Timeline Germany 1917-1938
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1917 Jan 5,
Wieland Wagner, German opera director (grandson of Richard Wagner), was
born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1917 Jan 5, Bulgarian and German
troops occupied the Port of Braila in East Romania.
(HN, 1/5/99)(WUD, 1994, p.178)
1917 Jan 10, Germany was rebuked
as the Entente officially rejected a proposal for peace talks and
demanded the return of occupied territories from Germany.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1917 Jan 19, The Zimmermann
Note-a coded message sent to Germany's minister in Mexico by German
Foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann, proposed an alliance between
Germany and Mexico in the event war broke out between the U.S. and
Germany. Intercepted by British naval intelligence, the note proposed,
among other things, "We shall give generous financial support, and it
is understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New
Mexico, Texas, and Arizona." The message was forwarded by the British
to the U.S. State Department, which subsequently released it to the
press on March 1.
(HNQ, 7/15/98)
1917 Jan 31, Germany
resumed unlimited sub warfare, saying that all neutral ships that are
in the war zone would be attacked.
(AP, 1/31/98)(HN, 1/31/99)
1917 Feb 1, Admiral Tirpitz
(1849-1930) announced that Germany would attack all shipping in the
North Atlantic with its feared U-Boats. [see Jan 31]
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. C-1)(WUD, 1994 p.1488)
1917 Feb 3, The United States
broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, which had announced a
policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. A German submarine sank the
U.S. liner Housatonic off coast of Sicily.
(AP, 2/3/97)(HN, 2/3/99)
1917 Feb 7, The British steamer
California was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1917 Feb 24, The British presented
the decoded Zimmermann telegram, a German plot for Mexican help, to
Pres. Wilson and an enraged Wilson released the document to the
American public on March 1. On April 6, 1917, America formally declared
war on Germany and her Allies.
(HNPD, 2/24/99)(MC, 2/24/02)
1917 Feb 28, AP reported that
Mexico and Japan would ally with Germany if US enters WW I.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1917 Mar 14, China broke off
diplomatic relations with Germany.
(HN, 3/14/98)
1917 Mar 18, The Germans sank the
U.S. ships, City of Memphis, Vigilante and the Illinois, without any
type of warning.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1917 Mar 19, A German submarine in
the Mediterranean Sea sunk the French battleship Danton. In 2009 the
Danton was discovered on the seabed southwest of Sardinia.
(SFC, 2/21/09,
p.A2)(www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?16848)
1917 Apr 2, President Wilson asked
Congress to declare war against Germany, saying, "The world must be
made safe for democracy."
(AP, 4/2/97)(HN, 4/2/98)
1917 Apr 6, The US Congress
approved a declaration of war against Germany and entered World War I
on the Allied side.
(HN, 4/6/98)(AP, 4/6/04)
1917 Apr 9, The World War I Battle
of Arras began.
(HN, 4/9/98)
1917 Aug 14, China declared war on
Germany and Austria during World War I.
(AP, 8/14/97)
1917 Apr 15, The British defeated
the Germans at the battle of Arras.
(HN, 4/15/98)
1917 May 10, Atlantic ships got
destroyer escorts to fend off German attacks.
(HN, 5/10/98)
1917 Jun 7, British Field Marshal
Sir Douglas Haig launched his assault in Flanders to take German
pressure off his French allies. For months, troops of the British
Expeditionary Force fought a series of pointless battles in a
nightmarish landscape of knee-deep shell holes filled with mud and
blasted, skeletal trees. When the campaign finally ground to a halt on
November 10, 1917, the BEF had suffered losses of 300,000 men and
German losses were around 200,000--for a total gain of four miles.
(HNPD, 6/7/99)
1917 Jun 13, Germany bombed London.
(MC, 6/13/02)
1917 Jun 17, The Russian Duma met
in secret session in Petrograd and voted for an immediate Russian
offensive against the German Army.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1917 Jul 16, Ludwig Philipp
Scharwenka (70), German composer (Album Polonaise), died.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1917 Jul 22, British bombed German
lines at Ypres with 4,250,000 grenades.
(MC, 7/22/02)
1917 Jul 31, The third Battle of
Ypres commenced as the British attacked the German lines.
(HN, 7/31/98)
1917 Aug 14, The Chinese
Parliament declared war on the Central Powers, Germany and Austria,
during World War I.
(AP, 8/14/97)(HN, 8/14/98)
1917 Sep 2, Admiral Tirpitz formed
the Deutsche Vaterlands Party.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1917 Sep 4, The American
expeditionary force in France suffered its first fatalities in World
War I when a German plane attacked a British-run base hospital..
(AP, 9/4/08)
1917 Sep 17, The German Army
recaptured the Russian [Latvian] Port of Riga from Russian forces.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1917 Oct 17, The 1st British
bombing of Germany took place.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1917 Oct 24, The Austro-German
army routed the Italian army at Caporetto, Italy. In what came to be
known as the 1st blitzkrieg German and Austro-Hungarian forces took at
least 250,000 Italian soldiers as prisoners on the Isonzo Front.
(HN, 10/24/98)(SFEC, 7/9/00, p.T14)
1917 Nov 5, General Pershing led
U.S. troops into the first American action against German forces.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1917 Nov 10, The assault on
Flanders, begun July 11, finally ground to a halt. The British
Expeditionary Force (BEF) had suffered losses of 300,000 men and German
losses were around 200,000--for a total gain of four miles and the
occupation of Passchendaele. The battle was later described by Edwin
Campion Vaughan in “Some Desperate Glory” (1981).
(HN, 6/7/98)(HNQ, 11/2/98)(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.P12)
1917 Nov 21, German ace Rudolf von
Eschwege was killed over Macedonia when he attacked a booby-trapped
observation balloon packed with explosives.
(HN, 11/21/99)
1917 Dec 11, The first declaration
of independence was claimed by Lithuania and an economic and military
union was established with Germany.
(LC, 1998, p.30)
1917 Dec 24, The Kaiser warned
Russia that he would use "iron fist" and "shining sword" if peace was
spurned.
(HN, 12/24/98)
1917 Emil Nolde, German
expressionist, created his painting "Blumengarten (Utenwarf)." In 2009
it was sold to a European art collector for an undisclosed amount to
the heirs of Otto Nathan Deutsch, a Jewish businessman who lost it when
he fled Germany to escape Nazi persecution in 1939. The was estimated
to be worth between $4-6 million. A Swedish museum had bought the
artwork from a Swiss gallery in 1967, unaware of its history.
(AP, 9/9/09)
1917 In Germany Hans Pfitzner
premiered his opera "Palestrina," about the life of the 16th cent.
composer and how Palestrina supposedly saved polyphony in church music
during the Council of Trent.
(WSJ, 7/1/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)
1918 Jan 2, Bolsheviks talked
about resuming war unless the Germans quit Russian soil.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1918 Jan 6, Germany acknowledged
Finland’s independence.
(HN, 1/6/99)
1918 Jan 7, The Germans moved
75,000 troops from the East Front to the Western Front.
(HN, 1/7/99)
1918 Jan 25, Austria and Germany
rejected U.S. peace proposals.
(HN, 1/25/99)
1918 Feb 22, Germany claimed the
Baltic states, Finland and Ukraine from Russia.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1918 Mar 3, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Russia signed the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ended Russian participation in World War
I. Germany and Austria forced Soviet Russia to sign the Peace of Brest,
which called for the establishment of 5 independent countries: Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
which ended Russian participation in World War I, was annulled by the
November 1918 armistice. The treaty deprived the Soviets of White
Russia.
(HN, 3/3/99)(LHC, 3/1/03)(AP, 3/3/08)
1918 Mar 3, Richard Göring's
"Seeschlacht" premiered in Berlin.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1918 Mar 7, Finland signed an
alliance treaty with Germany.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1918 Mar 10, Günther Rall,
German Luftwaffe ace in World War II, was born.
(HN, 3/10/99)
1918 Mar 21, During World War I,
Germany launched the Somme 'Michael' Offensive in France, hoping to
break through the Allied line before American reinforcements could
arrive. It is better remembered as the First Battle of the Somme.
(WUD, 1994, p.1356)(AP, 3/21/97)(HN, 3/21/99)
1918 Mar 23,
Crépy-en-Laonnoise: German artillery shelled Paris France and
256 were killed. The Paris bombs were named "Thick Bertha's Dike"
(nickname for the widow Krupp).
(SS, 3/23/02)
1918 Mar 23, Germany became the
1st country to recognize the independence of Lithuania. This was based
on the Lithuanian legislative act of Dec 11, 1917.
(LHC, 3/23/03)
1918 Mar 26, On the Western Front
during World War I the Germans took the French towns Noyon, Roye and
Lihons.
(HN, 3/25/98)
1918 May 28, The Battle of
Cantigny began during World War I as American troops captured the
French town from the Germans; the Americans were able to resist German
counterattacks in the days that followed.
(AP, 5/28/08)
1918 Apr 4, Battle of Somme
[France], an offensive by the British against the German Army ended.
(HN, 4/4/99)
1918 Apr 21, Baron Manfred von
Richthofen, the cousin of Frieda Lawrence and the highest-scoring
German ace of World War I with 80 victories, was killed in a dogfight
over France's Somme Valley over Amiens. As he pursued a Canadian pilot
with jammed guns, von Richthofen, flying a red Fokker triplane, broke
one of his own flying rules by following his prey too long, too far and
too low. Two miles behind Allied lines, Richthofen was mortally wounded
when he was fired upon simultaneously by another Canadian pilot and
Australian ground troops. The following day, the Red Baron was buried
by his enemies with full military honors. He was replaced with Hermann
Goering.
(WSJ, 5/15/95, p. A-16)(AP, 4/21/97)(HNPD, 4/21/99)
1918 Apr 22, British naval forces
attempted to sink block-ships in the German U-boat bases at the Battle
of Zeeburgge.
(HN, 4/22/99)
1918 May, The German army staged a
surprise offensive and rolled into the Marne Valley through the center
of the French 6th Army. The Germans were held at bay by some 9,000 US
Marines of the 5th and 6th Regiments of the 4th Brigade.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.A26)
1918 Jun 3, The Finnish Parliament
ratified its treaty with Germany.
(HN, 6/3/98)
1918 Jun 4, French and American
troops halted Germany's offensive at Chateau-Thierry, France.
(HN, 6/4/98)
1918 Jun 6, In France the US
Marines counter-attacked the Germans and pushed them back to the woods
at Bois de Belleau. U.S. Marines entered combat at the Battle of
Belleau Wood. 1st US victory of WW I.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.A26)(HN, 6/6/01)(MC, 6/6/02)
1918 Jun 18, Allied forces on the
Western Front began their largest counter-attack against the spent
German army.
(HN, 6/18/98)
1918 Jun 26, After a brief
respite, the Germans began firing their huge 420 mm howitzer "Big
Bertha" at Paris. During World War I, Germany's 98-ton howitzer used to
shell Verdun and Liege-Big Bertha-was named after the wife of munitions
maker Gustav Krupp. Bertha Krupp was actually the heir to the Krupp
family fortune when she married Prussian diplomat Gustav von Bohlen und
Halbach, who changed his name to Krupp and took over the family firm,
which was the world's largest manufacturer of munitions. Gustav Krupp
went on to support Adolph Hitler and help finance the Nazis.
(HN, 6/26/98)(HNQ, 8/28/98)
1918 Jun 27, Two German pilots
were saved by parachutes for the first time.
