28 February
Orders issued to carry out arrests.
1 March
Seventy-five Communist Party functionaries arrested, to be followed by Social Democrats, trade unionists and other opponents of National Socialism.
5 March
Nazi vote in Hamburg rises by 100,000, giving them 38.8 per cent of vote.
14 October
Hamburg’s city council, is dissolved.
1935
1 January
Nazi Party has 46,500 members in Hamburg, 3.8 per cent of population. Air-raid training begins.
1937
Greater Hamburg Act (Gross Hamburg Gesetz) incorporates Altona, Wandsbek, Harburg and twenty-seven other municipalities under Prussian control until then. As a result Hamburg nearly doubles in size, and population rises 41 per cent to 1.68 million inhabitants.
Hamburg–Lübeck Autobahncompleted. Black-out drills started.
1938
1 April
Merger of Hamburg and other towns comes into being.
December
Neuengamme concentration camp is completed.
1939
July
Air-raid shelters start to be built – 108 completed by September 1942, but still only enough for 10 per cent of population.
1940
18 May
Hamburg bombed for the first time.
1943
20 April
Hamburg leaders draw up a disaster plan in case of heavy air raids.
27 May
Sir Arthur Harris unveils plans to destroy Hamburg.
19/20 June
Hamburg defences carry out rehearsal for their disaster plan in Altona. Their worst-case scenario involves some 3,000 dead, 1,000 wounded and 110,000 homeless.
25 June
USAAF fly on Hamburg for the first time.
They fail to reach the city, and lose eighteen planes.
6–12 July
A week of consultation by Hamburg’s leaders over the city’s disaster plan, concluding in another rehearsal.
27 July
Firestorm (see Appendix C).
August
Goering, Goebbels, Frick and others visit the stricken city, but Hitler refuses to come.
1944
end
Anti-tank obstacles erected in streets, and territorial army of old men and adolescents called up.
1945
29 April
Commanding officer Brigadier-General Alwin Wolz establishes contact with British troops outside Hamburg.
3 May
Wolz signs unconditional surrender. British troops enter the city.
1946–7
winter
Severe and sustained freeze sees temperatures drop to –28°C. Famine in the city.
1949
Hamburg becomes a federal state in Federal Republic of Germany.
1962
Storm causes flooding, which ruins old town and kills 300 people.
1993
24 July
Student protesters interrupt the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the Firestorm, proclaiming ‘there is nothing to mourn’.
2003
The British ambassador addresses sixtieth anniversary commemoration expressing regret at events of 1943.
Appendix B
Chronology of the Second World War
Before the war
5 March 1933
The Nazis win the German elections.
October 1933
Hitler withdraws from the World
Disarmament Conference and the League of
Nations.
16 March 1935
Germany denounces the Treaty of Versailles.
June 1935
The Luftwaffe is re-created, with Hermann
Goering at its head.
7 March 1936
Germany reoccupies the Rhineland, taken
from it by the Treaty of Versailles.
July 1936 – March 1939
The Spanish Civil War.
26 April 1937
The Basque town of Guernica is destroyed by German bombers.
12 March 1938
German Army marches into Austria, a day
ahead of the Anschluss.
1 October 1938
With French and British agreement, German
troops march into the Sudetenland in
Czechoslovakia.
10–16 March 1936
Germany annexes Bohemia and Moravia.
23 August 1939
Germany and Russia sign a ‘non-aggression’
pact.
1939
1 September
Germany begins the invasion of Poland.
3 September
Britain and France declare war.
17 September
Soviets invade Poland from the east.
13–26 September
Warsaw is bombed.
29 November
Soviets attack Finland.
1940
9 April
Germans begin the invasion of Denmark and
Norway.
10 May
Winston Churchill becomes Britain’s Prime
Minister.
German invasion of Belgium, Luxembourg,
Holland and France begins.
14 May
Rotterdam is bombed.
15 May
RAF begins strategic bombing offensive with
attacks on oil and transport targets in the
Ruhr.
18 May
Hamburg bombed for the first time.
26 May
The evacuation of British forces at Dunkirk
begins.
31 May
Roosevelt introduces a massive rearmament
programme for the USA.
8 August
Battle of Britain begins.
24 August
Luftwaffe accidentally bombs central London.
25 August
In retaliation, Churchill orders bombing raid
against Berlin.
17 September
After failing to win air supremacy, Hitler is
forced to postpone the invasion of Britain
indefinitely: the RAF has effectively won the
battle of Britain.
30 September
Germany switches tactics to night bombing.
14/15 November
Bombing of Coventry devastates the city.
1941
24 March
Rommel begins advance in North Africa.
5–6 April
Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece.
10/11 May
The final heavy bombing raid on London
marks the end of the battle of Britain.
22 June
Germany begins Operation ‘Barbarossa’: the
invasion of Russia.
7 December
Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese.
11 December
Hitler declares war against the USA.
December – May 1942
Japanese army sweeps across South East Asia,
taking Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaya,
Singapore, Burma and the East Indies.
1942
January – May
The Japanese army sweeps across South East
Asia.
22 February
Sir Arthur Harris becomes C-in-C RAF
Bomber Command.
23–26 March
RAF devastate Rostock.
28/29 March