The Holocaust was a genocide perpetrated by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party where over 12 million people (Jewish and non-Jewish) were killed, and millions more were forced into hiding. Despite popular belief, the Holocaust did not start with the killings. It began with the persecution of Jewish people through laws passed in the 1930s by the Nazi Parliament. These laws made persecution of an entire race of people legal in Germany. These laws served as the basis of the Holocaust and showed the world what happens when hate is made to manifest.
This information is important to consider when making a chronology of the Holocaust because without it, any history of World War II or the Holocaust is incomplete. The following timeline is going to show a comprehensive yet concise timeline of events during this era, beginning with Adolf Hitler and his ascendance to power in Germany and ending with the Allied Victory of World War II.
Hitler’s Rise to Power
July 29, 1921: Hitler is made the head of the Nazi Party.
November 8-11, 1923: Hitler’s hostile takeover of the German Government fails and he is tried and convicted for treason against the Weimar Republic.
July 1924: Hitler begins to write his book Mein Kampf which roughly translates to “My Struggle”. A speaking ban was also placed on Hitler around this time.
July 18. 1925: Mein Kampf is published.
March 10, 1927: The Weimar Republic lifts Hitler’s speaking ban.
January 20, 1929: Hitler appoints Heinrich Himmler as the head of the SS (The Nazi elite guard).
August 3-4, 1929: A rally for the Nazi Party Day. Over 100,000 people were in attendance.
September 2, 1930: Hitler is made the leader of the SA (Storm Troopers) This will become his main tool for Jewish persecution.
It should also be noted that the Nazi Party is winning more and more seats in the Weimar Parliament with each election.
January 26, 1932: Hitler wins the support of German industrial leaders.
March 13, 1932: Hitler runs for the German presidency. He has to go to a runoff election against incumbent Paul von Hindenburg.
April 10, 1932: Hitler loses the runoff election to Paul von Hindenburg.
January 30, 1933: Paul von Hindenburg appoints Hitler to the Chancellorship of Germany.
February 27, 1933: The German Reichstag (congressional building) is set on fire in an arson attempt. The Nazi Party blames the Communist Party in Germany.
February 28, 1933: Hitler is granted emergency powers by Paul von Hindenburg. This is what allows Hitler to start his legal persecution of the Jewish people. Hitler now has most of the power in Germany.
Throughout 1933, Hitler made several decrees and even established the first concentration camps all designed to persecute the Jewish people. The Gestapo (German Secret Police) was also established in 1933. This is the beginning of the Holocaust. The next section of this timeline will describe the early years and policies passed by the German government under the influence of Hitler.
The Early Holocaust
March 22, 1933: Dachau is built and opened. It is the first of well over 1,000 concentration camps.
April 7, 1933: The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service is passed. This law forces Jewish (and other non-Aryan) people out of Civil Service jobs.
April 25, 1933: The Law for Preventing Overcrowding in German Schools and Schools of Higher Education is passed. This prevents Jewish students from enrolling in German Schools.
April 26, 1933: The Gestapo is established.
July 31, 1933: 30,000 people are confirmed to be interned in concentration camps by this point.
September 22, 1933: German Jewish people are banned from being journalists, artists, musicians, actors, etc. Around this time, Jewish people are also banned from farming.
August 2, 1934: Paul von Hindenburg dies, and Hitler declares himself the sole ruler of Germany.
September 15, 1935: The first round of Nuremberg Laws are passed. Jewish people can no longer marry non-Jewish people.
November 1, 1935: The Reich Citizenship law is amended to retract all German citizenship from Jewish citizens.
December 31, 1935: Any Jewish people still working in German Civil Service are dismissed.
March 3, 1936: Jewish doctors can no longer practice in German government health facilities.
September 7, 1936: A 25% tax is placed on all Jewish assets in Germany.
Sometime in 1937: Hitler declares that the Third Reich will last for one thousand years.
Spring 1937: Jewish business owners lose their businesses without warning or justification.
July 15, 1937: The concentration camp at Buchenwald is opened.
January 1938: The concentration at Dachau is made larger.