(HN, 6/27/98)
1918 Jun 28, The US Marines took
the Bois de Belleau.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.A26)
1918 Jul 15, The Second Battle of
the Marne began during World War I.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1918 Jul 18, US & French
forces launched Aisne-Marne offensive in WW I. After an artillery
attack, nearly 400 Allied tanks rolled against the German
positions. By nightfall the Germans were on the retreat and Paris
was mostly in Allied control.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1918 Jul 19, German armies
retreated across the Marne River in France.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1918 Aug 6, The 2nd battle of the
Marne ended.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1918 Aug 11, The British attacked
with 450 tanks at the Battle of Amiens as the Allies pushed Germany
back.
(MC, 8/11/02)(PC, 1992, p.728)
1918 Sep 3, Allies forced Germans
back across Hindenburg Line.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1918 Sep 6, The German Army began
a general retreat across the Aisne, with British troops in pursuit.
(HN, 9/6/98)
1918 Sep 12, During World War I,
U.S. forces led by Gen. John J. Pershing launched an attack on the
German-occupied St. Mihiel salient north of Verdun, France.
(AP, 9/12/97)
1918 Sep 26, The Meuse-Argonne
offensive against the Germans began during World War I.
(AP, 9/26/08)
1918 Sep 26, German Ace Ernst Udet
shot down two Allied planes, bringing his total for the war up to 62.
(HN, 9/26/00)
1918 Sep 29, Allied forces scored
a decisive breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line during World War I.
(AP, 9/29/97)
1918 Oct 8, US Sgt. Alvin C. York
almost single-handedly killed 25 German soldiers and captured 132 in
the Argonne Forest in France.
(AP, 10/8/97)
1918 Oct 10, While President
Woodrow Wilson was attempting to establish "peace without victory" with
Germany, the German UB-123 torpedoed RMS Leinster, a civilian mail and
passenger ferry, off the coast of Ireland. Leinster was usually
escorted by a Royal Air Force airship as a precaution, but on October
10, 1918, the ferry set out alone. Leinster was sunk; 564 passengers
and crewmen perished, many of them American and Allied troops. After
Leinster, the Germans lost their chance for an easy peace.
(HNPD, 10/10/99)
1918 Oct 14, In France the
American 32nd division was sent to engage German troops on the Dame
Marie, while the 5th and 42nd Divisions under Gen. Douglas MacArthur
swept in pincer movements to occupy Cote de Chatillon. The objectives
were taken in 3 days of tough fighting. In 2008 Robert H. Ferrell
authored “The Question of MacArthur’s Reputation: Cote de Chatillon,
October 14-16, 1918.”
(WSJ, 11/24/08, p.A17)
1918 Oct 20, Germany aimed at an
armistice and agreed to further concessions.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1918 Oct 23, President Wilson felt
satisfied that the Germans were accepting his armistice terms and
agreed to transmit their request for an armistice to the Allies. The
Germans had agreed to suspend submarine warfare, cease inhumane
practices such as the use of poison gas, and withdraw troops back into
Germany.
(HN, 10/23/98)
1918 Oct 26, Germany's supreme
commander, General Erich Ludendorff, resigned, protesting the terms to
which the German Government had agreed in negotiating the armistice.
This set the stage for his later support for Hitler and the Nazis, who
claimed that Germany did not lose the war on the battlefield but were
"stabbed in the back" by politicians.
(HN, 10/26/98)
1918 Nov 3, There was a mutiny of
the German fleet at Kiel. This was the first act leading to German's
capitulation in World War I. [see Nov 4]
(HN, 11/3/99)
1918 Nov 4, Kiel, Germany, fell
into the hands of revolutionary sailors. [see Nov 3]
(MC, 11/4/01)
1918 Nov 9, Germany was proclaimed
a republic. Kaiser Wilhelm II announced that he would abdicate. He then
fled to the Netherlands.
(AP, 11/9/97)(HN, 11/9/98)
1918 Nov 9, Guillaume Apollinaire
(38), [Kostrowitsky], French poet (Alcools), died.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1918 Nov 10, Retired German Kaiser
Wilhelm II fled to the Netherlands.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1918 Nov 11, At ten minutes past
five in the morning, German and Allied negotiators placed the final
signatures on the armistice that would end World War I six hours later.
After the signing, French General Ferdinand Foch sent all Allied
commanders the following message: "Hostilities will cease on the entire
[Western] front November 11 at 11:00 a.m." Even as the hour approached
9 of 16 commanders of US divisions on the Western Front ordered a final
assault that left an additional 11,000 casualties. Although the Allies
had not invaded Germany and there was no clear military victory, the
Germans were forced to sign the armistice because of insurmountable
problems. German troops, pushed past their limits of endurance by five
years of fighting, faced a fresh stream of well-equipped American
soldiers. Germany's allies, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and
Bulgaria, had already ceased fighting and mutinies increased as German
soldiers and sailors refused to carry out suicidal missions. Food
shortages, both at home and at the front, had reached crisis levels.
The costs of the First World War were astronomical with 7.5 million
dead and more than 35 million total casualties. The US Armistice Day
holiday was changed to Veteran’s Day after the Korean War. It was
celebrated as “Veteran’s Day” for the first time in the US in Emporia,
Kansas, on November 11, 1953. In 2004 Joseph E. Persico authored
“Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918,
World War I and Its Violent Climax.”
(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A16)(SFC,11/8/97, p.A11)(HNPD,
11/11/98)(SFC, 12/28/04, p.D1)
1918 Nov 14, The Grand Duchy of
Baden ceased to exist and became a republic. The provisional government
declared the establishment of the freie Volksrepublik Baden (Free
Peoples' Republic of Baden), and set 5 January 1919 as the date for new
elections. In 1933 it went under Nazi rule.
(Econ, 4/18/09,
p.16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Baden)
1918 Nov 17, German troops
evacuated Brussels.
(HN, 11/17/98)
1918 Nov 21, The last German
troops left Alsace-Lorraine, France.
(HN, 11/21/98)
1918 Nov 21, 2 German ammunition
trains exploded in Hamont, Belgium and 1,750 died.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1918 Nov 28, Kaiser Wilhelm of
Prussia and Germany, abdicated.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1918 Dec 1, An American army of
occupation entered Germany.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1918 Dec 3, The Allied Conference
ended in London; Germany was required to pay to full limits for the
war.
(HN, 12/3/02)
1918 Dec 7, Spartacists called for
a German revolution.
(HN, 12/7/98)
1918 Dec 9, French troops occupied
Mainz.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1918 Dec 10, U.S. troops were
called to guard Berlin as a coup was feared.
(HN, 12/10/98)
1918 Dec 13, US army of occupation
crossed the Rhine and entered Germany.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1918 Dec 23, Helmut Schmidt,
Chancellor of Germany, was born.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1918 Dec 25, Revolt erupted in
Berlin.
(HN, 12/25/98)
1918 Fritz Haber (1868-1934),
German chemist, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for extracting ammonia
from nitrogen in 1909. The Haber-Bosch process was beneficial for food
production and explosives. Haber also helped develop poison gas during
WW I.
(WSJ, 12/8/00, p.W11)(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.C6)
1919 Jan 5, The National Socialist
Party (Nazi) formed.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1919 Jan 21, The German Krupp
plant began producing guns under the U.S. armistice terms.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1919 Feb 4, City of Bremen's
Soviet Republic was overthrown.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1919 Feb 8, Lithuanian and German
military forces forced the Bolsheviks from Kedainiai.
(LHC, 2/8/03)
1919 Feb 17, Germany signed an
armistice giving up territory in Poland.
(HN, 2/17/98)
1919 Mar 3, Communist Party in
Germany announced a general strike.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1919 Mar 11, A general strike in
Germany was crushed.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1919 May 6, Paris Peace Conference
disposed of German colonies; German East Africa was assigned to Britain
& France, German SW Africa to South Africa.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1919 Jun 20, Treaty of Versailles:
Germany ended the incorporation of Austria. [see Jun 28]
(MC, 6/20/02)
1919 Jun 21, German sailors under
Admiral von Reuter scuttled 72 warships at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys
even though Germany had surrendered. It was the greatest act of
self-destruction in modern military history.
(HN, 6/21/98)(Camelot, 6/21/99)(MC, 6/21/02)
1919 Jun 28, The Treaty of
Versailles was signed in France, ending (WW I) World War I. World War I
began in 1914 and ended on this date. Germany signed the Treaty of
Versailles under protest. Books by participants included "Peacemaking"
by Harold Nicolson; "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" by John
Maynard Keynes; and "The Truth About the Peace Treaties" by David Lloyd
George. In 2000 Richard Holmes authored "The Western Front." Nearly 1
million British died and nearly 2 million each for France, Germany,
Russia and Turkey. In 2002 Margaret MacMillan authored "Paris 1919: Six
Months That Changed the World."
(HFA, ‘96, p.32)(AP, 6/28/97)(HN, 6/28/98)(WSJ,
8/16/00, p.A20)(SSFC, 12/15/02, p.M3)
1919 Jul 4, The ADGB (Allgemeine
Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund) party was formed.
(Maggio, 98)
1919 Jul 21, Anthony Fokker
established an airplane factory at Hamburg and Amsterdam.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1919 Jul 31, Germany's Weimar
Constitution was adopted by the republic's National Assembly. The
Weimar Republic became Germany’s 1st democratic government.
(AP, 7/31/97)(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A8)(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D10)
1919 Aug 11, Germany's Weimar
Constitution was signed by President Friedrich Ebert.
(AP, 8/11/07)
1919 Sep 12, Adolf Hitler joined
the German Worker's Party. In 2004 Robert O. Paxton authored "The
Anatomy of Fascism," on the rise and fall of Hitler and Mussolini.
(HN, 9/12/98)(SSFC, 4/4/04, p.M3)
1919 Richard Strauss composed his
opera "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" (The Woman Without a Shadow).
(WSJ, 12/26/01, p.A8)
1919 Gropius founded the Bauhaus
in Germany. Two existing schools in Weimar were combined into a single
institution. The new school, "the house of building," also combined two
important trends in art education: artistic training and arts and
crafts. Henry van de Velde was one of the founders.
(V.D.-H.K.p.363)(SFC, 9/2/98, Z1 p.6)
1919 Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)
opened his 1st private school for the workers at the Waldorf-Astoria
cigarette factory.
(SFC, 10/29/00, p.A7)
1919-1920 Hanna Hoch (1889-1978), photomontage artist
of the Berlin Dada movement made her work "Cut With the Kitchen Knife
Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Epoch of Germany."
(SFC, 3/25/97, p.E3)
1919-1933 This is the period of the Weimar Republic,
Germany’s 1st democratic government. In 2007 Eric D. Weitz authored
“Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy.”
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.100)
1920 Jan 14, Berlin was placed
under martial law as 40,000 radicals rushed the Reichstag; 42 are dead
and 105 are wounded.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1920 Jan 23, The Dutch government
refused demands from the victorious Allies to hand over the ex-Kaiser
of Germany.
(AP, 1/23/98)
1920 Feb 3, The Allies demanded
that 890 German military leaders stand trial for war crimes.
(HN, 2/3/99)
1920 Feb 12, The last German
forces withdrew from Klaipeda as French and English naval forces
arrived.
(LHC, 2/12/03)
1920 Feb 16, The Allies
accepted Berlin’s offer to try World War I war criminals in Leipzig’s
Supreme Court.
