July 1 Pastor Martin Niemöller arrested and sent to a concentration camp
Nov. 5 Hitler announces war plans to the military leadership and the foreign minister. Immediate targets: Austria and Czechoslovakia
Dec. Large-scale operation mounted in many major cities against left-wing resistance organizations
1938
Feb. 4 Dismissal of Blomberg and Army Commander in Chief Fritsch. Hitler creates the High Command of the Armed Forces (OKW) under Wilhelm Keitel. Walther von Brauchitsch named commander in chief of the army. Hitler himself takes over as supreme commander of the entire armed forces (Wehrmacht)
March 12 Annexation of Austria
March 13 Law proclaiming the Anschluss passed
May 30 Directive from Hitler announcing the invasion of
Czechoslovakia
Aug. 18 Chief of General Staff Ludwig Beck resigns in protest of Hitler’s aggression. Franz Halder appointed as successor
Summer Conspiracy of civilian and military resistance groups launched. Main participants are Halder, Hans Oster, and Erwin von Witzleben
Sept. 28 Oster and Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz’s plan for a task force to invade the Chancellery and kill Hitler fails
Sept. 29 Munich conference grants Sudetenland to Germany
Oct. 21 Hitler issues secret orders to prepare “to eliminate the rest of Czechoslovakia”
Nov. 9 Kristallnacht, a “spontaneous” pogrom against Jews. Police forbidden to intervene
1939
March 15 Entry into Czechoslovakia. Under pressure from Germany, Slovakia declares its independence
April 3 Hitler issues directive to prepare for the invasion of Poland
May 23 Hitler explains invasion plans to his generals
Summer Civilian and military resistance circles plan to remove Hitler from power to prevent war. Opposition groups around Harro Schulze-Boysen and Arvid and Mildred Harnack form the Red Orchestra
Aug. 23 Hitler-Stalin pact divides Poland and Eastern Europe into spheres of interest
Sept. 1 Outbreak of the Second World War with invasion of Poland
Sept. 21 Reinhard Heydrich issues guidelines for the Einsatzgruppen in occupied Poland
Sept. 27 Warsaw surrenders
Oct. 9 Hitler announces his intention to launch an invasion in the West by November 12
Oct.-Nov. Preparations made for Erich Kordt’s attempt to assassinate Hitler with a bomb
Nov 8. Acting alone, Georg Elser fails to kill Hitler in Munich
1940
April 9 Beginning of operation that will lead to occupation of Denmark and Norway
May 10 Beginning of the campaign in the West. Capitulation of Holland (May 15) and Belgium (May 28) and truce with France (June 22)
Dec. 18 Directive from Hitler for Operation Barbarossa: “Before the end of the war against England,” the Wehrmacht is to defeat the USSR in “a quick campaign”
1941
March 30 Hitler declares to his generals that the Russian campaign will be a “struggle of annihilation”
Spring Henning von Tresckow organizes a group of conspirators within Army Group Center
May 13 Hitler cancels the jurisdiction of the military courts over the areas of the Soviet Union that will be occupied. Illegal acts against Soviet civilians no longer punishable; crimes against the occupying Germans to be punished extrajudicially
June 6 Commissar Order calls for the liquidation of political commissars in the Soviet Union
June 22 Beginning of the Russian campaign. The three army groups are followed by four Einsatzgruppen of security police and the SD
Nov.-Dec. The Russian winter destroys Hitler’s plans for blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union
Dec. 19 Hitler dismisses Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch and assumes supreme command of the army himself
1942
Feb. The revolutionary left-wing resistance organization led by Beppo Romer and Robert Uhrig is broken up in Berlin. Forty-five death sentences issued
March 22 Pastoral letter of Catholic bishops on the “Struggle against Christianity and the Church”
Spring The resistance organization Revolutionary Socialists broken up in Bavaria and Austria
Aug. 20 Roland Freisler named president of the People’s Court
Sept. 24 Franz Halder replaced as chief of general staff by Kurt Zeitzler
Fall Gestapo breaks up the Red Orchestra
Nov. 22 The Sixth Army (some 250,000 troops) cut off near Stalingrad
1943
Jan. 24 Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill announce at the Casablanca Conference (Jan. 14-26) their demand for “unconditional surrender”
Feb. 2 Capitulation of the Sixth Army in Stalingrad
Feb. 18 Flyers distributed in Munich by White Rose, a student resistance group with Catholic and youth-organization roots
March 13 Attempt by conspirators in Army Group Center to blow up Hitler fails
March 21 Colonel Rudolph-Christoph von Gersdorff s assassination attempt in the Berlin Zeughaus fails
April 5 Arrest of Hans von Dohnanyi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Josef Müller, and other members of the resistance group within Military Intelligence. Hans Oster’s activities are curtailed
July 12-13 Establishment of the National Committee for a Free Germany in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow
Summer Friedrich Olbricht, Tresckow, and Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg begin to rework the Valkyrie plans for a coup
Oct. 1 Stauffenberg assumes his position as chief of staff in the General Army Office under General Olbricht
Nov. 28- Teheran Conference. Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
Dec. 12 agree in principle on the division of Germany
1944
Jan. 19 Helmuth von Moltke and members of the Solf Circle arrested
Jan.-March Captain Axel von dem Bussche, Lieutenant Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, and Cavalry Captain Eberhard von Breitenbuch all fail in various plans to assassinate Hitler
Feb. 12 Admiral Wilhelm Canaris relieved of his duties. Hitler orders the creation of a “unified German secret information service” under Himmler
June 6 Allied invasion of Normandy commences
June 22 Julius Leber and Adolf Reichwein meet in Berlin with members of the outlawed central committee of the German Communist Party. Beginning of the Soviet offensive on the eastern front in the area of Army Group Center
July 4-5 Adolf Reichwein and Julius Leber arrested
July 11 Stauffenberg plans to assassinate Hitler at Führer headquarters on the Obersalzberg
July 15 Stauffenberg plans to assassinate Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair, Führer headquarters in Rastenburg
July 20 Stauffenberg sets off a bomb in the conference barracks at Rastenburg. Hitler survives. Coup attempt in Paris canceled when plans fail at army headquarters in Berlin. Late that night Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, and Werner von Haeften are executed in the army courtyard on Bendlerstrasse. A wave of arrests begins
Aug. Beginning of trials before the People’s Court and the first executions
1945
Feb. 4-11 Yalta Conference
April 25 American and Soviet troops meet near Torgau on the Elbe
April 30 Hitler commits suicide
May 8 Germany surrenders unconditionally
SHORT BIOGRAPHIES
Beck, Ludwig (1880-1944)
Career officer. In October 1933 named chief of the troop office in the Ministry of Defense and in 1935 army chief of general staff. Attempted in vain in the summer of 1938 to persuade the generals to resign en masse in order to prevent war. Resigned thereafter himself for reasons of conscience and became a central figure in the military-civilian resistance. After some initial reluctance, participated in planning assassination attempts and was supposed to become regent after Hitler’s death. After the failure of the coup attempt on July 20, 1944, General Friedrich Fromm demanded that he commit suicide in army headquarters on Bendlerstrasse. He botched the attempt, succeeding only in severely wounding himself, and a sergeant finished the job.