The early timeline of Nazism begins with its origins and continues until Hitler's rise to power.
19th century influences 1841: German economist Friedrich List publishes National System of Political Economy, espousing settlement farming and agricultural expansion eastwards along with economic industrialization manipulated by the state, and the establishment of a German-dominated European economic sphere as part of the solution to Germany's economic woes (predecessor ideas to Nazi imperialism).Woodruff Smith, The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 30–31, 36, 78–79. 1856: French aristocrat and author Arthur de Gobineau publishes his An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races in which he divides the human species into three races, black, white, and yellow; arguing therein that racial distinctions form a clear and natural genetic barrier of sorts. Gobineau wrote that racial mixing would lead to chaos. While not an anti-Semite (he is often characterized as philosemitic, as he wrote positively about the Jews), his work is still considered an early manifestation of scientific racism. Historian Joachim C. Fest, in his biography of Hitler, claims that Arthur de Gobineau's negative views on race mixing influenced Hitler and thereby, the ideology of Nazism.Joachim Fest, Hitler (Orlando, FL.: Harcourt, 2002), pp. 210–211. 1870s: German chancellor Otto von Bismarck promotes campaigns against Catholics (Kulturkampf) and, later, against the Social Democratic Party, in an attempt to unify Germans in common opposition to a minority. Later referred to as "negative integration," historians cite it as setting a tone of exclusion in early Germany, which had a lasting influence on later German nationalism. 1882: The Linz Program, one of the most notable expressions of early German nationalism in Austria, is published. The program advocates a break with the Habsburg monarchy, the full Germanization of Austria and its annexation to Germany as a single nation. 1888: German jurist and international law reformer, Franz von Liszt argues that criminal characteristics are innate as opposed to being determined by a person's social environment and coins the term, Criminal Biology,Anton Weiss-Wendt and Rory Yeomans, eds., Racial Science in Hitler's New Europe, 1938–1945 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), p. 6. a theory that would later influence Nazi anthropologists and racial hygiene proponents in their justification for sterilization and euthanasia.
World War I 1914 28 July: World War I breaks out. 2 August: Adolf Hitler receives permission to enlist; joins the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment in Munich. 30 October: Adolf Hitler is transferred to regimental staff as a runner. 1 November: Adolf Hitler is promoted to Gefreiter, the equivalent of a senior private or corporal.
1916 Eugenicist Madison Grant publishes The Passing of the Great Race, which promotes the genetic supremacy of the Nordic race while warning of its racial decline, a treatise quickly embraced by members of the German racial hygiene movement.
1917 September: Pan-Germanic German Fatherland Party emerges under the leadership of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz and Wolfgang Kapp, the party's co-founders. The infamous “stab-in-the-back myth” used by right-wing organizations as a political platform allegedly originated with this party.
1918 March: Anton Drexler founded a branch of Free Workers' Committee for a Good Peace league in Munich. 17 July: Adolf Hitler saves the life of the 9th Company Commander. 4 August: Adolf Hitler awarded the Iron Cross, 1st Class. 13 October: Adolf Hitler gassed near Ypres. 3 November: Kiel mutiny triggered the German revolution. 7 November: 100,000 workers march on the Royal House of Wittelsbach. Kaiser Wilhelm II flees. 8 November: All 22 of Germany's lesser kings, princes, grand dukes, and ruling dukes have been deposed. Kaiser Wilhelm told to abdicate. 9 November: Emil Eichhorn, radical leftist of the Independent Socialists, leads an armed mob and seizes the HQ of Berlin; Kaiser Wilhelm consents to abdicate; Social Democrats demand government from Prince Max; Friedrich Ebert assumes the chancellery; First German Republic established. 11 November: World War I ends. 19 November: Hitler discharged from hospital at Pasewalk. 25 December: German first World War ex-servicemens' organization, Der Stahlhelm founded by former German Army reserve officer and industrialist Franz Seldte in Magdeburg. Mid-December: First modern Freikorps unit formed, the Maercker Volunteer Rifles.
1919 January: Independent Socialists and Spartacist League staged large protests, known as the Spartacist uprising; sections of Berlin occupied; decision made for the National Assembly to meet in the city of Weimar instead of Berlin. 5 January: Anton Drexler, along with Dietrich Eckart, Karl Harrer, Gottfried Feder and Hermann Esser, founds the German Workers' Party (DAP) from the branch of "Free Workers' Committee for a Good Peace" league and the Political Workers' Circle in Munich. 10 January: Battle for Berlin begins; Counter-revolution with Freikorps takes crucial role. 13 January: Battle of Berlin ends. 15 January: Communist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg are murdered by Freikorps officers March: Adolf Hitler finishes job of guarding Russian prisoners. 3 March: 2nd Battle for Berlin; Communists seize Berlin; Gustav Noske given executive power. 7 March: Communist Strike Committee withdraws proclamation and makes peace overtures to government. 10 March: Gustav Noske orders Peoples' Naval Division disbanded. Battle for Berlin has ended. 14 April: Freikorps suppress communists in Dresden. 16 April: "Battle" of the Bavarian government troops at Dachau; Communists defeat Republican forces. 18 April: Freikorps suppress communists in Brunswick. 27 April: Battle for Munich occurs between Communists and Freikorps units. 2 May: City of Munich taken; not declared secure until 6 May; approximately 1200 Communists killed. 10 May: Freikorps suppress communists in Leipzig. 22 June: German Reichstag ratifies the Versailles Treaty. 28 June: Versailles Treaty signed in the Hall of Mirrors (Palace of Versailles). 19 September: Hitler attends a DAP Meeting
Weimar Republic
1919 12 August 1919: The Weimar Constitution is announced. 12 September 1919: Adolf Hitler attends a meeting of the German Workers' Party (DAP) in the Sterneckerbräu in Munich and joins the party as its 55th member. In less than a week, Hitler received a postcard stating he had officially been accepted as a party member. 16 October 1919: Hitler's first pre-arranged public speech as a member of the DAP takes place in the Hofbräukeller. Late fall: Freikorps fight the Red Army in the Baltic, eventually retreat in chaos; first Silesian uprising, in which many Freikorps see combat.