(HN, 2/16/98)
1920 Feb 24, A fledgling German
political party held its first meeting of importance at Hofbrauhaus in
Munich; it became known as the Nazi Party, and its chief spokesman was
Adolf Hitler.
(AP, 2/24/00)
1920 Mar 13, The Kapp Putsch took
place, involving a group of Freikorps troops who gained control of
Berlin and installed Wolfgang Kapp (a right-wing journalist) as
chancellor. The national government fled to Stuttgart and called for a
general strike. The strike crippled Germany's ravaged economy and the
Kapp government collapsed after only four days on March 17.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic)
1920 Apr 1, Germany's Workers
Party changed its name to Nationalist Socialist German Worker's Party
(Nazis). The National Socialist (Nazi) party was born in Munich in the
1920s.
(HN, 4/1/98)(HNQ, 1/26/00)
1920 Apr 15, Richard von
Weizsacker, baron, president (Germany, 1984-94), was born.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1920 Oct 20, Max Bruch (82),
German composer (Kol Nidre), died.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1920 Dec 18, Rita Streich, German
singer, was born.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1920 Dec 20, The opera "Die Tote
Stadt" by Erich Korngold (1897-1957) premiered in Germany. It was first
recorded in a 1975 production by Charles Allan Gerhardt (d.1999 at 72).
(www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Nov02/Korngold_Die_Tote_Stadt.htm)(SFC,
3/2/99, p.A20)
1920 Ernst Juenger (Jünger)
(d.1998) published his first book "In Storms of Steel." The book
glorified the horrors of WW I and put him in the rank of militant
nationalists who writings helped pave the way for the Third Reich. In
2003 Michael Hoffman made a translation, Storm of Steel, to English.
(SFC, 2/18/98, p.A18)(WSJ, 10/7/06, p.P12)
1920-1933 Joseph Roth, Austrian novelist, spent this
period in Berlin. In 2002 his writings from this time were translated
by Michael Hofmann and published as "What I Saw: Reports From Berlin
1920-1933."
(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.M3)
1921 Jan 28, Albert Einstein
startled Berlin by suggesting the possibility of measuring the universe.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1921 Mar 1, The Allies rejected a
$7.5 billion reparations offer in London. German delegations decided to
quit all talks.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1921 Mar 8, French troops occupied
Dusseldorf.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1921 Mar 25, Simone Signoret,
(Casque d'Or, Room at the Top), was born in Wiesbaden, Germany.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1921 Mar, Communist rebellions
were put down in Saxony and Hamburg.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic)
1921 Apr, The German bill for
reparations was tallied. An int’l. reparations commission determined
that damages caused by Germany amounted to $33 billion or 133 billion
gold marks.
(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1369.html)
1921 May 23, The German Supreme
Court began a series of 9 trials for German WWI war criminals. Several
cases ended in an acquittal of the accused, but most were followed by
imprisonment or incarceration in a fortress.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_in_Germany)
1921 May 30, Salzburg, Austria,
voted to join Germany.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1921 Jun 21, U.S. Army Air Service
pilots bombed the captured German battleship Ostfriesland to
demonstrate the effectiveness of aerial bombing on warships. At the
time, the ship was one of the world's largest war vessels. Brigadier
General William "Billy" Mitchell, assistant chief of the Army Air
Service, arranged the demonstration to prove that air power should
become the country's first line of defense.
(HNPD, 6/22/98)
1921 Jul 29, Adolf Hitler became
the president of the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party
(Nazis).
(HN, 7/29/98)
1921 Aug 25, The United States,
which never ratified the Versailles Treaty ending World War I, finally
signed a peace treaty with Germany.
(AP, 8/25/97)(HN, 8/25/98)
1921 Sep 21, In Oppau, Germany, an
explosion at the Bradishe Aniline chemical works, a nitrate
manufacturing plant, destroyed the plant and a nearby village with 561
deaths and over 1500 persons injured.
(HSAB, 1994, p.46)(MC, 9/21/01)
1921 Sep 27, Engelbert
Humperdinck, German opera composer (Hansel & Gretel), died.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1921 Sep, Germany made an initial
reparations payment of $250 million. However, an economic crisis which
had gripped the country, caused runaway inflation and an end to
additional installments.
(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1369.html)
1921 The film Nosferatu by German
director F.W. Murnau was produced. In 1998 Jim Shephard published his
novel "Nosferatu" that was based on a mock diary by Murnau.
(SFEC, 5/17/98, BR p.6)
1921-1986 Joseph Beuys, artist, recorded his own
blackboard scrawls as drawings and made performance art of his
freewheeling lectures. Andy Warhol made some prints of Beuys.
(SFC,12/18/97, p.E3)(WSJ, 8/27/98, p.A12)
1922 Mar 5, "Nosferatu" premiered
in Berlin.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1922 Mar 15, France was willing to
accept raw material instead of currency for German reparations.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1922 Mar 20, President Harding
ordered U.S. troops back from the Rhineland.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1922 Apr 16, A German-Russia
treaty was signed in Italy. It recognized the Soviet Union.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1922 Apr 19, Erich Hartmann,
German WW II pilot who later downed 352 Russian aircrafts, was
born.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1922 Apr 27, Fritz Lang's "Dr
Mabuse, der Spieler" premiered in Berlin.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1922 Aug 15, Lukas Foss, [Fuchs],
composer (Prairie), was born in Berlin, Germany.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1922 Nov 30, Hitler spoke to
50,000 national socialists (Nazis) in Munich.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1922 Herman Hesse (1877-1962)
published his novel “Siddhartha.” In 1951 it was translated to English.
(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.P8)
1922 Adolph Hitler and Hermann
Goring became friends and political allies because of their mutual
hatred of the Versailles Treaty. In 2004 Anthony Read authored "The
Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle."
(SSFC, 4/4/04, p.M3)
1922 In the Rapallo Treaty Germany
recognized Lenin's regime.
(WSJ, 8/5/99, p.A16)
1922 Otto Meyerhof (1884-1951),
German doctor, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the
fixed relationship between the consumption of oxygen and the metabolism
of lactic acid in the muscle.
(http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1922/meyerhof-bio.html)
1922 Carl Wieselsberger, German
physicist, described a method of suspending models on an airstream,
i.e. the ground effect.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ
p.12)(http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/citations/cit.html)
1922 Walther Rathenau, a
German-Jewish industrialist, was assassinated by right-wing thugs. The
1999 book "Einstein's German World" by Fritz Stern included an essay on
Rathenau. Other essays presented views of Max Planck, physicist, Paul
Ehrlich, founder of chemotherapy, and Fritz Haber, who worked on the
insecticide later known as Zyklon-B.
(WSJ, 9/21/99, p.A24)
1923 Jan 10, The United States
withdrew its last troops from Germany.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1923 Jan 11, The French entered
Essen in the Ruhr. They were there to extract Germany's resources as
war payment.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1923 Jan 13, Hitler denounced the
Weimar republic as 5,000 storm troopers demonstrated in Germany.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1923 Jan 28, The 1st "National
Socialist German Workers Party" (NSDAP, aka NAZI) formed in Munich.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1923 Feb 4, French troops took
Offenburg, Appenweier and Buhl in the Ruhr as a part of the agreement
ending World War I.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1923 Feb 8, German NSDAP (Nazi
Party) Volkischer Beobachter newspaper became a daily.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1923 Feb 10, Wilhelm Konrad von
Röntgen (77), physicist (Nobel 1901), died. In 1971 Robert W.
Nitske authored “The Life of Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen: Discoverer of
the X Ray.”
(ON, 11/04, p.8)
1923 Mar 1, Allies occupied
Ruhrgebied and killed a railroad striker.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1923 Mar 14, German Supreme Court
prohibited the NSDAP (Nazi Party).
(MC, 3/14/02)
1923 Mar 20, Bavarian minister of
Interior refused to forbid the Nazi SA. [NOTE: The Sturmabteilung SA,
German for "Assault Division" and sometimes translated storm troopers,
functioned as a paramilitary organization of the NSDAP – the German
Nazi party. It played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in the
1930s. SA men were often known as brown shirts from the color of their
uniform and to distinguish them from the SS who were known as black
shirts.]
(MC, 3/20/02)
1923 Mar 31, French soldiers fired
on workers at Krupp factory in Essen; 13 died.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1923 Apr 10, Hitler demanded
"hatred and more hatred" in Berlin.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1923 May 29, Adolf Oberländer
German painter, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1923 Jun 13, The French set a
trade barrier between the occupied Ruhr and the rest of Germany.
(HN, 6/13/98)
1923 Jun 20, France announced it
would seize the Rhineland to assist Germany in paying her war debts.
(HN, 6/20/98)
1923 Jun 24, Pope Pius XI spoke
against allies occupying Ruhrgebied.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1923 Jul 29, Albert Einstein spoke
on pacifism in Berlin.
(MC, 7/29/02)
1923 Aug 23, Wolfgang Sawallisch,
conductor (Vienna Symph 1960-70), was born in Munich, Germany.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1923 Nov 2, Bloody street fights
took place in Aachen. The pro-French separatists were driven out.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1923 Nov 6, European inflation
soared and one loaf of bread in Berlin was reported to be worth about
140 Billion German Marks. Germany suffered a terrible economic
inflation. Hyperinflation eventually made 4.2 trillion marks worth $1.
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.7)(HN, 11/6/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1923 Nov 8, Adolf
Schicklgruber (Hitler) launched his first attempt to seize power with a
failed coup in Munich, Germany, that came to be known as the Beer-Hall
Putsch. He proclaimed himself chancellor and Ludendorff dictator. After
the unsuccessful beerhall putsch, he wound up in jail writing "Mein
Kampf." Mein Kampf, was sub-titled Four-and-Half Years of Struggle
against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice. The Nazi dictator wrote much of
Mein Kampf (My Struggle) while in prison in 1923 and 1924 for
attempting to overthrow the German government. The work became the
bible of the Nazi Party and a blueprint for the Third Reich.
(TMC, 1994, p.1923)(AP, 11/8/97)(HN, 11/6/98)(HNQ,
5/5/99)
1923 Nov 12, Adolf Hitler was
arrested for his Nov 8 attempted German coup.
(HN, 11/12/98)(MC, 11/12/01)
1923 Nov 23, German army commander
Gen. Von Seeckt banned the NSDAP & KPD.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1923 Nov 29, International
commission headed by American banker Charles Dawes was set up to
investigate the German economy.
(HN, 11/29/98)
1923 Peter Joachim Frohlich was
born in Germany. He emigrated to the US in 1941 under the name Peter
Jack Gay. He later published "The Enlightenment: An Interpretation" in
2 volumes (1966-1969) and the 5-volume "The Bourgeois Experience:
Victoria to Freud." In 1998 he published the memoir "My German
Question: Growing Up in Nazi Berlin."
(SFEC, 11/1/98, BR p.4)
1923 Alban Berg composed his opera
"Wozzeck." [see 1926 premiere] It was based on a 1836 play by Georg
Buchner and featured the rhythmic speechsong called Sprechstimme.
Berg's opera was composed in 1925.
(WSJ, 2/19/97, p.A15)(SFC, 11/4/99, p.B1)
1923 The Berlin Tempelhof Airport
was opened. Its 3-story brick terminal was completed in 1929 and is
considered the first modern airport terminal.
(Hem., 5/97, p.68)
1923 German researchers Franz
Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute,
developed a process for converting coal to gas, which was then used to
make synthetic fuels.
