Germany: development of dictatorship, 1918–45 — timeline

Key topic 1 · The establishment of the Weimar Republic and its early problems

The abdication and the German Revolution of 1918–19

29 September 1918

Ludendorff tells the Kaiser an armistice is needed and asks for a civilian government to request it. Why this date: This is the date that makes the stab-in-the-back myth a deliberate manoeuvre rather than an accident. The army decided who would carry the defeat.

4 November 1918

The Kiel mutiny becomes a sailors' council; councils spread across Germany within a week. Why this date: The revolution began in the armed forces, not in a party. No organisation planned it, which is why nobody controlled where it went.

9 November 1918

The abdication is announced; a republic is declared twice in one afternoon, by Scheidemann and by Liebknecht. Why this date: The two proclamations are the whole division of the German left in a single day: a parliamentary republic or a council republic.

11 November 1918

Erzberger, a civilian politician, signs the armistice. Why this date: The precise, checkable fact behind the myth. Erzberger was assassinated by nationalists in 1921.

January 1919

The Spartacist rising is crushed by Freikorps under Noske; Liebknecht and Luxemburg are murdered. Why this date: The first cashing of the Ebert–Groener pact, and the origin of the KPD's permanent refusal to work with the SPD.

The Weimar Constitution: strengths and weaknesses

19 January 1919

Elections to the National Assembly; the SPD, Centre and DDP 'Weimar coalition' wins over 76 per cent. Why this date: The Republic's pro-democratic parties had a crushing majority once. By 1920 they had lost it and never regained it.

August 1919

The Weimar Constitution comes into force. Why this date: The date to quote for the constitutional settlement, distinct from the declaration of the republic in November 1918.

1925

Hindenburg elected President. Why this date: The Article 48 problem becomes acute only when the office is held by someone who does not believe in the Republic. Design and occupant have to be argued together.

Reactions to the Treaty of Versailles

7 May 1919

The terms are handed to the German delegation at Versailles. Why this date: The delegation had expected to negotiate. The absence of negotiation is the origin of the Diktat charge.

28 June 1919

The treaty is signed in the Hall of Mirrors, five years to the day after Sarajevo. Why this date: The venue was where the German Empire had been proclaimed in 1871. Both sides understood the symbolism.

1921

The London Schedule fixes reparations at 132 billion gold marks. Why this date: The figure Germans quoted for the next decade. Precision here separates a Level 3 answer from 'huge reparations'.

1921 and 1922

Erzberger and Rathenau assassinated by right-wing ex-officers. Why this date: Reaction to the treaty was not only rhetorical. It killed the politicians associated with fulfilment.

Challenges from Right and Left: Spartacists and the Kapp Putsch

5–12 January 1919

Spartacist rising in Berlin, suppressed by Freikorps under Noske. Why this date: The state used lethal force against the left within weeks of the revolution that created it.

15 January 1919

Liebknecht and Luxemburg murdered in custody. Why this date: The founding grievance of the KPD against the SPD, and the reason the left never reunited.

13–17 March 1920

The Kapp Putsch; the army declines to intervene; a general strike ends it in four days. Why this date: The clearest evidence in the option that the Republic did not control its own army, and that it survived on the loyalty of organised labour.

The Ruhr occupation and hyperinflation: causes and effects

11 January 1923

French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr over missed reparations deliveries. Why this date: The occupation is the trigger. The German response, not the occupation itself, is the cause of hyperinflation.

January–September 1923

Passive resistance; the government prints money to pay Ruhr workers. Why this date: The decision that turns a serious inflation into a hyperinflation. Name it and the causation is secure.

November 1923

The mark reaches about 4.2 trillion to the dollar; the Rentenmark is issued. Why this date: The peak and the cure fall in the same month, which is why the crisis ends so abruptly.

Key topic 2 · The recovery of Germany, 1924–29

The Rentenmark and the end of hyperinflation

26 September 1923

Stresemann ends passive resistance in the Ruhr. Why this date: The precondition. Without it no currency reform could have held, because the deficit would have continued.

15 November 1923

The Rentenmark is issued at one to one trillion old marks. Why this date: The exact date and the exchange ratio are the precision that separates a Level 3 answer here.

August 1924

The Reichsmark replaces the Rentenmark, backed by gold under the Dawes settlement. Why this date: The permanent currency, and the moment stabilisation becomes dependent on foreign confidence.