March 28, 1938: Jewish organizations that serve their communities are no longer recognized by the Nazi government.
April 26, 1938: Jewish people are ordered to register all assets worth 5,000 marks or more.
May 3, 1938: The concentration camp at Flossenburg, Germany is opened.
May 28, 1938: Jewish businesses in Frankfurt are boycotted by the locals there.
June 9, 1938: The Nazis burn Munich’s main synagogue.
June 25, 1938: Jewish doctors are no longer allowed to treat German patients.
July 23, 1938: Jewish Germans are forced to apply for ID Cards that have to be shown to police on demand.
August 8, 1938: The concentration camp at Mauthausen, Austria is opened.
August 10, 1938: The synagogue in Nuremberg, called The Great Synagogue, is destroyed.
August 17, 1938: Jewish men and women in Germany have to take the names Israel and Sarah by January 1, 1939.
September 1938: Another concentration camp was opened, this time at Neuengamme, Germany.
November 9-10, 1938: Kristallnacht takes place.
Kristallnacht, known also as the night of broken glass, was a night where hundreds of synagogues, Jewish businesses, and lives were destroyed all over Nazi Germany and Austria. This event is considered to have kickstarted the Holocaust as we know it today.
The Holocaust in full force
November 12, 1938: A one billion mark fine is placed on the German-Jewish population for the damage caused by Kristallnacht.
November 15, 1938: Jewish students are removed from German schools.
December 3, 1938: The Nazi government requires that all Jewish businesses become “Aryanized”.
February 21, 1939: Jewish people in Germany are forced to give up their gold and silver to the Nazi government.
April 30, 1939: Tenancy protection is revoked for all Jewish people in Germany. This will set the stage for relocation to ghettos.
May 15, 1939: The women’s concentration camp at Ravensbruck is opened.
May 17, 1939: Britain issues the White Paper which limits Jewish immigration to only 10,000 people a year for 5 years.
Throughout 1939, the Germans and surrounding nations implemented policies designed to exile Jewish people from general public life.
September 1, 1939: Nazi Germany invades Poland. World War II begins.
September 20, 1939: Any radio owned by a Jewish person in Germany are confiscated.
September 27, 1939: An order is issued to establish ghettos in Poland.
November 7, 1939: The Nazis begin deporting Jewish people in western Poland.
November 29, 1939: The death penalty is ordered for Jewish people who will not willingly report for deportation.
In December of 1939, Jewish people all over Poland are being murdered by Nazi troopers.
Beginning in 1940, facilities to murder the elderly, Jewish, and handicapped all over Germany.
February 8, 1940: The ghetto at Lodz, Poland is established.
Spring 1940: German gypsies are being deported.
May 20, 1940: The most infamous concentration camp at Auschwitz is opened.
June 14, 1940: The first prisoners begin to arrive at Auschwitz.
June 22, 1940: France surrenders to Germany.
July 1, 1940: Another ghetto is established at Bedzin, Poland.
In addition to these antisemitic practices, World War II is now in full swing. Jewish people all over Nazi occupied Germany are desperately trying to escape to no avail. The American government is not letting very many Jewish people into the country, and the British government is trying to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine.
October 12, 1940: The Germans announce that all Jewish people in Warsaw, Poland must move to a ghetto being established there by the end of October.
October 22, 1940: Much like in Germany, Jewish business owners in the Netherlands must surrender their businesses to Germany.
November 11-16, 1940: The Warsaw ghetto is officially acknowledged by the Nazi authorities in Poland and it is sealed off from the rest of Warsaw.
By the end of 1940, it had become increasingly clear to the Jewish people in Nazi occupied Europe that they were being hunted. Many Jewish people were killed, including children and the elderly. Typhus also ran rampant in the ghettos as well. Hope is lost for many.
January 10, 1941: Dutch Jewish citizens are forced to register with the Nazi occupation authorities.
During the late winter and early spring of 1941, the ghetto in Warsaw had a population of well over 400,000 people. Jewish citizens are only allowed to eat 183 calories a day.
March 1, 1941: An expansion of Auschwitz is planned.
March 3, 1941: The ghetto in Krakow, Poland is established.