(WSJ, 8/16/06,
p.A12)(www.encyclopedia.com/html/F/FischerT1.asp)
1924 Feb 26, A trial against
Hitler began in Munich.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1924 Mar 1, Germany's prohibition
of Communist Party (KPD) was lifted.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1924 Mar 3, German and Turkish
friendship and trade treaty was signed.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1924 Mar 13, The Reichstag was
dissolved for the fifth time in German history.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1924 Apr 1, Adolf Hitler was
sentenced to five years in prison for "Beer Hall Putsch." Gen
Ludendorff was acquitted for leading the botched Nazi's "Beer Hall
Putsch" in the German state of Bavaria
(HN, 4/1/98)(MC, 4/1/02)
1924 May 4, Fascists and
communists gained power in the German Republic elections.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1924 May 26, German government of
Marx resigned.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1924 Jun 3, Franz Kafka (b.1883),
Czech writer, died. He was born in Prague and authored "The Castle" and
"The Trial," both published after his death. Kafka had requested that
his papers be burned after his death, but his friend, Max Brod, kept
them and carried them to Tel Aviv when he fled Prague in 1939. A
critical German edition of The Castle was published in 1982 and an
English translation of that edition came out in 1998. In 1927 Max Brod
edited Kafka’s unfinished manuscript called "The Man Who Disappeared"
and published it as "Amerika." In 2005 Roberto Calasso authored “K,” a
contemporary evaluation of Kafka’s work.
(WSJ, 10/10/96, p.A1)(SFEC, 4/5/98, BR p.11)(SSFC,
12/8/02, p.M4)(SSFC, 2/20/05, p.B1)(SFC, 8/18/08, p.A12)
1924 Jun 6, The German Reichstag
accepted the Dawes Plan, an American plan to help Germany pay off its
war debts.
(HN, 6/6/98)
1924 Aug 16, Conference about
German recovery payments opened in London.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1924 Oct 15, German ZR-3 flew 5000
miles, the furthest Zeppelin flight to date.
(HN, 10/15/98)
1924 Dec 8, Franz X. Scharwenka
(74), German pianist and composer (Mataswintha), died.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1924 Dec 20, Adolf Hitler was
released from prison after serving less than one year of a five year
sentence for treason.
(HN, 12/20/98)
1924 Dec, Albert Einstein
completed a manuscript that predicted that particles of gas near
absolute zero will clump together in one larger mono-atom. The paper
was published in 1925 in the proceedings of the Prussian Academy of
Sciences. In 2001 the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Eric
Cornell, Carl Wiemann and Wolfgang Ketterlie of the US for their 1995
discovery of the Bose-Einstein condensate, a new state of matter.
(SSFC, 8/21/05, p.A3)
1924 The first traffic light in
Europe was set up on the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T4)
1924 D.W. Griffith made his film
"Isn’t Life Wonderful" with Lionel Barrymore. It was about a Polish
refugee family living in devastation and poverty in postwar Germany.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, DB p.52)(SFEC, 10/4/98, DB p.50)
1924 The German economy began to
recover following the stabilization of its re-invented currency.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.100)
1925 Feb 22, Gerard Hoffnung,
artist, humorist, musician (Hoffnung Music Festival), was born in
Berlin, Germany.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1925 Feb 27, Hitler resurrected
the NSDAP (Nazi) political party in Munich.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1925 Apr 25, General Paul von
Hindenburg took office as president of Germany.
(HN, 4/25/99)
1925 Jun 16, France accepted a
German proposal for a security pact.
(HN, 6/16/98)
1925 Jul 18, Hitler published
"Mein Kampf" (My Struggle). It became the bible for the Nazi Party. The
book is filled with anti-Semitic writings, a disdain for morality,
worship of power, and the blueprints for world domination.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1925 Aug 25, Last Belgian
troops vacated Duisburg.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1925 Sep 8, Germany was admitted
into the League of Nations. Joseph Avenol, secretary-general of the
League of Nations, sold out the organization he had sworn to uphold.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1925 Nov 9, German Nazis formed
the SS (Schutzstaffel- elite special forces).
(MC, 11/9/01)
1925 Dec 1, After a seven year
occupation, 7,000 British troops evacuated Cologne, Germany.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1925 Walter Gropius and the
Bauhaus fled Weimar, Germany, for Dessau after conservative city
officials halted financing.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A10)(Econ, 8/16/08, p.54)
1925 Lovis Corinth (b.1858),
German Expressionist painter, died.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C7)(SFC, 3/26/02, p.D6)
1926 Feb 8, German Reichstag
decided to apply for League of Nations membership.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1926 Jun 12, Brazil quit the
League of Nations in protest over plans to admit Germany.
(HN, 6/12/98)
1926 Jul 4, The NSDAP (Nazi) party
formed in Weimar.
(Maggio, 98)
1926 Sep 8, The League of Nations
Assembly voted unanimously to admit Germany.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1926 Oct 18, Frankfurter Zeitung
published Lenin's (d.1924) political testament.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1926 Dec 10, Part 2 of Hitler's
Mein Kampf was published.
(MC, 12/10/01)
1926 Dec 29, Germany and Italy
signed an arbitration treaty.
(HN, 12/29/98)
1926 The German film "Der Bastard"
(The Bastard) starred Maria Jacovini.
(SFEC, 10/15/00, DB p.62)
1926 The German film "Mountain of
Destiny" was directed by Arnold Fanck and starred Leni Riefenstahl.
(SFC, 9/10/03, p.A19)
1926 Berg’s "Wozzeck" was
premiered at the Berlin State Opera.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A22)
1926 Walter Gropius built the
Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany. It became a monument to the Int'l. style.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.7)
1926 The US Rockefeller Foundation
awarded $250,000 toward the creation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
for Psychiatry in Germany.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.D6)
1926 Werner Heisenberg, German
scientist, formulated his uncertainty principle. It stated that the
precision of a time measurement is limited by the precision of a
corresponding energy measurement. So the more accurately you try to
measure the position of a particle, the less accurately you can measure
its speed, and vice versa. This soon led Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger
and Paul Dirac to reformulate mechanics into a new theory called
quantum mechanics. The new field of quantum mechanics described matter
on the scale of subatomic particles.
(BHT, Hawking, p.55)(NH, 5/96, p.72)(Econ, 9/2/06,
p.71)
1926 J. Oswald of Freiburg,
Germany, patented a moving eye mechanism for use in clock cases shaped
like dogs, owls and turbaned women.
(SFC, 1/23/08, p.G4)
1927 Mar 10, Prussia (Bavaria)
lifted its Nazi ban, Hitler was allowed to speak in public.
(HN, 3/10/98)(MC, 3/10/02)
1927 Mar 19, Bloody battles
between Communists & Nazis took place in Berlin.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1927 Mar 26, Alfred Hugenberg
purchased German film company UFA.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1927 Apr 16, Joseph Alois
Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI (2005), was born in Marktl am Inn,
Bavaria, Germany.
(WSJ, 11/25/06, p.A10)
1927 May 1, Adolf Hitler held the
first Nazi meeting in Berlin.
(HN, 5/1/98)
1927 May 5, Dmitri Shostakovitch'
1st Symphony, premiered in Berlin.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1927 May 13, "Black Friday" on
Berlin Stock Exchange.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1927 Oct 16, Günter Grass,
novelist, playwright, painter and sculptor, was born in Danzig,
Germany. He is best known for his first novel "The Tin Drum."
(HN, 10/1/00)(MC, 10/16/01)
1927 Oct 26, Gustav Schickedanz
(1895-1977) founded Quelle, a German mail-order business.
(WSJ, 7/17/06, p.C8)(http://tinyurl.com/p7ypb)
1927 Dec, Harry Frommermann place
an ad for an audition in Berlin that led to the formation of the
"Comedian Harmonists." They rocketed to fame as concert performers.
Their act was banned in 1935 by the government because 3 of the
performers were Jews (Fromermann, Collin and Cycowski). In 1997 a film
based the group’s history was directed by Joseph Vilsmaiar.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A20)(SFC, 8/17/02, p.D3)
1927 Carl Schmitt, a German
jurist, authored his paper "The Concept of the Political." He proposed
the doctrine of "decisionism" and defined the state’s assertion of its
sovereignty. "The specific political distinction to which political
claims can be reduced is that between friend and enemy."
(WSJ, 10/19/01, p.W19)
1927 In Germany the Frankfurt
Kitchen was the 1st mass-produced fitted kitchen and was installed in
thousands of Frankfurt flats.
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.84)
1928 Jan 29, Lithuania and Germany
signed a boundary agreement that established the Nemunas River as a
border up to Klaipeda.
(Voruta #27-28, 7/1996, p.2)(LHC, 1/29/03)
1928 Mar 5, Hitler's National
Socialists won the majority vote in Bavaria.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1928 Mar 16, Christa Ludwig,
soprano (Vienna State Opera, Met Opera), was born in Berlin Germany.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1928 Jun 4, Ruth Westheimer, sex
therapist (WYNY-FM), was born in Germany.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1928 Aug 31, Brecht and Kurt
Weill’s "The Threepenny Opera" opened in Berlin.
(HN, 8/31/00)(MC, 8/31/01)
1928 Sep 28, Prussia forbade a
speech by Adolf Hitler.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1928 Oct 15, The German dirigible
Graf Zeppelin landed in Lakehurst, N.J., on its first commercial flight
across the Atlantic. It made 590 flights before it was decommissioned
in 1937.
(AP, 10/15/97)(SFC,12/24/97, Z1 p.6)
1928 The German silent film
"Pandora’s Box" defined the term femme fatale.
(SFEM, 5/31/98, p.14)
1928 Grant Wood, American artist,
encountered the German art movement Neue Sachlichkeit (New
Objectivity), while supervising the production of a stained-glass
window he had designed for the Cedar Rapids Veterans Memorial Building.
(Sm, 3/06, p.39)
1928-1933 The Munich Illustrated Press was edited by
Hungarian-born Stefan Lorant (d.1997 at 96). He later wrote "Sieg
Heil!: An Illustrated History of Germany from Bismarck to Hitler" in
1974.
(SFC,11/19/97, p.C5)
1929 Feb 6, Germany accepted
Kellogg-Briand pact.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1929 Mar 17, General Motors
purchased an 80% stake in Opel, a German car manufacturer, for $33.3
million. GM raised the stake to 100% in 1931.
(http://wiki.gmnext.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)
1929 Apr 6, Andre Previn, pianist
and conductor, was born in Berlin, Germany.
(HN, 4/6/01)(MC, 4/6/02)
1929 May 1, Police killed 19
Mayday demonstrators in Berlin.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1929 Jun 27, Pres. Von Hindenburg
refused to pay the German debt of WW I.
(MC, 6/27/02)
1929 Aug 4, Some 60,000 SA and SS
storm troopers marched in Munich.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1929 Aug 8, German airship Graf
Zeppelin began a round-the-world flight.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1929 Aug 29, German airship Graf
Zeppelin ended a round-the-world flight.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1929 Sep 8, Christoph von
Dohnanyi, conductor and pianist (Cleve Orchestra), was born in Berlin,
Germany.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1929 Sep 22, Communist and Nazi
factions clashed in Berlin.
(HN, 9/22/98)
1929 Sep 30, The 1st manned rocket
plane flight was made by auto maker Fritz von Opel at Frankfurt-am-Main
[see May 29, 1928].
