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The Holocaust—the genocide of European Jews during the Second World War—is often regarded as having started after Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939. But from 1933 until the outbreak of hostilities, Jews felt the effects of more than 400 decrees and regulations that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives. And, in fact, as early as 1919 the "Jewish Question" had been commented upon by an angry and disillusioned Great War veteran called Adolf Hitler. Twelve months later, in 1920, the Nazi Party had been created. Thus was formed the political and military regime responsible for the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews and other minority groups. But what was the sequence of events that led to the biggest crime in human history being perpetrated?
Click through for a chilling countdown to the Holocaust.
The Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919, ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied powers of WWI. The treaty required Germany to disarm, make ample territorial concessions, and pay 132 billion gold marks (US$33 billion at the time) in war reparations.
On September 16, 1919, Adolf Hitler issued his first comment on the so-called "Jewish Question." In it he described Jews as a race and not a religious community, and elaborated by defining them as a "race-tuberculosis of the peoples." He signed off by insisting that the "ultimate goal must definitely be the removal of the Jews altogether." He's pictured seated far left during the First World War.
Hitler and the Nazi Party's attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic in what became known as the Beer Hall Putsch was a key event. The unsuccessful coup d'état took place on November 8–9, 1923.
Written by Hitler while imprisoned for his part in the abortive Beer Hall Putsch, Volume 1 of 'Mein Kampf' was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926. The book, an eventual bestseller, describes the process by which Hitler became anti-Semitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germany.
On February 27, 1925, Hitler became the leader of the reestablished Nazi Party.
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. His appointment effectively handed control of the country to the Nazi Party. He's pictured shaking hands with Paul von Hindenburg, President of the German Reich.
Opened on March 22, 1933, by the SS, Dachau was the first concentration camp built by Nazi Germany. It remained operational throughout the Third Reich, with the total number of victims who died there unknown.
Three months after taking power, the Nazi leadership staged a nationwide economic boycott targeting Jewish-owned businesses and the offices of Jewish professionals.
Passed by the German government on April 7, 1933, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service excluded Jews and other political opponents of the Nazis from all civil service positions. The decree went further by disbarring all non-"Aryan" lawyers.
Effectively a decree limiting the number of Jewish students attending public schools, the Law against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities was passed on April 25, 1933.
Beginning on May 6, 1933, Nazi-dominated student groups carried out in Berlin the first public burnings of books they claimed were "un-German." On May 10, book burnings took place in 34 university towns and villages. Titles targeted included works of prominent Jewish, liberal, and leftist writers, all of which ended up in the bonfires.
Drawn up in July 1933, the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases sought to prevent the possible transmission of hereditary diseases through forced sterilization. In what the Nazis termed "applied racial science," Jews and Roma, as well as individuals with physical and mental disabilities, all fell under this barbaric ruling. In 1935, the law was amended and extended to authorize forced abortions in women who were otherwise subject to sterilization.
September of 1933 saw the founding of the Central Organization of German Jews. It was established to better represent the interests of German Jews—now under considerable threat—through a unified response to escalating Nazi persecution.
On October 4, 1933, the Editorship Law was passed. This made it illegal for any non-Aryan to work in journalism. In a wider context, the Nazis eliminated freedom of the press in Germany. Pictured is a Berlin citizen reading the notoriously anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer, the weekly tabloid published by Julius Streicher.
Other Nazi laws passed in 1933 included the law against "Dangerous Habitual Criminals." This allowed courts to detain for an indefinite period persistent lawbreakers if deemed dangerous to society. It also provided for the castration of sex offenders.
After abolishing the Office of President on August 19, 1934, Hitler declared himself Führer of the German Reich and People. As dictator, there were no legal or constitutional limits to his authority. Pictured is a jubilant crowd saluting Hitler outside the Reich Chancellery in Berlin after the plebiscite.
Paragraph 175 was a pre-Nazi German statute that criminalized sexual relations between men, but not between women. In 1935, the Nazis revised the decree to make it broader and harsher: its was used to persecute gay men per se and men accused of sexual relations with other men.
Enacted in Nazi Germany on September 15, 1935, the Nuremberg Race Laws institutionalized many of the racial theories underpinning Nazi ideology and provided the legal framework for the systematic persecution of Jews in Germany. Pictured is the front page of National Socialist newspaper Voelkischer Beobachter with the publication of the anti-Semitic and racist laws.