March 7, 1941: Jewish people all over Nazi occupied territories are put into forced labor.
June 22, 1941: Operation Barbarossa begins and killing squads are established to murder Jewish people as the Wehrmacht moves through the Soviet Union.
July 31, 1941: Jewish people in Nazi occupied Europe are ordered to evacuate, but the SS Chief is secretly told to eliminate them.
Throughout the rest of the Autumn of 1941, German troops murder thousands of Jewish people in Soviet territories.
September 1941: Thousands of Jewish people are murdered throughout Ukraine. Any surviving Jewish people are forced to wear a yellow star. German Jewish citizens are also being deported out of Germany.
October 1 – December 22, 1941: Over the course of these three months, over 33,000 Jewish people are killed at Vilna, Lithuania.
October 18-20, 1941: Mass executions of Soviet Jewish people are carried out in Belorussia, now modern Belarus.
November 1, 1941: The extermination camp at Belzec, Poland begins, and a concentration camp opens in Nazi occupied North Africa.
Throughout November 1941, thousands of Jewish people in Ukraine are rounded up and taken to local forests where they are forced to dig their own mass grave and be shot. Thousands more Jewish people are dead by the end of 1941.
December 7, 1941: Pearl Harbor is attacked by Imperial Japan. Gas van extermination begins at the death camp in Chelmno, Poland.
December 8, 1941: The United States joins World War II, and many Jewish people start to feel some kind of hope again.
1941 ends with European Jewish people feeling some kind of hope. The Americans have joined the war, and the Soviets are pushing back against the Nazis. Things were finally starting to look up, but 1942 would dash any hopes. The Final Solution was being implemented.
January 2, 1942: Jewish people imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau are being killed using Zyklon-B gas.
February 15, 1942: Mass gassing of Jewish prisoners begins at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
March 17, 1942: The death camp in Belzec begins a full scale extermination.
Spring of 1942 is when deportations to the death camps goes into full swing. Jewish people all over Europe are now being murdered at an alarming rate. Allied news outlets are spreading news of these atrocities, but the Allies are not taking any major action in 1942.
Summer 1942: Nazi Germany has acquired the most territory it will ever have during World War II.
Late Summer 1942: Thousands of Jewish people have been deported to death camps in Nazi occupied Europe.
June 30, 1942: A second gas chamber is up and running at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
July 7, 1942: Heinrich Himmler authorizes inhumane sterilization experiments on female prisoners in Auschwitz.
August 1942: Over 400,000 Jewish people have been murdered.
August 8, 1942: Gerhart Riegner sends a telegram to the American Geneva consulate, and the telegram is forwarded to the State Department. This telegram outlined Nazi plans to exterminate the Jewish population in Europe.
August 13-27, 1942: The Riegner Cable is decided to remain a secret by the Allies.
September 1942: The bodies of victims at the death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor are being burned in order to hide evidence of the atrocities taking place.
September 30, 1942: Hitler makes a public declaration that the German war effort will mean the destruction of all European Jewish people.
October 4, 1942: All Jewish people in German concentration camps are ordered to be deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
November 1942: The validity of the Riegner cable is confirmed by the Allies.
December 17, 1942: After several months of pressure, the Allies officially condemn Nazi Germany’s slaughter of the Jewish people.
January 1, 1943: Jewish people in the Netherlands cannot have bank accounts.
February 6, 1943: Prisoners in Auschwitz are forced to stand in the snow for 13 hours for a roll call.
March – July 1943: The officers at the Treblinka death camp are destroying evidence of the atrocities there.
August 1943: There is an uprising at the labor camp in Sasow, Poland.
Throughout August 1943, more and more ghettos are being “liquidated”, meaning that all the people there are either deported or killed.
September 1943: More Jewish people are being deported to Auschwitz. The Allies have also invaded Italy.
November 1943: The Treblinka death camp is razed by the Nazis.
Late 1943: Heinrich Himmler has the death camp at Belzec razed. This is one of many attempts to hide evidence of atrocities.