(http://strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us/OPEL%20ROCKET%20VEHICLES.htm)
1929 In Frankfurt the city council
set up an official fenced concentration camp for Gypsies, but
inhabitants could enter and leave at will.
(WSJ, 1/19/00, p.A20)
1929 The German dirigible Graf
Zeppelin completed a trip around the world.
(SFC,12/24/97, Z1 p.6)
1930 Feb 23, Horst Wessel (22),
German Nazi brawler (wrote lyrics for "Die Fahne Hoch," the Horst
Wessel Song), was killed.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1930 Mar 11, Silvio Gesell
(b.1862), German merchant and theoretical economist, died. He was an
ethical vegetarian, considered himself a world citizen and believed
Earth should belong to all people, regardless of race, gender, class,
wealth, religion. Based on his theories the Bavarian coalmining village
of Schwanenkirchen created an alternative currency in 1931 called the
wara, which obligated its holder to pay a tax. This encouraged all
users of the currency to get rid of it as soon as possible.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Gesell)(Econ,
1/24/09, p.81)
1930 Apr 3, Helmut Kohl, German
statesman, was born. He served as Chancellor for 16 years.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A20)(HN, 4/3/98)(SFC, 4/3/00, p.A9)
1930 Jun 30, France pulled its
troops out of Germany’s Rhineland.
(HN, 6/30/98)
1930 Jul 3, Carlos Kleiber
(d.2004), conductor (Bavarian State Orchestra), was born in Berlin,
Germany.
(SFC, 7/19/04, p.B6)
1930 Aug 4, Siegfried Wagner (61),
German opera composer and son of Richard Wagner, died.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1930 Sep 14, Nazis took 107 seats
in German elections.
(http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/germany/wr2932.html)
1930 Sep 26, Fritz Wunderlich,
tenor (Stuttgart 1955-58), was born in Kusel, Germany.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1930 Sep 27, Igor Kipnis,
harpsichordist and professor (Fairfield), was born in Berlin, Germany.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1930 Oct 13, New German Reichstag
opened with 107 Nazi Party members in uniform.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1930 Nov, Alfred Wegener (50),
German scientist and main proponent of the continental drift theory,
was killed while on an expedition in Greenland.
(DD-EVTT, p.190)(ON, 9/04, p.9)
1930 Dec 12, Last Allied troops
left the Saar.
(HN, 12/12/98)
1930 Dec 24, Eduard David (67),
German minister (constitution of Weimar), died.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1930 Dec 25, Theodor Noldeke
(b.1836), German professor, died in Karlsruhe, Germany. He is generally
recognized as the father of Western Qur'anic criticism. In 1857 a Paris
academy offered a prize for the best critical history of the Quran and
Noldeke won.
(WSJ, 1/12/08,
p.A6)(http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-1544012_ITM)
1930 The opera "Transatlantic" by
George Antheil had its premiere in Frankfurt 10 months after Kurt
Weill’s "Mahagonny."
(WSJ, 4/23/98, p.A16)
1930 The Germany Stihl company,
founded in 1926 by Andreas Stihl, introduced a portable gasoline chain
saw.
(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.C5)
1930 Physicists in Germany
discovered the neutron. Walther Bothe and Herbert Becker described an
unusual type of gamma ray produced by bombarding the metal beryllium
with alpha particles. James Chadwick recognized that the properties of
this radiation were more consistent with what would be expected from
Ernest Rutherford's neutral particle. The subsequent experiments by
which Chadwick proved the existence of the neutron earned him the 1935
Nobel Prize in physics.
(ON, 8/09,
p.7)(www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q609.html)
1930 Otto Warburg (1883-1970),
German physiologist and medical doctor, discovered that cancer cells
often rely on glycolysis. This came to be called the Warburg effect.
(Econ, 1/20/07,
p.89)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Heinrich_Warburg)
1930s William L Shirer succeeded
George Seldes as the Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.
Shirer later wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.T5)
1930s The Nazis sequestered
artwork deemed "degenerate." An inventory was made that listed 16,500
works in 2 volumes. In 1997 the 2nd volume turned up in London and
revealed that many art pieces were sold to Swiss dealers.
(SFC, 3/28/97, p.C15)
1930s Hitler began building his
"Eagle’s Nest" above the town of Berchtesgaden in the German Alps.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.16A)
1931 Feb 26, Otto Wallach (83),
German chemist (Nobel 1910), died.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1931 Apr 1, Rolf Hochhuth, German
playwright (Deputy), was born.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1931 Jul 13, A major German
financial institution, Danabank, failed, leading to the closing of all
banks in Germany until August 5. By the end of the 1931, approximately
six million Germans are out of work.
(HN, 7/13/98)
1931 Aug 9, Two Berlin police
officers were shot and killed during a Communist demonstration. In 1993
Erich Mielke (d.2000 at 92), former head of the East German Stasi, was
convicted for participating in the shooting.
(SFC, 5/26/00, p.D3)
1931 Oct 11, Some 100,000 extreme
right Germans formed the "Harzburger Front."
(MC, 10/11/01)
1931 Dec 7, A report indicated
that Nazis would ensure "Nordic dominance" by sterilizing certain races.
(HN, 12/7/98)
1931 Irmgard Keun (22), German
writer, authored "The Artificial Silk Girl." It was banned by the Nazis
in 1933. A new English translation was made in 2002.
(SSFC, 7/28/02, p.M4)
1931 The German film "The
Company's in Love" was directed by Max Ophuls.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, DB p.50)
1931 The German psychological
thriller film "M" starred Peter Lorre and was directed by Fritz Lang.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.C3)
1931 Geli Raubal, Hitler’s niece,
died in Hitler’s apartment. It was a probable suicide and Hitler’s
pistol was used. In 1999 Ron Hansen authored his novel "Hitler’s Niece"
based on Raubal.
(NW, 8/20/01, p.56)
1932 Feb 25, The German state
government of Brunswick, in which the Nazi Party participated,
appointed Adolph Hitler of Austria to a minor administrative post this
month and on this day gave him German citizenship. Hitler was thus able
to stand against Hindenburg in the forthcoming Presidential election.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler)(www.secondworldwar.co.uk/ahitler.html)
1932 Mar 13, Hindenburg won 49.6%
of the vote in the German presidential election, Hitler won 30.1%, and
the rest of the votes went to other candidates. Since Hindenburg did
not win a majority, a run-off election was set for April.
(www.fff.org/freedom/fd0403a.asp)
1932 Mar 17, German police raided
Hitler's Nazi headquarters.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1932 Mar 20, The German dirigible,
Graf Zepplin, made the first flight to South America on regular
schedule.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1932 Apr 10, Paul von Hindenburg
was elected the first German president. German president Paul von
Hindenburg was re-elected with 53% of the vote; Adolf Hitler coming in
2nd with 36%.
(www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/runs.htm)(AP, 4/10/98)
1932 Apr 14, Germany’s Pres.
Hindenburg signed a decree outlawing Nazi SA and SS. Chancellor Bruning
thought this would curb Hitler’s growth. Instead, it will prove to be
Bruning’s fall.
(www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/index.htm)
1932 Apr 24, In German national
elections the NSDAP/NAZI won 36.3% in Prussia.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1932 Jun 3, Von Hindenburg
disbanded the German Parliament.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1932 Jun 16, The ban on Nazi storm
troopers was lifted by the von Papen government in Germany. Germany
forbade SA/SS street brawls.
(HN, 6/16/98)(MC, 6/16/02)
1932 Jul 31, Adolf Hitler's
Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) doubled its
strength in legislative elections. Nazi Party won 37.3% of the vote.
(HN,
7/31/98)(www.germanculture.com.ua/july/july31.htm)
1932 Aug 13, Adolf Hitler refused
President Hindenburg’s offer to serve as Franz Von Papen's vice
chancellor saying he was prepared to hold out "for all or nothing."
(AP, 8/13/97)(HN, 8/13/98)
1932 Aug 30, Nazi leader Hermann
Goering was elected president of the Reichstag.
(HN, 8/30/98)
1932 Sep 12, The German Reichstag
under the new chairmanship of Hermann Goring gave a vote of no
confidence to Franz von Papen and his government. Just before that vote
was taken, Papen had slapped an order on Göring's desk dissolving
the Reichstag and calling yet again for new elections.
(www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/collapse.htm)
1932 Nov 1, Werner von Braun was
named head of German liquid-fuel rocket program.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1932 Nov 17, German government of
von Papen resigned paving the way for a Nazi takeover.
(www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/collapse.htm)
1932 Nov 19, Shaft and Thyssen
demanded that Hitler become German chancellor.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1932 Dec 2, In Germany Pres.
Hindenburg appointed Gen. Schleicher as Chancellor.
(http://tinyurl.com/2mpz3j)
1932 Dec 5, German physicist
Albert Einstein was granted a visa, making it possible for him to
travel to the United States. In 2003 Thomas Levenson authored "Einstein
in Berlin."
(AP, 12/5/97)(SSFC, 4/20/03, p.M2)
1932 The Kurt Weill production of
"Die Burgschaft" had its premier in Berlin. It depicted the decline of
a society based on power and money.
(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.A16)
1932 The German film "Libelei"
starred Magda Schneider as a young opera singer experiencing first love
in turn of the century Vienna. It was directed by Max Ophuls.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, DB p.50)
1932 Thuringia was the first
German state to elect a Nazi government.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A10)
1932 There was a transport
workers’ strike in Berlin in which the Communists collaborated with the
Nazis against the democratic Weimar Republic.
(WSJ, 6/02/97, p.A20)
1932 Werner C. Heisenberg
(1901-1976), Germany physicist, won the Nobel Prize in physics.
(SFC, 2/7/02,
p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg)
1933 Jan 30, German President Paul
von Hindenburg made Adolf Hitler chancellor. After World War I, Germany
fell into disarray and looked for a leader to strengthen it again.
Hitler had emerged after joining the Nazi Party in 1919 and taking it
over in 1921. In 1932 Hitler ran against von Hindenburg and lost--but
not by a wide margin. The Nazis won 230 seats in the German parliament
and continued to gain influence, stifling democracy and communism by
force and by making laws against them. After Hindenburg's death in
1934, Hitler proclaimed himself Der Führer of the Third Reich and
continued as Germany's leader through World War II. Gen. Kurt von
Hammerstein-Equord tried to block the appointment of Hitler as
chancellor but was overruled by Pres. Hindenburg.
(AP, 1/30/98)(HN, 1/30/99)(HNPD, 1/31/99)(SFC,
2/5/00, p.A19)
1933 Feb 1, German Parliament was
dissolved and Gen. Ludendorf predicted catastrophe.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1933 Feb 2, Adolf Hitler dissolved
Parliament 2 days after becoming chancellor.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1933 Feb 2, Reichstag President
Herman Goring banned communist meetings and demonstrations in Germany.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1933 Feb 4, German Pres. Von
Hindenburg limited freedom of the press.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1933 Feb 6, Adolf Hitler's Third
Reich began to press censorship.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1933 Feb 7, At a Social-Democrat
meeting in Berlin thousands cheered as Marxism was pronounced dead.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1933 Feb 19, Herman Goring, Nazi
Prussian minister, banned all Catholic newspapers.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1933 Feb 22, Nazi Herman Goring
formed SA/SS-police.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1933 Feb 24, Final demonstration
of German communist party in Berlin took place.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1933 Feb 27, Germany's parliament
building, the Reichstag, caught fire. The Nazis blamed the Communists
and used the fire as a pretext for suspending civil liberties and
increasing their power. Georgi Dimitrov, a Bulgarian Communist, was one
of the accused plotters, but was acquitted. After WW II Dimitrov became
the 1st premier of communist Bulgaria. In 2003 Ivo Banac edited "The
Diary of Georgi Dimitrov."
