| March 12 1938 Hitler annexes Austria (Anschluss) April 26 1938 Jews ordered to report all property at home and abroad by June July 1938 Jewish doctors' licenses revoked; Evian Conference held in Evian, France, brings together international community at F.D. Roosevelt's request, but only Holland and Denmark increase immigrant quota to take in Jewish refugees Aug 17 1938 Jews cannot have Aryan names, must add middle name Israel and Sara to own names Sept 1938 Hitler asks W. Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland) to surrender to Germany because of the great numbers of ethnic Germans living there; British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agrees, thinking this is Hitler's last territorial demand Oct 1938 Evian Conference attendees send Hitler a carte blanche memorandum; thousands of Jews taken to German-Polish border, refused by Poland, and made to set up makeshift camps in no-man's land in the middle of the two countries; in Paris, teenage son of one couple in such a camp hears of parents' fate and shoots the Third Secretary at the German embassy, Ernst vom Rath. Goebbels seizes the opportunity to orchestrate... Nov 9/10 1938 Kristallnacht -- SA and others, aided by the police, fire brigade, and public, kill 91 people, burn 300 synagogues and destroy 7,000 Jewish shops; public reaction is disapproving, as are Goering (Hitler's second-in-command) and Himmler (head of the SS) Nov 12 1938 Nazi Convention of Goering, Goebbels, Heydrich determines laws of cultural and social segregation, new economic measures, possible solutions, "once and for all" to "the Jewish question" (including the possibilities of reich-wide forced Jewish emigration); a 1-billion reichsmark fine given to Jewish community for provoking Kristallnacht's "just wrath" Nov 1938 Hitler tells German press to prepare for war by not writing about the desirability of peace; 25,000 Jews rounded up and interned in Buchenwald, Dachau Nov 16 1938 no Jews in German schools |
| 1938 |