1933 in Germany
Events in the year 1933 in Germany.
Incumbents
National level
- Chancellor:
- * Kurt von Schleicher
- * Adolf Hitler
- President: Paul von Hindenburg
Events in Germany
- 30 January – Nazi leader Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany by President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg.
- 1 February – Adolf Hitler gives his "Proclamation to the German People" in Berlin.
- 27 February – The Reichstag, Germany's parliament building in Berlin, is set on fire under controversial circumstances.
- 28 February – The Reichstag Fire Decree is passed in response to the Reichstag fire, nullifying many German civil liberties.
- 1 March – Hundreds are arrested as the Nazis round up their political opponents.
- 5 March – German federal election, March 1933: National Socialists gain 43.9% of the votes.
- 8 March – Nazis occupy the Bavarian State Parliament and expel deputies.
- 12 March – Hindenburg bans the flag of the republic and orders the Imperial and Nazi flag to fly side by side.
- 15 March – Hitler proclaims the Third Reich.
- 20 March – Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed.
- 21 March – Jewish organizations announce an economic boycott of German goods.
- 23 March – The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany, curbing its own power.
- 1 April – The recently elected Nazis under Julius Streicher organise a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany.
- 7 April – The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service is passed, forcing all "non-Aryans" to retire from the legal profession and civil service.
- 21 April – Germany outlaws the kosher ritual shechita.
- 26 April – The Gestapo is established in Germany.
- 27 April – Der [Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten |Der Stahlhelm] veterans organisation joins the Nazi Party.
- 1 May - parades held to celebrate May Day, which had been declared "national workers' day" and a public holiday by the Nazi government. Hitler and Hindenburg attend the parade in Berlin.
- 2 May - all Trade Unions closed down, their headquarters and records were seized, and their leaders attacked and imprisoned.
- 6 May – Nazi raid on the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft
- 10 May – Nazi book burnings are staged publicly throughout Germany.
- 26 May – The Nazi Party introduces a law to legalise eugenic sterilisation.
- 2 June – The Nazi authorities form the 'Expert Committee on Questions of Population and Racial Policy' under Reich Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick.
- 21 June – All non-Nazi political parties are forbidden.
- 25 June – The Wilmersdorfer Tennishallen delegates convene in Berlin to protest against the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi Germany.
- 14 July – Forming new political parties is forbidden. The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring is implemented.
- 20 July – Signing of the Reichskonkordat between the Vatican and Nazi Germany.
- 23 August – The Nazis publish the first of the four lists of people whose German citizenship, passports and other privileges are withdrawn. On the first list of thirty-three names are the Jewish authors Lion Feuchtwanger, Ernst Toller and Kurt Tucholsky.
- 25 August – The Haavara Agreement is signed between Nazi Germany, the Zionist Federation of Germany and the Anglo-Palestine Bank, allowing approximately 60,000 German Jews to leave Germany and move to Palestine.
- 30 August–3 September – The 5th Nazi Party Congress is held in Nuremberg and is called the "Rally of Victory" in reference to the Nazi seizure of power
- 16 October – Germany officially announces its intention to leave the League of Nations.
Births
- 3 March – Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, German Vice President of the Union of European Football Associations
- 5 March – Walter Kasper, German cardinal of Roman-Catholic Church
- 6 March
- * William Davis, German-born British journalist
- * Willy Schäfer, German actor
- 7 March – Hannelore Kohl, first wife of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
- 9 March – Reinhard Lettmann, bishop of the Roman Catholic Church
- 14 March – Duke Carl Gregor of Mecklenburg, German nobleman and musician
- 20 March – Michael Pfleghar, German film director and screenwriter
- 7 April – Johannes Schaaf, German film and theatre director
- 15 May – Ursula Schleicher, German politician and harpist
- 29 May – Helmuth Rilling, German choral conductor
- 8 June – Ernst W. Hamburger, German-born Brazilian physicist
- 20 June – Hatto Beyerle, German musician
- 3 July – Maximilian, Margrave of Baden, German nobleman
- 5 July – Michael Heltau, German actor and singer
- 11 July – Ernst Jacobi, German actor
- 14 July – Franz, Duke of Bavaria, German nobleman
- 15 July – Manfred Homberg, German boxer
- 16 July – Heinz Dürr, German entrepreneur
- 21 July – Brigitte Reimann, German novelist
- 6 August – Ulrich Biesinger, German footballer
- 16 August – Reiner Kunze, German writer
- 10 September – Karl Lagerfeld, German fashion designer
- 16 September – Steve Shirley, German-born British businesswoman
- 20 September – Alois Graf von Waldburg-Zeil, German politician
- 3 October – Johannes Beutler, German theologian and Catholic priest
- 14 October – Wilfried Dietrich, German wrestler
- 23 October – Yigal Tumarkin, German-born Israeli painter and sculptor
- 30 October – Johanna von Koczian, German actress
- 6 November – Else Ackermann, German physician, pharmacologist and politician
- 8 November – Lothar Fischer, German sculptor
- 9 November – Renate Ewert, German actress
- 13 November
- * Karl-Otto Alberty, German actor
- * Peter Härtling, German writer, poet, publisher and journalist
- 20 November – Hermann von Richthofen, German diplomat
- 4 December – Horst Buchholz, German actor
- 10 December – Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, German jazz musician
Deaths
- 3 January – Wilhelm Cuno, German politician and former Chancellor of Germany
- 1 February – Gustav Lilienthal, German social reformer
- 14 February – Carl Correns, German botanist and geneticist
- 24 February – Johannes Meisenheimer, German zoologist
- 26 February – Princess Thyra of Denmark, Crown Princess of Hanover
- 12 April – Andreas Blunck, German politician
- 24 April – Wilhelm von Schoen, German diplomat
- 27 May – James Loeb, German banker
- 24 July – Max von Schillings, German conductor
- 7 September – Max Adalbert, German actor
- 9 September – Friedrich Fülleborn, German physician who specialized in tropical medicine and parasitology
- 14 September – Theodor Rocholl, German painter
- 11 October – Reinhold Tiling, German engineer
- 19 October – Heinrich Brauns, politician
- 25 October – Friedrich Heinrich Albert Wangerin, German mathematician
- 26 November – Franz Bracht, German politician
- 4 December – Stefan George, German symbolist poet
- 9 December – Julius Falkenstein, German actor
Modern comparisons
The 1933 power grab by the Nazi party has been associated with modern political events, particularly the Presidency of Donald Trump in the United States and the 2023 Israeli judicial reform.
Professor Daniel Blatman, a historian of the Holocaust at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, stated in a February 2023 interview with Haaretz that the situation surrounding the 2023 [Israeli judicial reform |proposed judicial reform] at the time, "Really Does Recall Germany in 1933", and referred to the more extreme ministers of the government as "neo-Nazi". Israeli journalists and others repeated or elaborated on Blatman's compassion.
In a 2017 essay titled "The Reichstag Fire Next Time: The coming crackdown" Russian-American journalist M. Gessen wrote, "The Reichstag fire, it goes almost without saying, will be a terrorist attack, and it will mark our sudden, obvious, and irreversible descent into autocracy".