(AP, 2/27/98)(HN, 2/27/99)(WSJ, 6/6/03, p.W9)
1933 Feb 28, German Pres. Von
Hindenburg abolished the free expression of opinion.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1933 Feb 28, Hitler disallowed the
German communist party (KPD).
(MC, 2/28/02)
1933 Mar 3, German Presidential
candidate Earnest Thälmann (KPD) was arrested.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1933 Mar 5, In German
parliamentary elections, the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote,
enabling it to join with Nationalists to gain a slender majority in the
Reichstag.
(AP, 3/5/98)(HN, 3/5/98)
1933 Mar 12, Hindenburg dropped
the flag of the German Republic and ordered that the swastika and
empire banner be flown side by side.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1933 Mar 13, In Germany Wagner’s
opera "Die Meistersinger" was used to celebrate the first
Nazi-dominated Reichstag and became the Third Reich’s national festival
opera.
(WSJ, 8/2/96, p.A10)
1933 Mar 13, Josef Goebbels became
Nazi minister of Information and Propaganda.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1933 Mar 16, Hitler named Hjalmar
Horace Greeley Shacht president of Bank of Germany.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1933 Mar 21, Hitler, Goering,
Prince Ruprecht, Bruning and other top army commanders met in Berlin.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1933 Mar 23, Kroll Opera in Berlin
opened.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1933 Mar 23, The German Reichstag
adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler
dictatorial legislative powers, i.e. the power to rule by decree.
(AP, 3/23/97)(WSJ, 11/26/96,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_act)
1933 Mar 28, Nazis ordered a ban
on all Jews in businesses, professions and schools.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1933 Mar 28, German Reichstag
conferred dictatorial powers on Hitler.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1933 Mar 31, German Republic gave
dictatorial power to Hitler.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1933 Apr 1, Nazi Germany began
persecuting Jews with a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.
(AP, 4/1/98)
1933 Apr 1, Heinrich Himmler
became Police Commander of Germany (Reichsfuhrer-SS).
(MC, 4/1/02)
1933 Apr 7, The 1st two Nazi
anti-Jewish laws barred Jews from legal and public service.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1933 Apr 7, Jan Erik/Eric Jan
Hanussen, Berlin astrologer, illusionist, was murdered.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1933 Apr 11, Hermann Goering
became premier of Prussia.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1933 Apr 26, Jewish students were
barred from school in Germany.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1933 May 2, In Germany, Adolf
Hitler banned trade unions.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1933 May 10, The Nazis staged
massive public book burnings at Opernplatz in Berlin, Germany. Some
40,000 people watched or took part. In the great Nazi book-burning
frenzy Freud’s work went up in flames, with the declaration: "Down with
the soul-devouring exaggeration of instinctive life, up with the
nobility of the human soul!" Also burned were books by "unGerman"
writers such as: Marx, Brecht, Bloch, Hemingway, Heinrich Mann and
Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front.
(AP, 5/10/97)(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A13)(HNPD, 3/24/00)(HN,
5/10/02)
1933 Jun 13, German Secret State
Police (Gestapo) was established.
(MC, 6/13/02)
1933 Jun 22, Germany became a one
political party country as Hitler banned parties other than the Nazis.
(HN, 6/22/98)
1933 Jul 1, Strauss-Hofmannsthal
opera "Arabella," premiered in Dresden.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1933 Jul 1, German Nazi regime
decreed married women should not work.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1933 Jul 14, All German political
parties except the Nazi Party were outlawed.
(AP, 7/14/97)
1933 Jul 14, Nazi Germany
promulgated the Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health. It was the
beginning of their Euthanasia program.
(HN, 7/14/00)
1933 Aug 1, The death penalty was
declared for anti fascists in Germany.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1933 Sep 21, The trial against
Marinus der Lubbe opened. He was accused of starting the Feb 27
Reichstag fire.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1933 Oct 14, The Geneva
disarmament conference broke up as Germany proclaimed withdrawal from
the disarmament initiative, as well as from the League of Nations,
effective October 23.
(AP, 10/14/97)(HN, 10/14/98)
1933 Oct 17, Due to rising
anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism in Hitler's Germany, Albert
Einstein immigrated to the United States. He made his new home in
Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 10/17/97)(HN, 10/17/98)
1933 Oct, Police records later
revealed that 26,000 communists, Social Democrats, and other Reich
skeptics had been arrested.
(WSJ, 11/26/96, p.A16)
1933 Nov 4, Hermann Goring,
Hitler's chief minister (1893-1946), and Georgi Dimitrov, Bulgarian
Communist, had a duel of wits over whether Dimitrov was guilty of the
burning of the Reichstag on February 27, 1933. Dimitrov conducted his
own defense winning recognition and acclaim worldwide. He was acquitted
and went to Russia where he became a Soviet citizen.
(www.encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Georgi%20Dimitrov)
1933 Nov 12, In Germany 92% of
votes went to National Socialists in the First Reichstag elections in
the one-party state.
(www.ghwk.de/engl/enchron.htm)
1933 Dec 1, Rudolf Hess and
Earnest Roehm became ministers in Hitler govt. Nazi storm troops become
an official organ of the Reich.
(HN, 12/1/98)(MC, 12/1/01)
1933 Dec 23, Marinus van der Lubbe
was sentenced to death for Reichstag "Fire."
(MC, 12/23/01)
1933 Dec 23, The Pope condemned
the Nazi sterilization program.
(HN, 12/23/98)
1933 George L. Mosse (d.1999 at
80), a Univ. of Wisconsin historian, published c1970 "Germans and Jews:
The Right, the Left, and the Search for a 'Third Force' in Pre-Nazi
Germany."
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.D8)
1933 Einstein renounced his German
citizenship and fled to the US.
(V.D.-H.K.p.326)(TMC, 1994, p.1933)
1933 Fritz Hirschberger
(1912-2004), later Holocaust artist, founded the Dresden chapter of the
Zionist underground organization "Betar."
(SFC, 2/6/04, p.A25)
1933 The Int’l. Rescue Committee
was founded at the suggestion of Albert Einstein to help Jews escape
from Nazi, Germany. It later broadened its mandate to cover all
refugees and displaced people.
(SFC, 10/5/02, p.A19)
1933 The Nazis closed the
Institute of Sexual Science in Berlin run by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, DB p.47)(SFC, 8/2/97, p.E4)
1933 British intelligence agents
discovered that the Nazis were defying a ban on weapons imposed at
Versailles.
(ON, 11/05, p.1)
1933-1934 Martin Heidegger (b.1889) served as the
Nazi rector of the Univ. of Freiburg.
(WSJ, 10/11/01, p.A20)
1933-1939 In 2005 Richard J. Evan authored “The Third
Reich in Power: 1933-1939.”
(Econ, 10/29/05, p.87)
1933-1945 A study of classical music during the Third
Reich was published in 1997 by Michael H. Kater: "The Twisted Muse:
Musicians and Their Music in the Third Reich."
(WSJ, 10/27/97, p.A20)
1933-1945 In 1998 the "Penguin Dictionary of the
Third Reich" was published.
(SFEC, 8/28/98, Par p.20)
1933-1945 The Sachsenhausen camp at Oranienburg held
some 200,000 people over this period. About half died including an
estimated 10,000 Jews and 18,000 Soviet soldiers.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A21)
1933-1945 In 2008 Latvian filmmaker Edvins Snore,
directed “Soviet Story.” It shows the close connections—philosophical,
political and organizational—between the Nazi and Soviet systems
beginning in 1933 thru WWII.
(www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11401983)
1933-1997 The 1998 book "German Art from Beckmann to
Richter" was edited by Eckhart Gillen. It accompanied a large 1997
exhibition in Berlin.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, BR p.6)
1934 Jan 7, Six-thousand pastors
in Berlin defied the Nazis insisting that they will not be muzzled.
(HN, 1/7/99)
1934 Jan 10, Marinus van der Lubbe
(24), a bricklayer and Dutch communist, was executed in Berlin. He had
been convicted of arson and high treason for torching the Reichstag
parliament building on Feb 27, 1933. On Dec 6, 2007, German prosecutors
formally overturned the conviction.
(AP, 1/11/08)
1934 Jan 11, The German police
raided the homes of dissident clergy in Berlin.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1934 Jan 26, Germany signed a
10-year non-aggression pact with Poland, breaking the French alliance
system.
(WUD, 1994, p.1682)(HN, 1/26/99)
1934 Jan 29, Fritz Haber (65),
German chemist (Nobel 1918), died. In 2005 Daniel Charles authored
“Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who
Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare.”
(http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1918/haber-bio.html)(SSFC,
8/7/05, p.C6)
1934 Feb 2, Alfred Rosenberg was
made philosophical chief of the Nazi Party.
(HN, 2/2/99)
1934 Feb 7, Kathleen Norris, a SF
Bay Area novelist based in Palo Alto, summed up a trip to Germany
saying Hitler has virtually solved problems of unemployment and
poverty. She said the leader was idolized everywhere as the people’s
rescuer.
(SSFC, 2/1/09, p.50)
1934 Mar 20, Test of practical
radar apparatus was made by Rudolf Kuhnold in Germany.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1934 Apr 6, 418 Lutheran ministers
were arrested in Germany.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1934 Apr 18, Hitler named Joachim
von Ribbentrop, ambassador for disarmament.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1934 May 2, Nazi Germany began
"People's court."
(MC, 5/2/02)
1934 May 2, In Germany a
Chancellery meeting took place between Adolph Hitler and executives of
General Motors Corp. and its German division (Opel). Opel quickly
became an essential element in German rearmament. Over the next 4 years
GM’s workforce in Germany grew from 17,000 to 27,000.
(SSFC, 1/7/07, p.E6)
1934 Jun 28, Hitler flew to Essen
(Night of Long Knifes) where a massive purge of SA (storm troopers) was
carried out to placate the Army and the high command. [see Jun 30]
(MC, 6/28/02)
1934 Jun 30, Adolf Hitler began
his "blood purge" of political and military leaders in Germany. Among
those killed was one-time Hitler ally Ernst Roehm (46), gay leader of
the Nazi stormtroopers. Hitler personally confronted Rohm in a jail
cell and left a single shot pistol in the cell. Ten minutes later, Rohm
had killed himself. Hitler purged the Nazi Party by destroying the SA
and bringing to power the SS in the "Night of the Long Knives." Also
killed were Gregor Strasser (42), German pharmacist, Nazi leader and
Karl Ernst, German SA-leader.
(AP, 6/30/97)(HN, 6/30/98)(MC, 6/30/02)
1934 Jul 9, SS-Reichs Fuhrer
Heinrich Himmler assumed command of German Concentration Camps.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1934 Jul 25, There was a Nazi coup
in Vienna. Austrian Premier Engelbert Dollfus was shot and killed by
Nazis. Hitler murdered Austria's Chancellor Dollfus.
(WUD, 1994, p.424,1682)(TMC, 1994, p.1934)(HN,
7/25/98)
1934 Aug 2, Pres. Paul von
Hindenburg of Germany died. Within hours Adolf Hitler announced a law,
dated the previous day, that made him Reichsfuhrer, an office that
combined the duties of president and chancellor.
