Berlin, Germany · April 7, 1933 Following his swearing in as chancellor on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party began a policy of Gleichschaltung (synchronization), whereby Germany would be thoroughly reordered along Nazi lines. With the Reichstag’s passage of the Enabling Act on March 23, 1933, Hitler ruled by decree and the Nazi…
Nuremberg, Germany · November 21, 1945 On this date in 1945 in Germany, the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg Trials) of Nazi leaders got down to business in the city where Adolf Hitler had staged his 1930s showy party rallies. The legal basis for the trials was established by the London Charter, issued on August 8, 1945,…
Rome, Italy · November 17, 1938 On July 15, 1938, Italy’s Manifesto of Racial Scientists (Manifesto Degli Scienziati Razzisti) laid out a scientific explanation for the politics of racism. The anonymous authors declared that Italians belonged to the Nordic race and were completely “Aryan,” while Jews, being “Semitic,” “do not belong to the Italian race”…
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…
New York City, New York · July 26, 1935 On this date in 1935 in New York Harbor, a group of anti-Nazi activists boarded the German passenger liner Bremen, tore from the ship’s jackstay the red, white, and black Nazi party flag, its swastika emblazoned in the center, and pitched it into the Hudson River….
Berlin, Germany · April 7, 1933 Following his swearing in as chancellor on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party began a policy of Gleichschaltung (synchronization), whereby Germany would be thoroughly reordered along Nazi lines. With the Reichstag’s passage of the Enabling Act on March 23, 1933, Hitler ruled by decree and the Nazi synchronization…