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Hitler Becomes Leader of the Nazi Party
, Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. Under Hitler, the Nazi Party grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany as a totalitarian state from 1933 to 1945. -
Nazis take control of the German government
As a result of the Nazis’ mass support, German president Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933. His appointment paved the way to the Nazi dictatorship after Hindenburg’s death in August 1934. -
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Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers' Party)
the National Socialist German Workers' Party (or Nazi Party for short) was a small party on the radical right of the German political spectrum. -
Nuremberg Laws
The Nazis enacted the Nuremberg Laws, because they wanted to put their ideas about race into law. They believed in the false theory that the world is divided into distinct races that are not equally strong and valuable. -
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, literally, "Night of Crystal," is often referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass." The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938. This wave of violence took place throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland View This Term in the Glossary in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops. -
Fact
The mass murder of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators required the coordination and cooperation of governmental agencies throughout Axis-controlled Europe. -
Fact #2
The Wannsee Conference was a high-level meeting of German officials to discuss and implement the so-called “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” (mass killing). -
Fact #3
The SS envisioned that some 11 million Jews, some of them not living on German-controlled territory, would be eradicated as part of the Nazi program. -
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Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution
On January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."