Civil Service Law removes Jews and political opponents

The Nazi Party won 37 percent of the vote and became the largest party, but did not win a majority. Hitler demanded the chancellorship and refused coalition participation on other terms....

The Nazi vote declined to about 33 percent, down from July, though the party remained the largest in the Reichstag. The result shows that Nazi support could fluctuate and that Hitler’s appointment...

President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor after conservative elites brokered a political deal. The appointment did not result from a majority vote for the Nazi Party, but gave it...

The SS opened Dachau near Munich, initially imprisoning political opponents and other people defined by the regime as enemies. The camp became a model for the concentration-camp system; the legal...

The Nazi Party and affiliated organizations staged a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned shops, lawyers, and doctors. The action made exclusion visible in public space and foreshadowed the state-backed...

Nazi student groups burned works by Jewish, socialist, liberal, and other writers in public ceremonies in Berlin and other cities. The spectacle linked cultural censorship to the regime’s wider...

The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring created hereditary health courts that ordered forced sterilization. This coercive eugenic program targeted disabled people and others...

The Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor defined Jews by ancestry, stripped them of full political citizenship, and criminalized relationships...

German forces entered Austria and the Nazi government annexed it. Austrian Jews were immediately exposed to a wave of public humiliation, dispossession, and coercive emigration; expansion carried Nazi...

Delegates from 32 countries met at Évian-les-Bains to discuss refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Most governments kept restrictive immigration rules, leaving Jews with few safe destinations;...