THE HOLOCAUST
1939-1945
1933
1941-1942
1942-1945
1933-1939
1939-1941
1941
Jewish murder
War and territorial expanssion
The Nazi rise to power
Separation, exclusion and expulsion
Operation Barbarossa
The "Final Solution"
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KEY FACTS
- The first wave of Nazi antisemitic legislation, from 1933 to 1934, focused on limiting the participation of Jews in German public life.
- In September 1935, the Nazi leaders announced the “Nuremberg Laws” which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology.
- Nazi legislation in 1937-38 increased the segregation of Jews from their fellow Germans, ultimately requiring Jews to identify themselves in ways that would permanently separate them from the rest of the population.
KEY FACTS
- Hitler moved to extend German power in central Europe, annexing Austria and destroying Czechoslovakia in 1938-1939. Other territorial demands followed.
- Great Britain and France hoped to prevent another world war by giving into Hitler’s demands through a policy of appeasement.
- Hitler's aggressive foreign policy resulted in the outbreak of World War II in September 1939.
The Nazi Party’s meteoric rise to power began in 1930, when it attained 107 seats in Germany’s parliament. In July 1932, the Nazi Party became the largest political party in the Reichstag with 230 representatives
As a result of the Nazis’ mass support, German president Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933. His appointment paved the way to the Nazi dictatorship after Hindenburg’s death in August 1934.
Operation Barbarossa was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. It was the largest land offensive in human history, with around 10 million combatants taking part.The operation, code-named after Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), a 12th-century Holy Roman Emperor and Crusader, put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. The operation opened up the Eastern Front, in which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in human history
The Final Solution was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official code name for the murder of all Jews within reach, which was not restricted to the European continent.
Hitler was determined to repeal the military and territorial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. By revoking the treaty, the German government sought to incorporate ethnically German territories into the Reich. It was the first step towards the creation of a German empire in Europe.
In 1942, the highest levels of the German government decided to murder all the Jews in Europe. The victims were deported by train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority were killed with poisonous gas. Other Jews continued to be employed in forced labor camps where many died from hunger, abuse, or exhaustion. Other groups are sometimes used to refer also to the persecution of these Holocaust in May 1945. Separate Nazi persecutions killed a similar or greater number of non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war.
In the first six years of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship, Jews felt the effects of more than 400 decrees and regulations on all aspects of their lives. The regulations gradually but systematically took away their rights and property, transforming them from citizens into outcasts. Many of the laws were national ones issued by the German administration, affecting all Jews. State, regional, and municipal officials also issued many decrees in their own communities. As Nazi leaders prepared for war in Europe, antisemitic legislation in Germany and Austria paved the way for more radical persecution of Jews.