The Dawes and Young Plans and American loans

April 1924

The Dawes Plan: reparations rescheduled, the Ruhr evacuated, an 800-million-mark loan. Why this date: The start of the recovery and of the dependence. Both halves are examinable.

1929

The Young Plan cuts reparations to about 112 billion marks over fifty-nine years. Why this date: A German diplomatic success that produced a domestic political disaster — the clearest example in the option of a good outcome with bad consequences.

December 1929

The referendum against the Young Plan fails. Why this date: It failed and it worked: Hitler gained national exposure and the DNVP's respectability without having to win anything.

October 1929

The Wall Street Crash; American short-term loans begin to be recalled. Why this date: The recovery's dependence becomes its collapse within months, which is why the two key topics are one argument.

Locarno, the League and Kellogg-Briand

October 1925

The Locarno Treaties: the western frontier guaranteed, the eastern frontier not. Why this date: The single most examinable fact in the strand. What Germany did NOT guarantee is what shows the policy was revisionist.

September 1926

Germany joins the League with a permanent Council seat. Why this date: Great-power status restored seven years after Versailles.

1927 and 1930

The Allied control commission withdraws; the Rhineland occupation ends five years early. Why this date: The concrete results, and the reason 'Locarno achieved nothing' is not a serious position.

August 1928

Germany signs the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Why this date: Equality of status with the victors, on paper, with no enforcement behind it.

Key topic 3 · The rise of Hitler and the Nazis to January 1933

The German Workers' Party and the changes of 1920–22

September 1919

Hitler attends a DAP meeting as an army informant and joins. Why this date: The party did not begin as his creation, which is the fact that makes the 1921 takeover a change worth explaining.

24 February 1920

The Twenty-Five Point Programme is announced; the party becomes the NSDAP. Why this date: The date and the name change together. The programme is the recruiting document the whole strand turns on.

July 1921

Hitler becomes chairman with dictatorial powers after threatening to resign. Why this date: The Führerprinzip begins here, inside a party of a few thousand, twelve years before it becomes a principle of government.

August 1921

The SA is formed. Why this date: The party acquires a private army before it acquires a single Reichstag seat.

The Munich Putsch: causes, events and results

8 November 1923

The Bürgerbräukeller is seized; Kahr, Lossow and Seisser agree under duress and then withdraw. Why this date: The putsch fails that night, not the next morning. Letting the triumvirate leave is the decisive error.

9 November 1923

The march to the Feldherrnhalle; the police fire; sixteen Nazis and four policemen are killed. Why this date: The sixteen dead became the party's founding martyrs and the date became its central ritual.

February–April 1924

The trial; five years' fortress detention. Why this date: The moment the failure becomes an asset, and the strongest evidence in the option about the courts.

December 1924

Released after nine months, having written Mein Kampf. Why this date: Nine months for treason. The number is the argument and it costs one clause to include.

Reorganisation of the party, 1924–28

February 1925

The party is refounded; Hitler is banned from public speaking in Prussia and Bavaria. Why this date: The speaking ban is why the party built an organisation instead of running a campaign.

February 1926

The Bamberg conference; Hitler defeats the northern socialist wing and Goebbels changes sides. Why this date: Doctrine and leadership are settled together, and the man who will run the 1932 campaigns is recruited.

May 1928

The Nazis take 2.6 per cent and twelve Reichstag seats. Why this date: The number that makes the argument. Everything was built and nobody voted, so the machine cannot be what produced the votes — it is what converted them.

The impact of the Great Depression

October 1929

Wall Street Crash; American short-term loans are recalled. Why this date: The mechanism of transmission. Without the ninety-day terms the German collapse is not this fast.

March 1930

The Müller coalition falls; Brüning is appointed without a majority. Why this date: The date parliamentary government ends — nearly three years before Hitler takes office, and by decision of the Republic's own defenders.

14 September 1930

The Nazis take 18.3 per cent and 107 seats. Why this date: The breakthrough election, called by Brüning himself after the Reichstag revoked his decree.

Early 1932

Registered unemployment passes 6 million. Why this date: The peak figure, and the one a candidate must be able to produce.

31 July 1932

The Nazis take 37.3 per cent and become the largest party. Why this date: Their highest free-election share, and still short of a majority.

