces to evacuate en masse from Dunkirk in late May. On June 22, France was forced to sign an armistice with Germany.

Hitler had hoped to force Britain to seek peace as well, but when that failed he went ahead with his attacks on that country, followed by an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor that December, the United States declared war on Japan, and Germany’s alliance with Japan demanded that Hitler declare war on the United States as well.

At that point in the conflict, Hitler shifted his central strategy to focus on breaking the alliance of his main opponents (Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union) by forcing one of them to make peace with him.

Concentration Camps

Beginning in 1933, the SS had operated a network of concentration camps, including a notorious camp at Dachau , near Munich, to hold Jews and other targets of the Nazi regime.

After war broke out, the Nazis shifted from expelling Jews from German-controlled territories to exterminating them. Einsatzgruppen, or mobile death squads, executed entire Jewish communities during the Soviet invasion, while the existing concentration-camp network expanded to include death camps like Auschwitz -Birkenau in occupied Poland.

In addition to forced labor and mass execution, certain Jews at Auschwitz were targeted as the subjects of horrific medical experiments carried out by eugenicist Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death.” Mengele’s experiments focused on twins and exposed 3,000 child prisoners to disease, disfigurement and torture under the guise of medical research.

Though the Nazis also imprisoned and killed Catholics, homosexuals, political dissidents, Roma (gypsies) and the disabled, above all they targeted Jews—some 6 million of whom were killed in German-occupied Europe by war’s end.

End of World War II

With defeats at El-Alamein and Stalingrad , as well as the landing of U.S. troops in North Africa by the end of 1942, the tide of the war turned against Germany.

As the conflict continued, Hitler became increasingly unwell, isolated and dependent on medications administered by his personal physician.

Several attempts were made on his life, including one that came close to succeeding in July 1944, when Col. Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb that exploded during a conference at Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia.

Within a few months of the successful Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Allies had begun liberating cities across Europe. That December, Hitler attempted to direct another offensive through the Ardennes, trying to split British and American forces.

But after January 1945, he holed up in a bunker beneath the Chancellery in Berlin. With Soviet forces closing in, Hitler made plans for a last-ditch resistance before finally abandoning that plan.

How Did Adolf Hitler Die?

At midnight on the night of April 28-29, Hitler married Eva Braun in the Berlin bunker. After dictating his political testament, Hitler shot himself in his suite on April 30; Braun took poison. Their bodies were burned according to Hitler’s instructions.

With Soviet troops occupying Berlin, Germany surrendered unconditionally on all fronts on May 7, 1945, bringing the war in Europe to a close.

In the end, Hitler’s planned “Thousand-Year Reich” lasted just over 12 years, but wreaked unfathomable destruction and devastation during that time, forever transforming the history of Germany, Europe and the world.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich iWonder – Adolf Hitler: Man and Monster, BBC . The Holocaust : A Learning Site for Students, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum .

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Hitler's rise and fall: Timeline

Track the key events in Adolf Hitler's life, including his childhood in Austria, his decisions as Fuehrer of Germany, his leadership in the Second World War, and his eventual suicide.

This content is associated with The Open University History courses and qualifications .

Adolf Hitler [Image: Walter Frentz Archive]

Birth and childhood
Entry into politics
Rise to power
Third Reich
World War II

Hitler's birth and childhood

His parents' families are both of poor peasant backgrounds. His father, Alois, regarded as strict and distant, becomes a customs official and expects Adolf to follow a career into the civil service. Hitler’s mother, Klara, is of a more compassionate nature, adoring and indulging her son.

At the age of six Adolf attends school and, while clearly intelligent, he is uninterested in formal education, eventually leaving with a poor educational record of achievement.

The death of his father when Adolf was 13, releases the pressure on him to get a job working for the civil service, Adolf is able to pursue his preferred choice of study, that of art. He attends art school and regards himself as an artist, absorbing diverse cultural influences, the opera, theatre, reading and drawing.

Hitler moves to Vienna with the aim of attending the Vienna Academy of Art, but his application is rejected. His disappointment is compounded by his failure to also get into the Vienna School of Architecture due to his inability to provide a school leaving certificate.

Without any means of money, Hitler struggles to survive in Vienna, living in a men’s hostel. He sells postcards which he’s drawn, of famous sights, and undertakes a series of menial jobs, to earn money.