As 1935 drew to a close, the Nazis established the Lebensborn Program, an SS-initiated registered association with the stated goal of increasing the number of children born who met the Nazi standards of "racially pure" and "healthy" Aryans, based on Nazi eugenics. The program was later expanded to incorporate the Center for Research on Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology as the regime sought to racially reshape German society.
The order that directed authorities in Nazi Germany to enforce existing anti-Romani laws and to deport non-German Roma and Sinti was signed off on June 6, 1936. Pictured is Dr. Robert Ritter, head of the Racial Hygiene Research Centre at the Reich Bureau for Health. His research provided the pseudo-scientific basis for the extermination and forced sterilization of thousands of Sinti and Roma. By 1938 hundreds of thousands were being deported to death camps.
July 15, 1937, marked the opening of Buchenwald concentration camp. Prisoners came from all over Europe—Jews, Poles and other Slavs, Roma, the mentally ill and physically disabled, plus political prisoners. Women were not part of the Buchenwald camp system until late 1943 or early 1944.
In November 1937, Munich hosted Der Ewige Jude ("The Eternal Jew"), an infamous anti-Semitic exhibition held at the city's German Museum. Opened by Joseph Goebbels, Reich propaganda minister, and Julius Streicher, the traveling exhibition was also shown in Berlin and other German cities, as well as in Vienna. The Munich show alone attracted 412,300 visitors, over 5,000 per day.
In another squeeze on Nazi Germany's Jewish population, on October 5, 1938, the Reich Ministry of the Interior invalidated all German passports held by Jews. The document would only be reissued after being stamped with an identifying red letter "J."
Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, represents one of the defining moments in the history of the Holocaust. On November 9, 1938, Nazi Party officials, members of the SA, the Hitler Youth, and even some German civilians, carried out a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms throughout Greater Germany. The windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues across the country were smashed. The violence directed against them left Jews in no doubt that there was no future for them in Nazi Germany.
Having already been largely boycotted since 1933, and in the wake of Kristallnacht, Jewish businesses were effectively closed down on November 12, 1938, with the issuing of a decree eliminating Jews from economic life. Jews were forbidden from operating retail stores, sales agencies, and from carrying on a trade at an establishment of any kind.
Hitler's January 30, 1939, speech to the Reichstag left the German people and the world in no doubt that the outbreak of war would mean the end of European Jewry—in the Führer's words, the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."
On January 20, 1942, the Wannsee Conference was convened by Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office, at a villa outside Berlin. Among those present was Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. At this secret conference, Heydrich, following direct orders issued by Hitler, presented plans to coordinate a European-wide "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" to key officials from the German State and the Nazi Party.
The sealing of the Warsaw Ghetto on November 15, 1940, confined more than 350,000 Jews (about 30% of the city's population) in an area of about 1.3 sq mi (3.36 sq km). It was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during the Second World War and the Holocaust.
From September 1, 1941, onwards, the Jews of Europe were legally compelled to wear a yellow Star of David on their outer garments in public at all times.
Construction of crematoria at Auschwitz concentration camp had begun as early as June 1940, but it was the establishment on March 1, 1942, of Auschwitz-Birkenau that turned the site into a major center of extermination, with murder carried out on an industrial scale. It remains one of the most enduring symbols of the Holocaust.
Sources: (Holocaust Encyclopedia) (The Wiener Holocaust Library)
See also: Famous figures whose family members survived the Holocaust
The events that empowered a dictator and led to the Holocaust
The events that led to the biggest crime in human history
LIFESTYLE History
The Holocaust—the genocide of European Jews during the Second World War—is often regarded as having started after Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939. But from 1933 until the outbreak of hostilities, Jews felt the effects of more than 400 decrees and regulations that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives. And, in fact, as early as 1919 the "Jewish Question" had been commented upon by an angry and disillusioned Great War veteran called Adolf Hitler. Twelve months later, in 1920, the Nazi Party had been created. Thus was formed the political and military regime responsible for the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews and other minority groups. But what was the sequence of events that led to the biggest crime in human history being perpetrated?
Click through for a chilling countdown to the Holocaust.