Nazi methods of winning support and the role of the SA

1930

Goebbels appointed Reich propaganda leader. Why this date: The professionalisation of the campaign machinery coincides with the breakthrough election.

April 1932

The 'Hitler over Germany' flying campaign in the presidential election. Why this date: Hitler lost to Hindenburg with 36.8 per cent in the run-off and gained a national campaign apparatus and a proven method.

10 August 1932

The Potempa murder; Hitler publicly supports the killers. Why this date: The clearest evidence of the SA's cost. It is also the best counter-evidence in a question about Nazi methods.

1932

SA membership passes 400,000. Why this date: Larger than the Reichswehr, which is why the army leadership in 1934 wanted it dealt with.

1932 to January 1933: Papen, Schleicher and Hindenburg

April 1932

Hindenburg re-elected, defeating Hitler 53 to 36.8 per cent. Why this date: Hitler had been beaten in a national vote nine months before he took office.

31 July 1932

Nazis take 37.3 per cent and 230 seats; Hindenburg refuses Hitler the chancellorship. Why this date: The peak, and the refusal. Votes alone did not open the door.

6 November 1932

The Nazi vote falls to 33.1 per cent; they lose 34 seats. Why this date: The single fact that defeats the inevitability argument, and almost no candidate produces it.

8 December 1932

Gregor Strasser resigns after Hitler overrules his deal with Schleicher. Why this date: The last attempt to split the Nazis fails, which is what makes Papen's offer the only route left.

4 January 1933

Papen and Hitler meet at Schröder's house in Cologne. Why this date: The arrangement begins here, in private, between two men with no mandate to make it.

30 January 1933

Hitler appointed Chancellor; three Nazis in a cabinet of twelve. Why this date: The cabinet arithmetic is the evidence for the 'we have hired him' misjudgement.

Key topic 4 · Nazi Germany 1933–39

Reichstag Fire to Führer: the legal creation of a dictatorship

27–28 February 1933

The Reichstag Fire; the Decree for the Protection of People and State suspends civil liberties. Why this date: The legal foundation of the entire police state, in force until 1945 and never repealed.

5 March 1933

Election under the decree; the Nazis take 43.9 per cent. Why this date: Even with the KPD suppressed and the SA on the streets, the Nazis could not win a majority.

23 March 1933

The Enabling Act passes 441 to 94 with Centre Party votes. Why this date: The two-thirds majority is the detail that makes the Centre's decision decisive rather than incidental.

2 May and 14 July 1933

Trade unions abolished; the NSDAP made the only legal party. Why this date: The two dates that complete Gleichschaltung of organised civil society.

30 June 1934

Night of the Long Knives; Röhm, Schleicher, Strasser and Kahr killed. Why this date: The price paid to the army, and the demonstration that the regime would kill its own.

2 August 1934

Hindenburg dies; the offices merge; the army swears personal loyalty. Why this date: The dictatorship is complete on this date, not in January 1933.

The police state, censorship and propaganda — and their limits

March 1933

Dachau opens; Goebbels takes the propaganda ministry. Why this date: Camp and message begin in the same month, which is the structure of the whole system.

October 1933

The Editors' Law makes editors personally liable for content. Why this date: Censorship by professional self-policing rather than by a censor's office — cheaper and more thorough.

June 1936

Himmler becomes Chief of the German Police, unifying all forces under the SS. Why this date: The date the police cease to be a state function and become a party one.

August 1936

The Berlin Olympics; antisemitic signage removed for the duration. Why this date: The clearest evidence that the regime knew exactly how its policies looked from outside.

1941

Galen's sermons force the public suspension of T4; the Bavarian crucifix protest succeeds. Why this date: The limit case. Public protest with an institution behind it could work, twice, at the height of the regime's power.

Education, women, the young and the Churches

April 1933

Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service; Jewish and politically unreliable teachers and officials dismissed. Why this date: The instrument used across education, the law and medicine. One law, many professions.

20 July 1933

Concordat with the Vatican; the Centre Party dissolves. Why this date: International recognition for the new regime in its first six months, in exchange for Catholic political withdrawal.

1936

Hitler Youth membership becomes effectively compulsory. Why this date: Distinguish this from the 1939 law that made it legally so; the two-stage process is examinable.