During this period of poverty, Hitler engages in much political activity, attending meetings, absorbing political newspapers and literature.

Faced with military service for the Habsburg Empire , Hitler takes action to evade this by moving to Munich in Southern Germany. This move is possible in part due to his inheritance of a small legacy from his father’s estate. Here his life continues much as before, until world events changed the course of Hitler’s life.

At the outbreak of the First World War , Hitler volunteers for service in the German army and joined the 16 th Barvarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. He distinguishes himself in service, being promoted to corporal and decorated with the Iron Cross for services as a runner on the western front.

The origins of the First World War

Take an in-depth look at how Europe ended up fighting a four-year war (1914-1918) on a global scale with this collection on the First World War.

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A meeting at a convalescence hospital brought together three men whose war poetry shaped how we view the First World War.

At the time of the armistice, Hitler is lying in hospital suffering from temporary blindness due to a British gas attack in Ypres Salient. He returns to his regiment in Munich, later in the year.

Intent on remaining in the army, having found real purpose to his life, Hitler is appointed to the Intelligence/Propaganda section where he undertakes political training. His activities involve making speeches to the troops advocating German nationalism and anti-Socialism, where he developed further his oratory skills .

He also acts as an army informer, spying on small political parties. He joins the German Workers’ Party, an extreme anti-communist, anti-Semitic right wing organisation.

Hitler's entry into politics

Hitler is discharged from the army. In the German Worker’s Party he undertakes responsibility for publicity and propaganda. He changes the party’s name to the National Socialist German Workers Party, (or Nazi for short) The party represents a combination of intense hatred for the politicians who they considered had dishonoured Germany by signing the Versailles Treaty and exploiting local grievances against a weak federal government.

Hitler challenges Anton Drexler to become leader of the Nazi party. After initial resistance, Drexler agrees and Hitler becomes the new leader of the party.

Along with other right wing factions and General Ludendorff he attempts to overthrow the Bavarian government with an armed uprising. The event became known as The Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler and 2000 Nazi’s march through Munich to the Beer Hall, to take over a meeting chaired by three of the most important individuals in Bavarian politics.

Beer Hall Putsch - defendants Heinz Pernet, Dr. Friedrich Weber, Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Kriebel, Erich Ludendorff, Adolf Hitler, Wilhelm Brückner, Ernst Röhm, Robert Wagner

Hitler re-founds the Nazi party.

Hitler's half-sister (Angela Raubal) and her daughter Geli, move into Hitler's home on the Obersalzburg. Hitler's relationship towards Geli initially kindly, eventually borders on the obsessive, fueling rumours that they were romantically linked; Hitler denied this.

In the General Election, the Nazi Party increases its representatives in parliament from 14 to 107. Hitler is now the leader of the second largest party in Germany.

Hitler challenges Paul von Hindenburg for the presidency, but fails to win.

Geli Raubal found dead at Hitler's flat in Munich. She was 23. Verdict: suicide.

Hitler's rise to power

Hitler becomes a German citizen—enabling him to stand in the Presidential election against Hindenburg.

Became the first person to electioneer by aircraft, the campaign (masterminded by Josef Goebbels) was entitled 'Hitler over Germany '.

Hitler becomes chancellor of a coalition government, where the Nazis have a third of the seats in the Reichstag.

The German Reichstag is destroyed by fire. The plot and execution is almost certainly due to the Nazis but they point the finger at the communists and trigger a General Election.

Adolf Hitler addressing the Reichstag on 23 March 1933, seeking assent to the Enabling Act.

He proclaims the Nazi Party is the only political party permitted in Germany. All other parties and trade unions are disbanded. Individual German states lose any autonomous powers, while Nazi officials become state governors.

Communist party banned.

Socialists, Trade Unions and strikes banned.

Hitler withdraws from the League of Nations. In the following months, he trebles the size of the German Army and ignores the arms restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.

Night of the Long Knives . Hitler crushes all opposition within his own party—thus eliminating any of his rivals.

Hitler's Third Reich

After the death of President Hindenburg, Hitler becomes “Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor” and abolishes the title of President.

Hitler re-arms Germany with the aim of undoing the Treaty of Versailles and uniting all the German peoples. Military conscription is introduced.

Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured before signing the Munich Agreement

British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain meets Hitler in Germany. Britain, France and Italy sign the Munich Agreement which gives the Sudetenland (the German populated borderlands of Czechoslavakia), to Germany.

German army occupies the Sudetenland.

In what is historically referred to as Crystal Night , 7,500 Jewish shops are destroyed and 400 synagogues are burnt. The attack is portrayed as a spontaneous reaction to the death of a German diplomat by a Jewish refugee in Paris. It is actually orchestrated by the Nazi party who also kill many Jews and send 20,000 to concentration camps.

Crystal Night is considered to be the beginning of the Final Solution and the Holocaust, which you can study in more depth . The mass killing represented by the Holocaust raises many questions concerning the development of European civilisation during the twentieth century.

Hitler and World War II

Peace treaty with Russia secured with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Hitler invades Poland on September 1st and after 3 weeks of lightning war or ‘ Blitzkrieg ’ the country is divided between Russia and Germany. On September 3rd France, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand declared war on Germany.

The Nazis occupy Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. Romania and Yugoslavia are invaded.

OKH commander Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch and Hitler, studies maps during the early days of Hitler's Russian Campaign

Japanese Air Force attacks Pearl Harbour and war is declared on the US.

Although commanded by Hitler to stand and fight, the Germans surrender in the battle of Stalingrad. From this point in the war, Germany is continually retreating.

Hitler survives an assassination attempt by Colonel Stauffenberg, who places a bomb in a briefcase under a table close to Hitler. As a result, Hitler purges the army of all possible suspects.

Soviet troops enter Nazi Germany.

Hitler decides to stay in Berlin to the last.

Berlin completely besieged by the Soviet Army Fronts of Marshals Koniev and Zhukov.

Hitler's death

Hitler commits suicide with his wife of two days, Eva Braun; their bodies are believed to have been cremated.

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While recognising the shadows cast by two world wars (one concluded and one imminent) over European society during the 1920s and 1930s, this free course, Roaring Twenties? Europe in the interwar period, demonstrates how a number of specific features indicate that the interwar period was a distinctive and important moment of modernity in the ...

History of reading: An introduction to reading in the past

This free course, History of reading: An introduction to reading in the past, consists of a series of essays, drawn from material contained in the Reading Experience Database, that illustrate different aspects of reading in Britain during the period from 1450 to 1945. These essays are designed for you as the reader to dip in and dip out, ...

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Originally published: Sunday, 4 July 2010
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Image 'Adolf Hitler as a baby (c.1889-90)' - Copyright free
Image 'Adolf Hitler [Image: Walter Frentz Archive]' - Copyright: Walter Frentz Archive
Image 'Beer Hall Putsch - defendants Heinz Pernet, Dr. Friedrich Weber, Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Kriebel, Erich Ludendorff, Adolf Hitler, Wilhelm Brückner, Ernst Röhm, Robert Wagner' - Heinrich Hoffmann / CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons under Creative-Commons license
Image 'Adolf Hitler addressing the Reichstag on 23 March 1933, seeking assent to the Enabling Act.' - Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-14439 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons under Creative-Commons license
Image ' Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured before signing the Munich Agreement' - Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R69173 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de, via Wikimedia Commons under Creative-Commons license
Image 'OKH commander Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch and Hitler, studies maps during the early days of Hitler's Russian Campaign' - Copyright free
Image 'Roaring Twenties? Europe in the interwar period' - Copyright
Image 'What is the evidence that King Edward VIII was a Nazi sympathiser?' - Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-17964 / Pahl, Georg / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [ CC BY-SA 3.0 de ], via Wikimedia Commons under Creative-Commons license
Image 'Women in the Railway in Scotland During both World Wars' - Copyright: akg-images/Alamy
Image 'The origins of the First World War' - Copyright free: By Underwood & Underwood. (US War Dept.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Image 'Ian Kershaw on Hitler's Place In History: The Lecture Podcast' - Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license
Image 'History of reading: An introduction to reading in the past' - Copyright: Used with permission
Image 'How did a Scottish golf club shape how we remember the First World War?' - Copyright free: Brideshead
Image 'Hitler's rise and fall: Timeline' - Image by PDPics from Pixabay under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license