One of the defining features of the Nazis’ regime was their apparatus of terror. This image shows the devastation of Kristallnacht, an antisemitic pogrom which took place in November 1938. Over the course of this pogrom alone, over 25,000 people were sent to concentration camps, over 7,500 businesses had their windows smashed, over 1,000 synagogues were destroyed and just under 100 people were murdered.
Courtesy of The Wiener Holocaust Library Collections.
The Nazis came to power in 1933, and were defeated at the end of the Second World War in 1945.
During their twelve years in power their ideology and actions shaped almost every aspect of life in Germany and the countries that they occupied.
This section will give an overview of the Nazis’ Third Reich.
On 4 October 1933, it was decreed that all editors must be ‘Aryan’. Image shows a copy of the Editorship Law.
On 14 October 1933, just six months after Hitler was elected, Germany left the League of Nations.
On 10 October 1938, the Sudetenland was occupied by the German Wehrmacht and annexed.
On 3 October 1940, shortly after its defeat, France introduced its first antisemitic law under occupation - the Statut de Juifs.
On 16 October 1940, the Warsaw Ghetto was established.
