12 January — The German War Minister Field Marshal
Werner von Blomberg marries Eva Gruhn in Berlin;
Hermann Göring is best man at the wedding.
27 January — German War Minister Field Marshal
Werner von Blomberg resigns, following the revelation that his new wife had previously posed for pornographic photos.
4 February —
Adolf Hitler abolishes the War Ministry and creates the
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces), giving him direct control of the German military. In addition, Hitler sacks political and military leaders considered unsympathetic to his philosophy or policies. General
Werner von Fritsch is forced to resign as Commander of Chief of the German Army following accusations of homosexuality, and replaced by General
Walther von Brauchitsch. Foreign Minister Baron
Konstantin von Neurath is sacked and replaced by
Joachim von Ribbentrop.
12 February — Chancellor
Kurt von Schuschnigg of Austria meets
Adolf Hitler at
Berchtesgaden and, under threat of invasion, is forced to yield to German demands for greater
Nazi participation in the Austrian government.
3 March — Sir
Nevile Henderson, British Ambassador to Germany, presents a proposal to Hitler for an international consortium to rule much of Africa (in which Germany would be assigned a leading role) in exchange for a German promise never to resort to war to change her frontiers; Hitler rejects the British offer.
12 March — Anschluss: German troops occupy Austria, which has a 200,000-strong Jewish population mostly in the capital city
Vienna.
13 March — Annexation of Austria by Germany is declared.
5 May — General
Ludwig Beck, Chief of the German Army's General Staff, submits a memorandum to Hitler opposing Fall Grün (Case Green), the plan for a war with Czechoslovakia, under the grounds that Germany is ill-prepared for the world war likely to result from such an attack.
23 May — Temporarily frustrated by the Czechoslovak mobilization and international diplomatic unity in the face of German demands over the
Sudetenland,
Hitler orders the Foreign Office to assure the Czechoslovaks that he has no demands on their territory. The world at large mistakenly believes the crisis is averted.
28 May — In a conference at the Reichs Chancellery,
Hitler declares his decision to destroy
Czechoslovakia by military force, and orders the immediate mobilization of 96 Wehrmacht divisions.
1 July — The new town of
Wolfsburg in
Lower Saxony is set up to serve the
Volkswagen car factory, where production of the
Beetle people's car had begun the previous year.[1]
10 August — At a secret summit with his leading generals, Hitler attacks General Beck's arguments against Fall Grün, winning the majority of his senior officers over to his point of view.
18 August — Colonel General
Ludwig Beck, convinced that
Hitler's decision to attack
Czechoslovakia will lead to a general European war, resigns his position as Chief of the Army General Staff in protest.
5-12 September — The
10th Nazi Party Congress is held and named the "Rally of Greater Germany" (Reichsparteitag Großdeutschland) in reference to the
Anschluss of
Austria.
10 September —
Hermann Göring, in a speech at
Nuremberg, calls the
Czechs a "miserable pygmy race" who are "harassing the human race." That same evening,
Edvard Beneš, President of
Czechoslovakia, makes a broadcast in which he appeals for calm.
17 September —
Neville Chamberlain returns temporarily to London to confer with his cabinet.
22 September —
Neville Chamberlain arrives in the city of
Godesberg for another round of talks with
Hitler over the
Sudetenland crisis.
Hitler raises his demands to include occupation of all German Sudeten territories by October 1. That night after a telephone conference, Chamberlain reverses himself and advises the Czechoslovaks to mobilize.
24 September — At 1:30 AM,
Adolf Hitler and
Neville Chamberlain conclude their talks on the
Sudetenland. Chamberlain agrees to take Hitler's demands, codified in the Godesberg Memorandum, personally to the Czech Government. The Czech Government rejects the demands, as does Chamberlain's own cabinet. The French Government also initially rejects the terms and orders a partial mobilization of the French army.
26 September — In a vitriolic speech at Berlin's Sportpalast, Hitler defies the world and implies war with
Czechoslovakia will begin at any time.
28 September — As his self-imposed October 1 deadline for occupation of the
Sudetenland approaches,
Adolf Hitler invites Italian Duce Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edourd Deladier, and British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain to one last conference in
Munich. The Czechs themselves are not invited.
29 September — Colonel
Graham Christie, former British military attaché in Berlin, is informed by
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler that the mobilization of the
Royal Navy has badly damaged the popularity of the Nazi regime, as the German public realizes that Fall Grün is likely to cause a world war.
29 September —
Munich Agreement: German, Italian, British and French leaders agree to German demands regarding annexation of the
Sudetenland in
Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak government is largely excluded from the negotiations and is not a signatory to the agreement.
1 October — German troops march into the
Sudetenland. The Polish government gives the Czech government an ultimatum stating that the
Trans-Olza region must be handed over within twenty-four hours. The Czechs have little choice but to comply. Polish forces occupy Trans-Olza.
16 October — The German government expels 12,000 Polish Jews living in Germany; the Polish government accepts 4,000 and refuses admittance to the remaining 8,000, who are forced to live in the no-man's land on the German-Polish frontier.
28 October — Some 17,000 Polish Jews are arrested by Nazis and deported to
Poland, which refuses them entry and leaves them stranded on the border of the two countries.
9 November —
Holocaust –
Kristallnacht: In Germany, the "night of broken glass" begins as
Nazi activists and sympathizers loot and burn
Jewish businesses (the all night affair sees 7,500 Jewish businesses destroyed, 267
synagogues burned, 91 Jews killed, and at least 25,000 Jewish men arrested).
12 November — Hitler fines the Jewish community 1 billion marks for the death of Ernst vom Rath.[2]
6 December — German Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop visits Paris, where he is allegedly informed by French Foreign Minister
Georges Bonnet that France now recognizes all of
Eastern Europe as being in Germany's exclusive sphere of influence. Bonnet's alleged statement (Bonnet always denied making the remark) to Ribbentrop is a major factor in German policy in 1939.