1920
Many Freikorps were disbanded. Some go underground, to reappear later. January: The DAP grows to 190 members. February: Inter-Allied Control Commission order 2/3 of Freikorps disbanded. 24 February: DAP changes its name to National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). The party announces its programme in the Hofbräuhaus, known as the "25 points." 13 to 17 March: Kapp Putsch 31 March: Adolf Hitler mustered out of the army. April: Government stops paying Freikorps units. 3 April: 21 different Freikorps units, under the command of General Baron Oskar von Watter, end the Ruhr Uprising in five days; thousands killed, including summary execution of prisoners by Freikorps. 10 May: Dr. Joseph Wirth and Walter Rathenau announce their "Policy of Fulfillment"; not received well by nationalist groups. 8 August: Official founding date of the NSDAP 11 August: National Disarmament Law takes effect; disbands civil guards. 19 to 25 August: Second Silesian uprising, German Freikorps see more combat. 17 December: NSDAP buys its first paper, the Völkischer Beobachter. 31 December: NSDAP party membership was recorded at 2000.
1921 Third Silesian uprising; German forces see more combat. Hermann Erhardt forms Organisation Consul, a paramilitary group, out of former members of his banned Freikorps. Eugen Fischer, Erwin Baur, and Fritz Lenz publish the standard work of German racialism, Human Hereditary Teaching and Racial Hygiene, a work which served as a basis for the Nazi racial hygiene policies and their euthanasia campaign.Beno Müller Hull, "Human Genetics in Nazi Germany", in Medicine, Ethics and the Third Reich, edited by John J. Michalczyk (Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1994), pp. 27–33. February 1921: highly effective at speaking to large audiencesHitler spoke to a crowd of over 6,000 in Munich. 28 July: Adolf Hitler is elected chairman of the NSDAP with only one dissenting vote. Executive Committee of the party is dissolved. Party Founder Anton Drexler is made "Honorary Chairman" and resigns from the party soon after. Hitler soon begins to refer to himself as "Führer" (Leader). August 1921: NSDAP party membership was recorded at 3,300.
1922 Prototype versions of the Hitler Youth form. The Prussian State Health Commission for Racial Hygiene works to centralise the institute's research concerning the practical application of racial hygiene, eugenics and anthropology.Gretchen E. Schafft, From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004), p. 47. 12 January: Adolf Hitler sentenced to three months for disturbance of 14 September 1921. 24 June: Hitler incarcerated; German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau assassinated, some involved are in the Organisation Consul. July: Inflation hits the German economy: 670 RM = 1 US$ 27 July: Hitler released. August: 2,000 RM = US$1 October: 4,500 RM = US$1 28 October: Benito Mussolini establishes his Fascist dictatorship in Italy. November: 10,000 RM = US$1 22 November: Dr. Wirth leaves office 16 December: The German Völkisch Freedom Party (DVFP) was founded when Wilhelm Henning, Reinhold Wulle and Albrecht von Graefe broke from the German National People's Party (DNVP). 27 December: France occupies the Ruhr.
1923 28 January: First Nazi Party Day held under the slogan Germany Awake in Munich. February: Reichsbank buys back RM; stabilizes RM at 20,000 to US$1 4 May: RM 40,000 = US$1 27 May: Albert Leo Schlageter, a German freebooter and saboteur, executed by a French firing squad in the Ruhr. Hitler declared him a hero that the German people was not worthy to possess. 1 June: RM 70,000 = US$1 30 June: RM 150,000 = US$1 1–7 August: Inflation became hyperinflation: RM 3,500,000 = US$1 13 August: Dr. Wilhelm Cuno leaves office 15 August: RM 4,000,000 = US$1 1 September: RM 10,000,000 = US$1 1–2 September: German Day Rally takes place in Nuremberg and the Deutscher Kampfbund is formed. 24 September: Chancellor Gustav Stresemann ends the passive resistance in the Ruhr; infuriates the nationalists. 25 September: Hitler is made political leader of the Kampfbund. 30 September: Major Fedor von Bock crushes a coup attempt by the Black Reichswehr. RM 60,000,000 = US$1 6 October: Stresemann forms his 2nd cabinet 11 October: Ernst Röhm forms the Bund Reichskriegsflagge and brings it into the Kampfbund. 20 October: General Alfred Mueller marches on Saxony to prevent a communist takeover. General Otto von Lossow in Bavaria is relieved of command by Berlin; he refuses to cmoply. 23 October: Communist takeover of Hamburg 25 October: Hamburg uprising suppressed 8 November: Hitler and Erich Ludendorff launch the Beer Hall Putsch in the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich. 9 November: Beer Hall Putsch quelled.
1924 26 February: Hitler Putsch trial begins. 1 April: Hitler sentenced to five-years at Landsberg prison. From here, Hitler writes Mein Kampf with the assistance of Rudolf Hess