Nazi book burnings attack Jewish and critical thought

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...

The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service enabled the dismissal of Jewish civil servants and people labeled politically unreliable, with limited exceptions that were later...

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;...

A German decree required passports issued to Jews to be marked with a red letter J, following pressure from other states seeking to identify Jewish refugees. The measure shows how Nazi persecution...