March 1937

Mit brennender Sorge read from Catholic pulpits. Why this date: The only occasion on which a document condemning the regime was read simultaneously across Germany, and the regime could not prevent it.

1941

Galen's sermons force the public suspension of T4. Why this date: The proof of the strand's argument, and the link forward to key topic 5.

Racial policy and the persecution of Jews to 1939

1 April 1933

National boycott of Jewish businesses; called off after one day. Why this date: The first test of public reaction, and the regime learned from the result.

7 April 1933

Civil service law removes Jews from public employment, with a veterans' exemption. Why this date: The exemption shows the regime still constrained by Hindenburg; it was removed in 1935.

15 September 1935

The Nuremberg Laws remove citizenship and prohibit intermarriage. Why this date: Persecution becomes law rather than party action, and requires a legal definition of a Jew.

9–10 November 1938

Kristallnacht: about 91 killed, 30,000 men arrested, a one-billion-mark fine imposed on the victims. Why this date: The transition from public violence to administrative persecution, and the moment emigration became flight.

Unemployment, the Labour Service, the Labour Front and Strength Through Joy

2 May 1933

Trade unions abolished; the German Labour Front replaces them. Why this date: The day after a May Day the regime had declared a national holiday to honour labour.

1934

Schacht's New Plan; Mefo bills conceal rearmament spending. Why this date: The financial mechanism that made rearmament possible before the economy could obviously bear it.

March 1935

Conscription reintroduced. Why this date: The largest single administrative reduction in the unemployment figure.

1936

Four Year Plan under Göring; autarky prioritised over cost. Why this date: The point at which the economy is organised for war rather than for recovery.

1939

Registered unemployment about 300,000, with skilled-labour shortages. Why this date: The headline figure and its qualification belong in the same sentence.

Key topic 5 · Germany and the occupied territories during the Second World War

Ghettos, Einsatzgruppen and the Final Solution

November 1940

The Warsaw ghetto is sealed; over 400,000 people in about 3.4 square kilometres. Why this date: Ghettoisation as containment, killing on a large scale before any decision on extermination.

June 1941

The Einsatzgruppen follow the invasion of the USSR. Why this date: The beginning of systematic mass killing, in the open, four months before the first gas van.

29–30 September 1941

Babi Yar: 33,771 people shot in two days on the unit's own count. Why this date: The single most precise figure available for the shooting phase, and it is the perpetrators' own record.

20 January 1942

The Wannsee Conference coordinates ministries and confirms SS primacy. Why this date: It coordinates; it does not initiate. Getting this right is the commonest chronology error in the option.

March 1942

Operation Reinhard camps begin killing. Why this date: The industrialisation of the process, and the point at which the killing becomes invisible to the perpetrators' own society.

The Home Front: women, total war, rationing and bombing

August 1939

Rationing introduced, with relatively generous allowances. Why this date: The regime's fear of 1918 shaped the war economy from the first month.

February 1942

Speer becomes armaments minister. Why this date: The reorganisation that produces the output rise; the man matters less than the committee system.

18 February 1943

Goebbels' 'total war' speech at the Sportpalast, weeks after Stalingrad. Why this date: The public admission that the protected home front was over, and the date to quote.

24 July – 3 August 1943

The Hamburg firestorm kills around 37,000. Why this date: The largest single loss of German civilian life to that point, and it did not break morale.

July 1944

German armaments output peaks, then collapses as oil and transport are targeted. Why this date: The date that makes the bombing argument precise rather than general.

Opposition: the Edelweiss Pirates, the White Rose and the July Bomb Plot

Summer 1942

The first White Rose leaflets; the second names the murder of 300,000 Jews in Poland. Why this date: Documentary evidence that the killing was known and stated inside Germany in 1942.

18–22 February 1943

The Scholls are arrested and executed within four days. Why this date: The speed is the evidence about the People's Court, and it is a fact a candidate can produce in one clause.

20 July 1944

Stauffenberg's bomb fails; Valkyrie collapses within hours. Why this date: The only attempt with a plan for taking power, and it came when the war was visibly lost.

10 November 1944

Thirteen Ehrenfeld group members, including Bartholomäus Schink, hanged publicly in Cologne. Why this date: Youth nonconformity treated as capital resistance, which shows how the categories collapsed under wartime pressure.