By 1944, the Nazi party was becoming desperate. The war was rapidly turning in favor of the Allies, and in their desperation, the Nazis increased their extermination efforts.
Desperate Terror
February 10, 1944: A deportation train carrying over 1,000 Jewish people, including women and children, arrives at Auschwitz and 800 of the over 1,000 passengers are immediately taken to the gas chambers. This includes every child that was on the train.
March 19, 1944: Germany takes control of Hungary and targets the Jewish population there.
April 4, 1944: The first aerial photos of Auschwitz are taken by United States Air Recon.
April 29, 1944: The first Hungarian Jewish people are deported to Auschwitz.
Summer 1944: The Allies are also slowly discovering that Jewish people in Hungary are being deported to Auschwitz and murdered.
June 6, 1944: D-Day, where the Western Allies invaded Northern France via Normandy and reinvigorated the war effort.
July 8, 1944: The Hungarian government stops deporting Jewish people within its borders.
August 25, 1944: Deportations of Hungarian Jewish people ends after Adolf Eichmann and his staff get out of Hungary.
Through the Fall of 1944, the Red Army was moving through Nazi occupied territory and liberating some of the labor camps. This is when the Nazis become desperate. They are gassing almost all of their prisoners upon arrival to Auschwitz even with the Allied bombings of Auschwitz.
December 26, 1944: The Germans fail to take Antwerp, Belgium. They are still on the defensive through an increasingly hopeless war effort.
January 15, 1945: The Plaszow Concentration camp in Poland is freed by the Soviets.
January 17, 1945: The Soviets make it to Warsaw, Poland. The final roll call was taken at Auschwitz.
January 18 – March 1945: There is a massive evacuation of all remaining prisoners from Auschwitz and surrounding camps. These prisoners are forced on a death march.
January 27, 1945: The Soviets free Auschwitz. There were still 7,000 people living in the camp.
February 1945: The Allies are slowly closing in on Germany. The Americans and British from the West, and the Soviets from the East.
April 1945: The SS is still evacuating Jewish prisoners and forcing them to march to camps like Dachau to be murdered.
April 11, 1945: Americans liberate the camp at Buchenwald.
April 29, 1945: Hitler makes his final political statement on what he called “international Jewry.” The Americans liberate the camp at Dachau.
April 30, 1945: Hitler commits suicide in his bunker in Berlin. The Soviets capture the Reichstag in Berlin.
May 1, 1945: Joseph Goebbels commits suicide in Hitler’s bunker after killing his children via poisoning.
May 7, 1945: The unconditional surrender of Germany is signed. Death marches are stopped all over Europe as German troops surrender to or flee from Allied forces.
May 8, 1945: V.E. (Victory in Europe) Day.
August 8, 1945: The Allies make a charter for a Military Tribunal to try German War Criminals. This lays the foundation for the Nuremberg Trials.
September 2, 1945: World War II ends after Japan’s surrender to the United States.
With the end of World War II, the Holocaust effectively came to a close. Except it didn’t. The years following World War II were spent trying to bring the criminal orchestrators of the Holocaust to justice. They were spent trying to convince deniers that this event was real and not some kind of conspiracy. The nation of Israel was created by the UN in 1948 to give Jewish people a place to call home, and it was at war just hours after its creation.
Today, there are still those who choose to deny that millions of Jewish and non-Jewish people were killed by a system that was designed to promote hatred and prejudice. Teaching about the Holocaust is important because history can be repeated. There are far too many people who believe that something like it can never happen again. If we let hate win, it can happen again. If hate is allowed to manifest, a timeline such as this one can happen again.
Information for this timeline came from the following sources:
The Holocaust Chronicle: A History in Words and Pictures by Marilyn Harran et al.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia
Active Classroom has hundreds of secondary activities to further expand context about World War II and expose students to primary sources about the Holocaust
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Brendan King is a blog contributor for Social Studies School Service. He loves the study of history and reading any historical work he can get his hands on. More importantly, he is passionate about teaching history and social studies in fun and unique ways. He earned his B.A. in History at the University of West Georgia and currently teaches 6th Grade Social Studies. His hobbies include reading, playing video games, watching movies, and exercising.