1. 1918-The Great War, later known as the First World War, ends (November).

2. Today, most historians agree that the harsh Treaty of Versailles helped create the conditions responsible for Hitler’s rise to power. 1919 - The Treaty of Versailles is signed (JUNE)

3. 1919 - The German Reich, known today as the Weimar Republic, is established as the official government in Germany (AUGUST).

4. 1923 - Adolf Hitler and his Storm Troopers are arrested, for attempting to overthrow the Reich. (NOVEMBER)

5. 1924- Hitler is found guilty of treason. From his jail cell, he pens a propagandistic and political biography, Mein Kampf. Hitler released from jail (Decemb er).

6. 1925 – Adolf Hitler begins to rebuild the Nazi Party (March).

7. 1926 —Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) is officially formed.

8. 1933 —Hitler is appointed chancellor. (January)

9. 1933 —Reichstag building burns (February) Today, it is hard to determine who set the fire—Communists or Nazis—but it is agreed that Hitler used the event as a pretext to eliminate political opposition and to frighten the German people into casting their votes for the Nazi Party.

10. 1933 —Enabling Acts grant Hitler dictatorial powers. (March).

11. 1933 —Nazis boycott Jewish stores and businesses (April)

12. 1933 —Nazis burn un-German books (May)

13. 1933 —The People’s Radio is unveiled at the Tenth Radio Exhibition (August)

14. 1934 —President Hindenburg dies and Hitler becomes Fuhrer (August)

15. 1935 —Hitler initiates mandatory Reich Labor Service for young people and begins to rearm Germany.

16. 1935 —Nuremberg Race Laws are passed, Stripping Jews of all political and civil rights. The Race Laws identified a Jew as anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents (September).

17. A teacher explains racial definitions according to the Nuremberg Laws JPG : nuremberg laws Images may be subject to copyright.

18. 1936 —German troops reoccupy the Rhineland (March).

19. 1936 —The Hitler Youth law makes membership compulsory for all eligible youth, ages 10-18 (December).

20. 1936 —Summer Olympic Games are held in Berlin (August)

21. 1938 —Germany annexes Austria (March) and the Sudetenland (November).

22. 1938 —Kristallnacht Nazis riot against Jews (November) Riots take place all over Germany, killing 236 Jews; burning 1,300 synagogues; vandalizing and destroying more than 7,000 Jewish shops, businesses, schools, and private homes; and arresting more than 30,000 Jews, many never to be seen again. Two days later, the Nazis ordered Jews to pay one billion Reichsmarks (about $400 million dollars) as punishment for a Nazi’s officials death.

23. Legend: Cities where synagog Nearly 200 synagogues were set afire on November 9, 1938, in an officially orchestrated evening of widespread violence and vandalism of Jewish property. In addition to the burning of synagogues, Jewish businesses and shops were severely vandalized throughout Germany. Josef Goebbels, the propaganda minister under Adolf Hitler, masterminded this Night of Broken Glass.

24. Destruction of synagogues and businesses during Kristallnacht

25. 1939 —Hitler threatens Jews during speech to Reichstag.

26.  1939 —March Germany annexes Czechoslovakia. Hitler toughens Hitler Youth law, conscripting remaining eligible youth. Hitler Youth membership now totals more than seven million boys and girls.

27. 1939 —Hitler and Stalin create the German-Soviet Nonagresssion Pact (August)

28. 1939 — Hitler moves against Poland. War begins. August 31—The SS dress in Polish uniforms and launch a fake attack on a German radio station in southwest Poland. The next day, Adolf Hitler lies, claiming that Polish soldiers fired upon German soldiers, and he orders the invasion of Poland. England and France declare war on Germany (September).

29. Poland falls September 1939

30. 1939 —The Extraordinary Radio Law is passed, making the intentional listening to enemy propaganda an offense punishable by death (September ). Following the attack on Poland, the "Ordinance on Extraordinary Radio Measures" prohibits Germans from listening to and disseminating information from foreign radio stations. Listening to foreign radio broadcasts becomes an offense against national security punishable with a prison term. In 1941, the punishment becomes death. All radio sets are to bear a sticker carrying a brief warning against Feindhörer ("those who listen to the enemy"), who were threatened with severe punishments.

