Chronological Index:
General Chronology of Nazi Violence
Last modified: 7 November 2008Christian Ingrao
March 2008
Cite this item
Christian Ingrao, General Chronology of Nazi Violence, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, [online], published on 14 March 2008, accessed 7 September 2010, URL : http://www.massviolence.org/General-Chronology-of-Nazi-Violence, ISSN 1961-9898
- 1. The beginning: World War I and ethno-nationalism, page 1
- 2. The NSDAP, its practice of power, and its repressive policies, page 3
- 3. Reorganization and elimination, page 7
- 4. Total war and mass violence, page 11
- 5. A plan to exterminate the Jews throughout Europe, page 14
- The Trials: Nüremberg and After, page 18
- A Brief Bibliography, page 19
November 1941: The deportation of German Jews to Riga and Minsk began; elderly people, women and children – who were a majority in the convoys – were immediately executed (by the police regiments and Einsatzgruppe B). Able-bodied men were “put to work” (Gerlach, 1998).
November 5, 1941: The Gypsies of Burgenland (a frontier region between Austria and Hungary) were deported to the Lòdz ghetto (Zimmerman, 1995).
November 6-25, 1941: Groups of Polish peasants were expelled from the Zamosc district as “test cases” (Pohl, 1993).
November 25, 1941: Göring informed Ciano that 20 to 30 million people would starve to death in Russia over the 12 months to come (Aly and Heim, 1991).
Late November 1941: 100 men from Aktion T4’s technical staff were sent to Polish camps (Belzec, Chelmno). Thus began the conception of Aktion Reinhard (the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the Government-General, using extermination camps). This code name was used for the operation from July 1942 on. (Brayard, 2004; Pohl, 1993).
November 29, 1941: Convocations were sent out for the Wannsee Conference, which was scheduled for December 9 (Brayard, 2004; Gerlach, 1998)
December 4, 1941: A special penal law code was introduced for Poles inside the Reich.
December 5, 1941: The first convoy of Jews was sent to Chelmno. Later on in the month, gas trucks were added to the Einsatzgruppen’s equipment in Russia.
December 7, 1941: The Japanese attack on the US base at Pearl Harbor took place. The Wannsee Conference was postponed. The OKW published the “Nacht und Nebel” decree (according to which certain political prisoners were to be either executed, or arrested and deported in total secrecy).
December 8, 1941: The first killing took place in Chelmno using gas trucks. This was part of a regional killing program restricted to the Jews of the Lodz Ghetto (Brayard, 2004).
December 11, 1941: Germany declared war on the United States of America. From this point on, the war was not only total, but global as well. And in January 1939, Hitler had predicted that “if the Jews managed to throw Germany into a worldwide conflict again, then it would not lead to the Bolshevization of Europe, but to the extermination of the Jewish race” (Gerlach, 1998, 589). The time had come. Hitler perceived this declaration of war as a maneuver by American Jews, whose hostility made war with the U.S.A. inevitable; in his view, it required deciding on the principle of exterminating all of the Jews of Europe.
December 12, 1941: Hitler informed the Gauleiters of his intention to exterminate the Jews (Gerlach, 1998).
December 16, 1941: Hans Frank revealed the “Final Solution” through extermination planned for the Government-General, to his general staff.
December 18, 1941: During a meeting between Hitler and Himmler, the former probably authorized the Final Solution through extermination. Authors such as Christian Gerlach, Florent Brayard and Édouard Husson disagree on issues concerning dates, but what they do agree on, first and foremost, is the importance of the Hitler/Himmler/Heydrich triangle in the decision-making processes. The December 1941 decision illustrates Hitler’s role quite well. As always, his influence made anti-Jewish policy more radical, setting off impulses which the protagonists in the field transformed into action, into deadly initiatives. Regarding this decision, Hitler simply defined a principle: the change in the nature of what the Nazis called the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” which at this point, became geared toward complete extermination. The methods of implementation of this principle, its scheduling and planning were left to field protagonists at the central level – Himmler, Heydrich, but also the different protagonists of the anti-Jewish policies – and at the local level – this essentially involved occupation institutions.
November/December 1941: During this period, 500,000 Russians starved to death in the prisoner-of-war camps. Since June, the total was 2,8 million (Aly, Heim, 1989: 513; Streit, 1978).
As of January 16, 1942: The extermination of 5,000 Gypsies of the Lodz Ghetto began at Chelmno (Zimmermann, 1996).
