Nazi Germany timeline 1935-39

This Nazi Germany timeline contains a chronological list of significant events and developments in Germany, from 1935 to 1939. This timeline has been written by Alpha History authors.

1935

April 30th: A Nazi decree forbids Jews from displaying or carrying the German flag.
May 31st: Jews are banned from serving in the German armed forces.
September 15th: The ‘Nuremberg Laws’ define who is Jewish and withdraw citizenship of German Jews.
October 15th: Hitler announces the reformation of the Reichswehr into a new military force: the Wehrmacht.
November 14th: A further decree outlines three different ‘degrees’ of Jews and mischlinges (half-breeds).

1936

February 10th: The Gestapo is merged with the state police and given wide-ranging extra-legal powers.
March 7th: Hitler orders the re-entry of German troops into the Rhineland, in defiance of the Versailles treaty.
June 17th: Heinrich Himmler is appointed the chief of German police; all civilian police are now under the control of the SS.
July 12th: The Nazis target Romany (‘Gypsies’) as ‘anti-socials’, launching a wave of arrests and detentions.
July 22nd: Hitler pledges support to General Franco, the nationalist-fascist leader in the Spanish Civil War.
August 1st: Olympic Games begin in Berlin. German cities are cleared of anti-Jewish signs and propaganda.
October 25th: Hitler and Mussolini sign a ‘treaty of friendship’, later described as the ‘Rome-Berlin Axis’.
November 25th: Germany signs an anti-communist alliance with Japan to block Soviet expansion.

1937

January 30th: Hitler addresses the Reichstag, calling for Germany’s withdrawal from the Versailles treaty.
July 15th: Buchenwald concentration camp is established in central Germany.
August 16th: Norman Ebbutt, a British journalist reporting on Germany’s rearmament program, is deported.
September 13th: The Nazis encourage German Jews to emigrate, provided they surrender most of their property.
September 25th: Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini visits Hitler and is hailed as a hero by German crowds.
November 5th: Hitler secretly meets military commanders in Berlin and lays out his plans for expansion and war.

1938

March 13th: Germany achieves Anschluss, or union with Austria, in defiance of the Versailles treaty.
April 21st: A Nazi decree orders that Jews be gradually extracted from German economic life.
April 26th: Law for Jewish Wealth orders that Jewish property be registered, inventoried and seized.
July 14th: An international summit on Jewish refugees concludes, with 32 nations refusing to accept refugees.
August 8th: The Mauthausen concentration camp opens in Austria, the first major camp outside Germany.
September 27th: Jewish lawyers are forbidden from practising law or conducting business in Germany.
October 5th: A decree orders that passports of all German Jews be stamped with a large red ‘J’.
November 9th: Beginning of Kristallnacht, a campaign of violence, vandalism and harassment against German Jews.
November 15th: The Nazis order that all remaining Jewish schoolchildren are expelled from German schools.

1939

January 5th: Hitler declares the Polish city of Danzig to be “German, and will… again be part of Germany”.
January 30th: In a public speech, Hitler forecasts the “annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe”.
May 22nd: The ‘Pact of Steel’ strengthens German-Italian into a full military alliance.
August 23rd: The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact signed. It contains a secret plan to invade and divide Poland.
September 1st: Nazi forces invade Poland from the west, setting in motion events that will spark World War II.
September 1st: A Hitler memo authorises selected doctors to carry out euthanasia on the mentally infirm.


Information and resources on this page are © Alpha History 2018-23. Content on this page may not be copied, republished or redistributed without the express permission of Alpha History. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use.