31. Einsatzgruppen or Death Squads Einsatzgruppen were SS paramilitary death squads that were responsible for mass killings, typically by shooting. The units targeted Jews in particular, but also significant numbers of other population groups and political categories; including Gypsies, and Soviet political commissars and homosexuals, The Einsatzgruppen operated throughout the territory occupied by the German armed forces in Poland and the Soviet Union. The Einsatzgruppen carried out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days, such as the massacres at Babi Yar (33,771 killed in two days) and Rumbula (25,000 killed in two days). The Einsatzgruppen were responsible for the murders of approximately 2 million people, and they were the first Nazi organizations to commence mass killing of Jews as an organized policy.

32. 1939 —The first deportation of Jews to concentration camps in Poland (October).

33. 1939— Deportation of Jews to Poland Begins Type:JPG.

34. 1940 —Nazis begin Battle of Britain bombing campaign (July).

35. 1940 —German conquers Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

36. 1941 —Rudolf Hess, the third highest- ranking Nazi, deserts and flies secretly to England to negotiate a peace agreement (May)

37. 1941 —Greece and Yugoslavia fall to Germans. 1941—Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, and Romania join Nazis.

38. 1941 —Germany invades Soviet Russia (June)

39. 1941 —German Jews must wear Jewish Star of David (September).

40. 1941 Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women, and children begins on the outskirts of Kiev in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine. The German army took Kiev on September 19, and special SS squads prepared to carry out Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s orders to exterminate all Jews and Soviet officials found there. Beginning on September 29, more than 30,000 Jews were marched in small groups to the Babi Yar ravine to the north of the city, ordered to strip naked, and then machine-gunned into the ravine. The massacre ended on September 30, and the dead and wounded alike were covered over with dirt and rock.

41. On January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." The”Final Solution” was the code name for the systematic, deliberate, physical annihilation of the European Jews. At some still undetermined time in 1941, Hitler authorized this European-wide scheme for mass murder. The men at the table did not deliberate whether such a plan should be undertaken, but instead discussed the implementation of a policy decision that had already been made at the highest level of the Nazi regime. 1942 —Nazis hold Wannesee Conference to formalize plans for the “final solution of the Jewish problem” (January).

42. 1942—Nazi Death Camps in Poland Nazi death camps were established and operated until the end of the war. Most were built in Poland to be close to the largest numbers of intended victims and to keep the camps secret from the German people.

43. More than 3 million people were killed in the death camps between 1942 and 1945

44. 1943 —Germany suffers a major defeat at Stalingrad (January).

45. 1943 —Allies carpet bomb Hamburg, killing at least 43,000 (July).

46. Operation Gomorrah was the codename for a series of air raids conducted by the Royal Air Force on the city of Hamburg beginning in the end of July 1943. At the time this was the heaviest bombing campaign of the war by the Allies. Around the clock” bombing This operation was devised by the British Air Marshal Arthur Travers Harris and was a joint effort between the RAF Bomber Command and the United States Army Air Force (specifically 8th Air Force Bomber Command), who combined to create an "around-the-clock" bombing mission of 8 days and 4 nights--the Americans conducting the daylight raids with the British following with their raids at night. Feuersturm On the night of July 27th, shortly before midnight, 739 aircraft attacked Hamburg. and created a so-called "Feuersturm" (firestorm). There were many casualties (40,000). Hamburg was attacked again on the night of July 29, this time by over 700 aircraft. The last bombing raid of Operation Gomorrah was August 3rd. Operation Gomorrah caused at least 50,000 deaths and left over a million German civilians homeless. Approximately 3,000 aircraft took part in the raids, 9,000 tons of bombs dropped, and 250,000 houses destroyed.

47. 1944 —Allied troops launch D-Day invasion (June).

48. 1945 —Germany collapses as Allies invade (February-April)

49. 1945 —Hitler commits suicide in his bunker but the Nazis lie, telling the German people that he was killed at the head of his troops, defending Berlin. (April)

50. 1945 —Germany surrenders unconditionally (May)