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Modern History

Home > Modern History > National Studies > C Germany 1918-1939 > Germany 1918 - 1939: Nazi persecution of the Jews

Outcomes

• Describes the role of key features, issues, individuals, groups and events of selected twentieth-century studies (H1.1)

Extract from Modern History Stage 6 Syllabus © Board of Studies NSW 2004.

Key features and issues:

• nature and influence of racism
• changes in society
• the nature and impact of Nazism

From this tutorial you will learn about Nazi racial policy; anti-Semitism: policy and practice to 1939.

This chronology is taken from Ringer, R E 1993, Modern History Outlines: Twentieth Century Germany and Russia. Maxwell Macmillan Australia, p. 45 and a timeline supplied by the Sydney Jewish Museum

Please note, the chronology below goes beyond the scope of the NSW HSC Modern History course which looks at Germany to 1939. It includes subsequent events such as the eventual liberation of the Bergen-Belsen death camp and the commencement of the post-war Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.

The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies has a chronology that is very detailed and well worth a look, too.

| 1933     | 1934     | 1935     | 1936     | 1937     | 1938     | 1939     | 1940    
| 1941     | 1942     | 1943     | 1944     | 1945

1933	23 March First concentration camp, Dachau, is established. 1 April First official boycott of Jewish shops, lawyers and doctors. 7 April Exclusion of Jews from government jobs.
1934	22 July Jews were forbidden to take legal examinations. 8 December Jews were forbidden to take pharmaceutical examinations. The period between the summer of 1933 and the beginning of 1935 was relatively quiet. From January to September 1935 a new anti-Semitic wave began.
1935	Summer Juden Verboten (no Jews) signs increase in a number outside towns, villages, restaurants and stores. 15 September Reich Citizenship Act (Nuremberg Laws). Jews denied Reich citizenship. The right to vote on political questions was withdrawn. Jews were forbidden to hold an office of state. 15 September Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour forbade marriages between Jews and citizens of German or kindred blood. Extramarital intercourse between Jews and citizens of German or kindred blood was forbidden.
1936	Throughout 1936 and 1937 the professional activities of Jews were severely restricted or prohibited, including a ban on veterinarians, chartered accountants, teachers, dentists, surveyors, auctioneers and nurses. There was a reduction in the attacks on the Jews during the period leading up to the Olympic Games in 1936.
1937	12 June Issuance of a secret order from Reinhardt Heydrich committing Jewish women who had sexual relations with Germans to concentration camps. 16 July Buchenwald concentration camp opens.
1938	17 August All male Jews forced to add the name Israel and all female Jews the name Sara to their non-Jewish first names. 30 September Cancellation of qualifications of Jewish doctors. 5 October Polish Jews living in Germany expelled. One young refugee, Herschel Grunspan (b.1921), was determined to take his own personal revenge. On 7 November 1938 he murdered Ernst von Rath (1909-38), third secretary at the German legation in Paris. 9 November Goebbels used the murder of von Rath as an excuse for a pogrom (organised massacre). Between 9 and 10 November thousands of Jewish shops, homes and synagogues were destroyed. Crystal Night (Reichkristallnacht) resulted in the arrest and temporary detainment in concentration camps of over 20 000 Jews. They were later released on condition that they left the country. Heydrich estimated that damage to broken windows alone was worth 10 million Reichsmarks. SA thugs and Nazi activists were instructed not to wear uniforms in order not to provoke anti-Nazi sentiment among the population. 12 November Many of the insurance companies were owned by Jewish business people, and claims for damage would have had to have been paid from funds subscribed by German policyholders. As a result, Goering ordered the Jews to pay for repairs out of their own pockets. 15 November Jewish children excluded from German schools and universities. 3 December Jewish businesses and shops closed and forced to sell for a fraction of their value.
1939	21 February Jews forced to hand in all gold and silver objects and jewels in their possession. 1 September Curfew on Jews after 8 pm in winter and 9 pm in summer. 23 September Confiscation of all radios owned by Jews.
1940	30 April ghetto at Lodz, Poland is sealed off. 15 November Warsaw ghetto is sealed off.
1941	31 July Heydrich is appointed by Goering to carry out The Final Solution (extermination of all Jews in Europe). 15 September Wearing of the Jewish star is decreed throughout the Greater Reich. 23 September First experiments with gassing are made at Auschwitz. 14 October Deportation of German Jews begins.
1942	20 January Wannsee Conference on Nazi Final Solution of the Jewish Question. 1 June Treblinka death camp opens. 28 July Jewish resistance organisation is established in the Warsaw ghetto.
1943	18 January Jews in the Warsaw ghetto launch uprising against Nazi deportations. 16 May Liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto. 20 October United Nations War Crimes Commission is established.
1944	15 May 476 000 Jews are deported from Hungary to Auschwitz. 24 November Himmler orders destruction of Auschwitz crematoria as Nazis try to hide evidence of the death camps.
1945	17 January Soviet troops liberate Warsaw. 11 April American troops liberate Bergen-Belsen death camp. 30 April Hilter commits suicide. 22 November Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal commences.

Task

Study the timeline and identify and expand on 5 or 6 significant events which reflect the increasing nature of the persecution of the Jews in Germany  between 1933 and 1939.