Key Details Of Key Events Flashcards
Summary and impact of Boycott of Jewish shops and businesses (1st April 1933)
Summary: aimed to intimidate Germanys Jews and discourage the public from shopping at Jewish businesses. On the day SA stood outside Jewish businesses to deter shoppers.
Impact: the Star of David was painted on thousands of buildings alongside antisemitic slogans, violent acts against Jews were committed, authorities rarely intervened.
Summary and impact of the establishment of the Gestapo (26th April 1933)
Summary: they ruthlessly eliminated opposition to the Nazis in Germany
Impacts: were responsible for the roundup and deportation of Jews throughout Europe to extermination camps, as well as the roundup of political enemies to detention/labour camps.
Creation of the DAF (10th May 1933)
Summary: unions were tricked into believing 1st May was a national holiday, offices were occupied, funds were seized and union leaders were sent to camps. The DAF was created as a replacement to unions, giving German workers benefits, such as “good ventilation” or “hot meals”.
Impact: gave some good attempts to improve living conditions, but dealt with unrest poorly.
Concordat with the Catholic Church (24th July 1933)
Summary: Hitler would not interfere with the Catholic Church, if the pope stayed out of the political matters.
Impact: guaranteed the Catholic Church would have the right to free worship, circulation of pastoral epistles and the maintaining of catholic schools. Also allowed Hitler to remove Religious impacts from his policies.
Creation of a one party state (14th July 1933)
summary: Hitler banned all political parties, meaning the only party legally allowed to exist was the Nazi Party.
Impact: German citizens could no longer remove Hitler from power in an election
The night of the long knives (30th June 1934)
Summary: the purge of SA leadership and other political opponents from 30th June 1934 to the 2nd of July 1934. Primarily carried out by the SS and the Gestapo
Impacts: over 150 murders and hundreds more people were arrested.
Army oath of loyalty (20th August 1934)
Summary: Hitler had both members of the armed forces and civil servants swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler personally
Impacts: suspended the original oaths, Hitler then became one with the military, his decisions carried the power of orders over the army
Nuremberg Laws introduced (15th September 1935)
Summary: introduced “the Reich citizenship law” which only allowed racially pure Germans to become citizens, Jews were treated as a separate race and they had no political power. Also “the Law for the protection of German Blood and German Honour” this banned sex and marriages between Jews and citizens of Germany, preventing any children being born.
Impact: alienated the Jews, and solidified the idea of them being a separate race
Lebensborn program (12th December 1935)
Summary: created in late 1935 by the SS to encourage the growth of the aryan population in Germany. It focused on finding unmarried healthy aryan woman to have children with SS soldiers, and also encouraging pregnant women to keep the babies. Heavily influenced by the Nazi racial ideology and theories of eugenics. It also involved the kidnapping of thousands of foreign children that had aryan qualities, that were then raised under Nazi ideology in Lebensborn homes.
Impact: due to the nature of the program it required privacy, so Himmler failed to attract viable women, only 7000 babies were born into the program over 7 years. It also left a generation of children with identity crises and social disapproval that follows the association with the program.
Four year plan introduced (October 1936)
Summary: aimed to re-orientate the German economy towards rearmament and preparing for war
Impact: Autarky (self-sufficiency) was not reached, there was a shortage of raw materials and from 1938 a shortage of Labor needed to increase the amount of raw materials being produced.
Blomberg + Fritsch affair (12th Jan 1938)
Summary: the name of two related scandals that resulted in the subjugation of the German Armed forced to Adolf Hitler. It showed how ruthless Hitler could be. Officers were suspicious of hitlers true intentions with regard to the military. They expressed this and within 3 months were both out of office.
Impacts: Blomberg remarried with Hitler and Goering at the wedding to show support, however his new wife had a questionable past, Goering embellished the reports, Blomberg was publically shamed for his bad marriage choice. Blomberg went into exile and Hitler made himself supreme commander of the armed forces.
Kristallnacht (9th November 1938)
Summary: an organised pogrom by Nazi officials, In the early hours of the 9th of November an urgent telegram was sent unleashing Nazi youth and SA units throughout Germany destroying Jewish-owned homes and businesses. Many members of the public joined in. Synagogues were also destroyed.
Impact: 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps, the Jewish community had to pay a 1 billion Reichsmark atonement tax for the damage. 7500 Jewish shops were destroyed and their wares and money looted. Cemetries were also targeted.
Euthanasia campaign (September 1939)
Summary: Aktion T4, aimed to kill people with mental and physical disabilities, cleansing the Aryan race of people considered genetically defective and a financial burden to society. Included the requirement of all children under 3 with signs of disabilities being reported and murdered secretly. Adults with Physical and mental disabilities were also murdered
Impacts: claimed the lives of 250,000 individuals, including the physically and mentally disabled, the elderly, the criminally insane and those in institutions.
Bishop Galens sermon on euthanasia (13th Aug 1941)
Summary: he protected the T4 killings by printing and circulating thousands of copies of the sermon.
impact: galen himself was not openly punished since he didn’t want a clash with the Catholic Church, however several lower level priests were persecuted as a warning.
Wannsee conference (20th Jan 1942)
Summary: Known as the “final solution”, Nazi party officials gathered to decide the fate of the Jews. The SS (Heydrich) envisioned 11 million Jews would be eradicated. The conference coordinated the event, no officials objected to the plans.
Impact: within a few months of the meeting the Nazis had installed the first poison-gas chambers in Poland, later known as extermination chambers.
Stauffenberg plot (20th July 1944)
Summary: a plan to assassinate Hitler, a briefcase containing a bomb was placed inside a meeting room with Hitler present. The bomb detonated but did not Kill Hitler due to the briefcase being pushed underneath a large table, Hitler received minor injuries.
Impact: the regime responded mercilessly, the Stauffenberg family was all killed in camps. 5,000 people were killed shortly after in a crack down on opposition.
Execution of Edelweiss pirates (25th October 1944)
Summary: Himmler ordered a crackdown on the group, and the 13 heads of the group were publicly hanged in Cologne. The group had fought against the Nazis in anyway they could.
Impact: they were publicly hanged to send a message to the public, it was a method of fear and terror to prevent opposition.
Yalta conference (4th Feb 1945)
Summary: held on the Crimean coast saw Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin meet. The objective was to meet and agree on a post-war settlement and decide what to do with Germany once it had been defeated.
Impact: the setting up of the UN occurred, all leaders agreed to peruse and trial all suspected Nazi war criminals, Stalin agreed to join the War between Japan and US to help the US, all countries freed from NAzi control were guaranteed to hold democratic elections, Berlin would be split into 4 zones and as would Germany. Each of the zones would go to either USSR, US, Britain or France
Potsdam conference (17th July to 2nd August 1945)
Summary: the Big three met again, but now Truman (not Roosevelt), Stalin and Churchill. The aim was to finalise the post-war settlement and to place into action all the things agreed at Yalta.
Impact: a complete disarmament and demilitarisation of Germany, all aspects of industry that could be utilised for military purposes were to be disabled and all German military and paramilitary were to be eliminated.
Nuremberg Trials (Oct-Nov 1946)
Summary: the trials that uncovered the German leadership that siuppoetwsd