(www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/becomes.htm)
1934 Aug 19, A plebiscite in
Germany approved the vesting of sole executive power in Adolf Hitler as
Fuhrer. 38 million Germans voted to make Adolf Hitler the official
successor to President von Hindenburg.
(AP, 8/19/97)(HN, 8/19/00)
1934 Sep 16, Anti-Nazi Lutherans
staged a protest in Munich.
(HN, 9/16/98)
1934 Oct 1, Adolph Hitler expanded
the German army and navy and created an air force, violating Treaty of
Versailles.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1934 Oct 7, Ulrike Meinhof, German
Red Army member, was born.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1934 Oct 20, Richard Strauss
completed his opera "Die Schweigsame Frau."
(MC, 10/20/01)
1934 Nov 16, Carl P.G. von Linde
(92), German physicist, died.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1934 Nov 26, German theologian
Karl Barth surrendered to Nazis.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1934 Nov 28, Churchill made a
speech in Parliament and warned of German aircraft bombing London.
(ON, 11/05, p.2)
1934 The German propaganda
documentary film "Triumph of the Will" was made by Leni Riefenstahl.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A48)
1934 Hitler asked Ferdinand
Porsche Sr., owner of a consulting and design firm, to build a
"people’s car," from which resulted the Volkswagen. Porsche too the
design from the Tatra T97 of Czechoslovakia’s Hans and Erich Ledwinka.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.B12)(Econ, 6/28/08, p.20)
1934 In Germany Herman Goering,
Nazi party official, approved a request from the Reich Forestry Service
to release North American raccoons into the wild. By 2007 there were
over a million raccoons living in Germany.
(SSFC, 5/27/07, p.A2)
1935 Feb 8, Max Liebermann
(b.1847), German impressionist painter, graphic artist, died in Berlin.
He was associated with several artists’ organizations including the
Berlin Secession.
(www.xs4all.nl/~androom/index.htm?biography/p011740.htm)
1935 Feb 26, Germany began
Luftwaffe operations under Reichsmarshal H. Goering.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1935 Mar 1, Germany celebrated
the return of the Saar Basin to the Reich.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1935 Mar 1, Germany officially
established the Luftwaffe.
(HN, 3/1/00)
1935 Mar 7, Saar was incorporated
into Germany.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1935 Mar 9, Hermann Goering
announced the existence of the German Luftwaffe (air force).
(http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_781532807/Wehrmacht.html)
1935 Mar 15, Joseph Goebbels,
German Minister of Propaganda banned four Berlin newspapers.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1935 Mar 16, Adolf Hitler ordered
a German rearmament in violation of the Versailles Treaty. He announced
in public Nazi rearmament and the existence of the new German air
force, the Luftwaffe.
(AP, 3/16/97)(HN, 3/16/98)(ON, 11/05, p.2)
1935 Mar 17, Hitler reviewed the
military parade in Berlin.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1935 Mar 23, France, Italy and
Britain agreed to present a unified front in response to Germany.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1935 Mar 25, Hitler declared that
the Soviets endangered peace in Europe.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1935 Mar 30, Britain and Russia
agreed on treaties intended to curb the power of the Reich.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1935 Mar, The German
Reichpost (Post Office) began the "first television broadcasting
service in the world". However, the quality was poor and
receivers were almost non-existent."
(http://www.tvhistory.tv/1935%20QF.htm)
1935 Apr 12, Germany prohibited
the publishing of "not-Aryan" writers.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1935 May 22, Stanley Baldwin,
Britain’s former PM, admitted that his estimation of Germany’s
Luftwaffe strength was wrong.
(ON, 11/05, p.2)
1935 Jul 13, Richard Strauss
resigned as chairman of the Nazi Reichskulturkammer.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1935 Jul 29, Peter Schreier, tenor
(Dresden State Opera 1961), was born in Meissen, Germany.
(MC, 7/29/02)
1935 Aug 11, There was a Nazi mass
demonstration against German Jews.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1935 Sep 15, In Berlin, the Reich
under Adolf Hitler adopted The Nuremberg Laws which deprived German
Jews of their citizenship, made the swastika the official symbol of
Nazi Germany and established gradations of "Jewishness." "Full Jews,"
people with four "non-Aryan" grandparents, were deprived of German
citizenship and forbidden to marry members of the "Aryan race." German
Jews, had been barred since 1938 from government, medical, and legal
professions, and shut out from every area of German public life. After
the war Gen'l. Patton gave the documents to a friend and they were
stored in the Huntington Museum in Cal.
(AP, 9/15/97)(HN, 9/15/99)(SFC, 6/26/99, p.A3)
1935 Oct 7, Himmler, Hess and
Reinhard Heydrich agreed to build a concentration camp at Dachau.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1935 Nov 14, Nazis stripped German
Jews of their citizenship. [see Sep 15]
(MC, 11/14/01)
1935 Nov 28, The German Reich
declared all men ages 18 to 45 as army reservists.
(HN, 11/28/98)
1935 Nov 30, Non-belief in Nazism
was proclaimed grounds for divorce in Germany.
(HN, 11/30/98)
1935 The 6 man singing group
"Comedian Harmonists" was banned from performing because three of the
members were Jewish. The group split in 2 and an émigré
faction went on to the US and performed until disbanding in 1941. The
German-based Meistersextett also broke up in 1941.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A20)
1935 In Germany Paragraph 175 of
the Criminal Code punished "lewd and lascivious" behavior between men.
As many as 100,000 were arrested under the law.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.A18)
1935 The W. Goebel porcelain
factory in Rodental, Germany, began producing Hummel figurines.
(SFC, 10/12/05, p.G3)
1935 Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld,
sexologist, died.
(SFC, 8/2/97, p.E1)
1936 Jan 2, In Berlin, the Nazi
officials claimed that their treatment of the Jews was not any of the
League of Nation's business.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1936 Feb 6, Adolf Hitler opened
the Fourth Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1936 Feb 11, The Reich arrested
150 Catholic youth leaders in Berlin. When the war was over many of the
leaders of the Reich were put on trial for the atrocities that had been
committed.
(HN, 2/11/97)
1936 Feb 15, Hitler announced
building of Volkswagens.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1936 Feb 26, Hitler introduced
Ferdinand Porsche's "Volkswagen."
(SC, 2/26/02)
1936 Mar 4, 1st flight of airship
Hindenburg was made in Germany.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1936 Mar 7, Adolf Hitler ordered
his troops to march into the demilitarized Rhineland, thereby breaking
the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact.
(WSJ, 10/28/97, p.A22)(AP, 3/7/98)(HN, 3/7/98)
1936 Mar 9, The German press
warned that all Jews who voted in the upcoming elections would be
arrested.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1936 Mar 14, Hitler told a crowd
of 300,000 that Germany's only judge is God and itself.
(HN, 3/14/98)
1936 Mar 29, Nazi propaganda
claimed 99% of Germans voted for Nazi candidates.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1936 Aug 1, The 11th Olympic
games, dubbed "The Nazi Games," opened in Berlin with a ceremony
presided over by Adolf Hitler. Jesse Owens won four gold medals
including the 100-meter dash--becoming the world's fastest man. Owens
also set new Olympic records in the long jump, the 200-meter dash and
the 4 x 100-meter relay. It had been 36 years since a track-and-field
athlete had won three gold medals in one Olympics. The games were
filmed by Leni Riefenstahl and the torch relay was introduced by Joseph
Geobbel’s Propaganda Ministry. Berlin’s homeless and itinerant Gypsies
were sent into concentration camps. The game of Kabaddi was played as a
demonstration sport.
(TMC, 1994, p.1936)(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A12)(Hem, 6/96,
p.104)(AP, 8/1/97)(HNPD, 8/1/98)
1936 Aug 4, Jesse Owens
(1913-1980) won his 2nd Olympic medal (long jump) at the Berlin
Olympics.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens)
1936 Aug 5, Jesse Owens won his
3rd Olympic medal (200m sprint) at the Berlin Olympics.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Owens)
1936 Aug 9, Jesse Owens won his
fourth gold medal at the Berlin Olympics as the United States took
first place in the 400-meter relay.
(AP, 8/9/97)(HN, 8/9/98)
1936 Aug 12, Hans Haacke, artist
(Right to Life, Dripper Boxes), was born in Cologne, Germany.
(SC, 8/12/02)
1936 Aug 16, The 11th Olympic
games closed in Berlin.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1936 Sep 21, The German army held
its largest maneuvers since 1914.
(HN, 9/21/98)
1936 Oct, Dutch-born Peter Debye
(1884-1966), won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies on the
structure of molecules. In 1938, as Chairman of the German Physical
Society, he had a letter sent out under his name requesting that the
domestic Jewish members voluntarily resign. In 1940 he moved to the US.
In 2006 he emerged in a book, "Albert Einstein in the Netherlands."
which contained evidence of pro-Nazi actions. In 2008 the Terlouw
Committee, appointed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, reviewed the
allegations and issued its report clearly stating that Debye was
neither a Nazi collaborator nor a Nazi sympathizer.
(AP, 3/3/06)(http://piurl.com/5F)
1936 Nov 1, In a speech in Milan,
Italy, Benito Mussolini described the alliance between his country and
Nazi Germany as an "axis" running between Rome and Berlin after Count
Ciano’s visit to Germany.
(AP, 11/1/97)(HN, 11/1/98)
1936 Nov 15, Nazi Germany and
Japan signed the Anti-Komintern pact.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1936 Nov 16, German Luftwaffe
began bombing Madrid.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1936 Nov 18, Germany and Italy
recognized the Spanish government of Francisco Franco.
(AP, 11/18/97)
1936 Nov 27, Great Britain’s
Anthony Eden warned Hitler that Britain would fight to protect Belgium.
(HN, 11/27/98)
1936 The German documentary film
"Olympia" was made by Leni Riefenstahl.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A48)(SFC, 9/10/03, p.A19)
1936 The 76,000 seat Berlin
Olympic Stadium was designed by Albert Speer.
(SFC, 1/9/02, p.A5)
1937 Mar, The encyclical "With
Burning Sorrow" was smuggled into Germany. Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli
(later Pius XII) helped Pius XI draft the work which denounced Nazi
paganism and racism.
(WSJ, 4/25/97, p.A18)
1937 Apr 26, German planes from
the Condor Legion--sent to Spain by Adolf Hitler to help fascist
General Francisco Franco overthrow the communist Popular Front regime--
attacked the Basque town of Guernica in Spain. Bombs fell for
three hours and escaping villagers were shot down by machine-gun
fire from the air. The attack killed as many as 1,600-1,650 Basque
civilians and injured 900. Although the alleged target was a bridge of
military significance some distance from the town, dazed survivors
described a merciless four-hour bombing and strafing attack by German
pilots directed toward the village and its inhabitants. The Guernica
atrocity became synonymous with the horror of modern warfare and
inspired one of the 20th century's greatest works of art, Guernica, by
Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.
(440 Int’l., 4/26/97, p.2)(WSJ, 4/28/97, p.A1)(AP,
4/26/98)(HNPD, 4/26/99)
1937 Apr 27, German bombers of the
Condor Legion conducted follow up raids at Guernica, Spain. [see Apr 26]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica)
1937 May 31, German battleships
shelled Almeria, Spain.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1937 Jul 1, Rev. Martin Niemoeller
(Bekennende Kirche) was arrested in Germany.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1937 Jul 20, Don Budge (22),
American tennis player, defeated Baron Gottfried von Cram (28) of
Germany at Wimbledon in a semi-final round to see who would face
England. James Thurber later described the Budge-Cramm five-set
marathon as “the greatest match in the history of the world.”
