HOLOCAUST

  • NEW REICH SECURITY OFFICE CREATED

    Berlin, Germany · September 27, 1937 On this date in 1937 the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Reich Security Main Office (known by its acro­nym RSHA), was created by Reichs­fuehrer-SS Hein­rich Himm­ler through the merger of the SS (Schutz­staffel) intel­li­gence se­rvice, the Sicher­heits­dienst (SD), or Secu­rity Ser­vice, and the Sicher­heits­poli­zei (SiPo), or Secu­rity Police. The SiPo com­prised the noto­rious…

  • NAZIS, SOVIETS DIVIDE POLAND

    Brest-Litovsk, Occupied Eastern Poland · September 19, 1939 Adolf Hitler’s armies stormed over Poland’s border on Septem­ber 1, 1939, in what became known as the first blitz­krieg—“light­ning war.” Soviet dic­ta­tor Joseph Stalin has­tened to claim his share of the spoils under the terms of a sec­ret pro­to­col in the Molotov-Ribben­trop Pact signed in Mos­cow the month before,…

  • BIG NAZI PARTY RALLY IN NUREMBERG

    Nuremberg, Germany · September 10, 1935 On this date in 1935 the Nazis convened their annual party con­gress in Nurem­berg completely fixated on the charis­matic savior-figure Adolf Hitler, Ger­many’s chan­cellor since January 1933. The 1935 “Rally of Free­dom” (Reichs­partei­tag der Frei­heit) touted Hitler’s wildly popu­lar rein­tegra­tion of the Saar region—formerly a League of Nations man­date—into…

  • CHURCH OUTCRY ENDS NAZI T-4 KILLING PROGRAM

    Berlin, Germany · August 24, 1941 On this date in 1941 Adolf Hitler cancelled the Aktion T‑4 eutha­na­sia pro­gram that he had person­ally put in place in Septem­ber 1939. Nor­mally Hitler had a policy of not issuing written instruc­tions for poli­cies relating to what would later be called crimes against human­ity, but he made an excep­tion…

  • HITLER TO GENERALS: “DEVIL’S WORK” AHEAD

    Obersalzberg, Bavaria, Germany · August 22, 1939 Adolf Hitler’s foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was just about to affix his signa­ture to the Ger­man-Soviet non-ag­gres­sion pact (the Molotov-Ribben­trop Pact), when, on this date in 1939, the Fuehrer sum­moned the com­manders of his various armed forces and other officers to the Berg­hof, his Bava­rian retreat on…

  • RAF DAMAGES NAZI ROCKET SITE

    London, England · August 17, 1943 In mid-June 1943 a Royal Air Force reconnais­sance mission flew over the top-secret Peene­muende Army Research Center and V‑2 rocket launch site on the Ger­man Baltic coast. Images con­firmed the pre­sence of long-range bal­listic missiles at the site. A month later British Prime Minister Winston Chur­chill ordered an attack at…

  • VATICAN SIGNS PACT WITH NAZIS

    Rome, Italy · July 20, 1933 On this date in 1933 in Rome, represen­ta­tives of Ger­man Pre­si­dent Paul von Hin­den­burg and Pope Pius XI (1922–1939), among them Vati­can Sec­re­tary of State Euge­nio Pa­celli (later Pope Pius XII), announced that a con­cor­dat (treaty) had been forged between the Holy See and the Ger­man Reich. The Reichs­kon­kor­dat was a major…

  • FRENCH POLICE SWEEP PARIS OF JEWS

    Paris, Occupied France · July 16, 1942 On June 22, 1940, repre­sen­tatives of Marshal Philippe Pétain, premier of the French Third Republic, signed a cease­fire with Germany, 44 days after the Wehr­macht had invaded France. Early that October Pétain’s collab­o­ra­tionist Vichy govern­ment—named after the resort com­mu­ni­ty in which his admin­is­tration had settled—approved the first French anti-Semi­tic…

  • NAZIS JAIL OUTSPOKEN PASTOR NIEMOELLER

    Berlin, Germany · July 1, 1937 On this date in 1937 the Gestapo arrested outspoken Lutheran theo­logian and pastor Martin Nie­moeller. The next year Nie­moeller was tried for acti­vi­ties against the State. Released after the trial, Nie­moeller was rearrested—presumably because Deputy Fuehrer Rudolf Hess decided to take “merci­less action” against him when the court didn’t. Nie­moeller…