(WSJ, 4/25/09, p.W8)
1937 Aug 1, The Buchenwald
concentration camp, near Weimar, Germany, became operational. The hill
on which it stood was called "Ettersberg," a place where Goethe often
wrote and sketched, and that was the initial name for the camp, which
the people of Weimar protested. The name was then changed to
Buchenwald, Beech Forest. By April 11, 1945, an estimated 56,000 people
were killed here, including approximately 11,000 Jews.
(HN, 8/1/98)(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A10)(AP, 6/5/09)
1937 Sep 15, Prime Minister of
England Neville Chamberlain flew to Germany to discuss the future of
Czechoslovakia with Adolf Hitler.
(HN, 9/15/99)
1937 Sep 25, German Chancellor
Adolf Hitler met with Italian Premier Benito Mussolini in Munich.
(HN, 9/25/98)
1937 Nov 5, Hitler told his
military advisors of his intentions of going to war.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1937 Nov 11, Messerschmidt
ME-109V13 flew to a world record 610.4 kph.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1937 Nov 17, Britain's Lord
Halifax visited Germany and marked the beginning of appeasement.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1937 Dec 20, Erich Ludendorff
(72), German general (WW I), died.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1937 Max Beckmann (1884-1950),
painter, Was branded by the Nazis as a degenerate artist. He
moved to Amsterdam and then to New York where he died. His work
included the triptychs "Departure" (1932-1933) and "Beginning"
(1946-1949), and the "Self-Portrait in Tails" (1937). He was a
figurative painter in an age of abstraction.
(WSJ, 11/20/96, p.A18)
1937 Heinrich Himmler, acting
interior minister of Germany, revised the chimney-sweep law. His rules
tied the sweeps to their districts and decreed that they need to be
German, to enable him to use them as local spies. In 1969 the law was
updated and in theory opened the profession to non-Germans.
(Econ, 10/21/06, p.76)
1937 Dr. Ferdinand Sauerbruch,
Hitler’s personal physician, said that Hitler was showing signs of
growing megalomania and "was a border case between genius and insanity…
(potentially) the craziest criminal the world ever saw."
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A10)
1937 Mercedes- Benz developed an
all-wheel-drive car, largely for military purposes.
(WSJ, 9/16/05, p.W12)
1937-1945 The Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp
operated over this period. It was located near the city of Weimar where
Germany's Shakespeare Society and the Goethe-Schiller Archives are
located.
(Hem., Nov.'95, p.114)
1938 Jan, The career of Werner von
Blomberg (60), defense minister of Nazi Germany, came to an end due to
a marriage scandal. Less than two years before, German Reich Chancellor
Adolf Hitler had made him the first of the Third Reich’s field marshals
in reward for his successful rebuilding of the German armed forces
under the Nazi regime. His role as military commander and adviser to
the Führer soon came to an abrupt end, however, when the
scandalous details of his new marriage to a convicted prostitute were
revealed.
(HNQ, 6/13/01)
1938 Feb 4, Hitler seized control
of German army and put Nazis in key posts.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1938 Feb 20, Hitler demanded
self-determination for Germans in Austria and Czechoslovakia. As
Hitler's quest for Lebensraum ("living space") expanded into
Czechoslovakia, thousands of Czechoslovakian soldiers and airmen
escaped to participate in the liberation of their country.
(HN, 2/20/98)
1938 Mar 8, Herbert Hoover told
Hitler that his doctrine would be unacceptable and intolerable in the
U.S.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1938 Mar 9, In Vienna, Kurt
Schuschnigg defied the Nazis calling for a decree on independence.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1938 Mar 12, Germany invaded
Austria after the Austrian Nazi Party invited German troops to march in
and the union came to be know as the Anschluss. Hitler took over
Austria, as his mission to restore his homeland to the Third Reich, and
a chunk of Czechoslovakia. The Nazis took over Austria and expelled all
Jews and other political opponents from the universities.
(WUD, 1994, p.1682)(TL, 1988, p.111)(TMC, 1994,
p.1938)(StuAus, April '95, p.18)(HN, 3/12/98)(AP, 3/12/98)
1938 Mar 24, The U.S. asked that
all powers help refugees fleeing from the Nazis.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1938 Mar 26, Herman Goering warned
all Jews to leave Austria.
(HN, 3/25/98)
1938 Apr 6, U.S. recognized the
German conquest of Austria.
(HN, 4/6/98)
1938 Apr 10, Germany annexed
Austria.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1938 May 3, The concentration camp
at Flossenburg opened.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1938 Jun 3, The German Reich voted
to confiscate so-called "degenerate art."
(HN, 6/3/98)
1938 Jun 15, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
(b.1880), German Expressionist painter, died by his own hand.
(http://www.the-artists.org)
1938 July 6, Delegates from
thirty-two countries met for 9 days at the French resort of Evian to
discuss the problem of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austrian. The
German government was able to state with great pleasure how
"astounding" it was that foreign countries criticized Germany for their
treatment of the Jews, but none of them wanted to open the doors to
them when "the opportunity offer[ed]." The French foreign ministry, the
Quai d’Orsay, sabotaged the Evian conference on European refugees, the
only diplomatic effort to alleviate the fate of “stateless” German and
Austrian Jews.
(http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/evian/evian.html)(WSJ,
11/15/06, p.D14)
1938 Jul 22, The Third Reich
issued special identity cards for Jewish Germans.
(HN, 7/22/98)
1938 Sep 12, In a speech in
Nuremberg, Adolf Hitler demanded self-determination for the Sudeten
Germans in Czechoslovakia.
(AP, 9/12/97)
1938 Sep 14, Graf Zeppelin II,
world's largest airship, made its maiden flight.
(MC, 9/14/01)
1938 Sep 15, There was a
conference at Berchtesgaden between Adolf Hitler and British Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain.
(WUD, 1994, p.1682)
1938 Sep 21, Winston Churchill
condemned Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovakia.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1938 Sep 25, President Franklin
Roosevelt urged negotiations between Hitler and Czech President Benes
over the Sudetenland.
(HN, 9/25/98)
1938 Sep 26, Hitler issued his
ultimatum to Czech government, demanding Sudetenland.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1938 Sep 27, Jewish lawyers were
forbidden to practice in Germany.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1938 Sep 29, British, French,
German and Italian leaders signed the Munich Agreement, which was aimed
at appeasing Adolf Hitler by allowing Nazi annexation of
Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, inhabited by a German-speaking minority.
British PM Neville Chamberlain gained a brief peace agreement from
Hitler at Munich and without consulting the Czechs agreed that Nazi
forces could occupy Sudetenland. Some mark this "appeasement policy" as
the decisive event of the century. Chamberlain predicted "peace in our
time." French PM Edouard Daladier was very depressed from the meeting.
In 1980 Telford Taylor published "Munich: The Price of Peace." It is a
detailed political & diplomatic history of the 1930's in Europe,
culminating in the Munich conference in 1938. Taylor later helped write
the rules for Nuremberg Trials. In 2008 David Vaughan authored “Battle
for the Airwaves: Radio and the 1938 Munich Crises.”
(SFC, 6/9/96, Z1 p.5)(SFC, 6/16/96, Z1 p.6)(WSJ,
6/8/98, p.A21)(AP, 9/29/06)(SFC, 5/26/98, p.B2)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.115)
1938 Oct 1, Germany annexed
Sudetenland (1/3 of Czech Republic).
(MC, 10/1/01)
1938 Oct 7, Germany demanded all
Jewish passports stamped with letter J.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1938 Oct 10, Germany completed its
annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland.
(AP, 10/10/97)
1938 Oct 14, Nazis planned Jewish
ghettos for all major cities.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1938 Nov 1, German colonel-general
Gerd von Runstedt retired.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1938 Nov 2, Germany gave southern
Slovakia to Hungary.
(WUD, 1994, p.1682)
1938 Nov 9, Maurice Bavaud (25), a
Swiss theology student, failed in his attempt to shoot Hitler at a Nazi
parade in Munich. Switzerland, which followed a policy of neutrality
toward Germany before and during World War II, failed to intervene on
Bavaud's behalf, and he was guillotined in May, 1941, in Berlin's
notorious Ploetzensee prison.
(AP, 11/8/08)
1938 Nov 9, Kristallnacht took
place in Germany. Nazi leaders heard that a Jew had shot a German
diplomat in Paris and ordered reprisals. Nazis killed 35 Jews, arrested
thousands and destroyed Jewish synagogues, homes and stores throughout
Germany and Austria in what became known as Kristallnacht. 30,000 Jews
were sent to concentration camps. The event is depicted by Peter Gay in
his 1998 book "My German Question."
(HFA, '96, p.18)(TL, 1988, p.111)(AP, 11/9/97)(WSJ,
11/3/98, p.A20) (SFC, 11/10/98, p.A12)(HN, 11/9/00)
1938 Nov 11, German and Austrian
Jews suffered 1 billion Mark damage in the Nov 9 Nazi Kristallnacht;
Jews forced to wear Star of David.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1938 Nov 12, Hermann Goering
announced he favored Madagascar as a Jewish homeland.
(MC, 11/12/01)
1938 Nov 21, Nazi forces occupied
western Czechoslovakia and declared its people German citizens. This
annexation of Sudetenland was the first major belligerent action by
Hitler. The allies chose to sit still for it in return for a promise of
"peace in our time," which Hitler later broke.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1938 Nov 30, Germany banned Jews
from being lawyers.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1938 Dec 6, France and Germany
signed a treaty of friendship.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1938 Dec 8, The Graf Zeppelin,
Germany's only aircraft carrier during World War II, was launched. It
was taken over by Russia after the war and last seen in 1947. In 2006 a
Polish oil company found the wreckage on the sea floor about 38 miles
north of the northern port city of Gdansk.
(AP, 7/27/06)
1938 Dec 15, Washington sent its
fourth note to Berlin demanding amnesty for Jews.
(HN, 12/15/98)
1938 Paul-Louis Landsberg
(1901-1943), German philosopher, authored “The Experience of Death: and
The Moral Problem of Suicide.” Landsberg, a Jewish Catholic, died in a
Nazi concentration camp.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.92)(http://tinyurl.com/6bjhe7)
1938 Norbert Schultze (d.2002 at
91), German composer, wrote his song "Lili Marlene" based on a WWI poem
by Hans Leip "The Song of a Young Sentry." In 1980 Rainer Werner
Fassbinder directed the film "Lili Marlene." In 1996 Schultze authored
the book "With you, Lili Marlene."
(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A23)
1938 Herman Goering called for the
complete Aryanization of the retail stores owned by the retail chain A.
Wertheim. During the 1920s and 1930s the company had purchased
properties in East Berlin to block competitors from acquiring sites
near its flagship store near Leipziger Platz. In 2006 Germany validated
a claim by Wertheim heirs to the property, valued at some $350 million.
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.A8)(SFC, 1/24/06, p.A2)
1938-1945 This period was later covered by Klemens
von Klemperer in his: German Resistance Against Hitler: The Search for
Allies Abroad, 1938-1945."
(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.A30)
1938-2001 In 2001 Gitta Sereny authored "The Healing
Wound: Experiences and Reflections, Germany, 1938-2001."
(SSFC, 12/16/01, p.M3)
Go to 1939