1933 Details Page

HISTORICAL DATA-1933:

  JANUARY:   On Thursday, January 26 of this year in Berlin the aging President of the German Republic, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, tells General Kurt von Hammerstein, the Army Commander in Chief, that he entertains "no intention whatsoever of making that Austrian corporal (Adolf Hitler) either Minister of Defense or Chancellor of the Reich."

     On Saturday, January 28 of this year the aging President von Hindenburg of Germany dismisses General Kurt von Schleicher from the position of Chancellor of the German Republic. This dismissal has come abruptly, but von Schleicher, during his fifty-seven days in office, had never been able to rule the country except by presidential decree.

     At this time also Adolf Hitler, who leads the National Socialists, is demanding that he himself should be named Chancellor; he heads the largest political party in the country.

     On Sunday, January 29 of this year 100,000 German workers crowd into the Lustgarten in the middle of Berlin. They are there to demonstrate their opposition to the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of the country. One of the leaders of this group tries to contact General von Hammerstein, the Commander in Chief of the Army, to propose some kind of joint civil-military action in the event that Hitler does get named as Chancellor.

     At this time Adolf Hitler is living in a room at the Kaiserhof hotel, a short distance from the Chancellery building, and on the afternoon of the 29th he is having coffee and cakes with Joseph Goebbels and some other close aides when Hermann Goering, President of the Reichstag and Hitler's second-in-command in the Nazi Party, comes running into the room. He makes the flat statement that tomorrow Hitler will be named Chancellor by von Hindenburg. Even so, Hitler spends the night of January 29 and the early morning hours of January 30 anxiously awaiting word of his future fate. He is anxious, but at the same time, he is utterly confident that things will go his way. He has spent almost a month already secretly plotting with Franz von Papen, the former Chancellor, and other right-wing political leaders in the government. Hitler knows that the time is still not right for an all-out Nazi government, and he has expressed a willingness to compromise with the conservative leaders. He knows that he can be Chancellor of a coalition government, with eight out of the eleven members being non-Nazis. These eight agree with him on the need to do away with the democratic Weimar government.

     On Monday, January 30 of this year, a little before noon, Adolf Hitler makes the short drive from his room in the Kaiserhof hotel to the German Chancellery building in Berlin. He leaves behind his close associates Roehm, Goebbels, and others as he goes to an interview with the eighty-six -year-old President von Hindenburg.

     Hitler has a short conversation with President von Hindenburg at the Chancellery building, and then he returns to his own apartment at the Kaiserhof hotel. Nothing is said at first, but all of his close party associates: Goering,Goebbels, Roehm and others in the Brownshirt movement know that he is now the Chancellor of Germany.

     All through this evening and night, until after midnight, Nazi storm troopers march exhuberantly past his hotel. Tens of thousands of them march in orderly columns from the Tiergarten, through the great arch of the Brandenburg Gate, and on down the Wilhelmstrasse. Their bands blare out the old marching songs, as well as the new "Horst Wessel" hymn. Adolf Hitler stands at an open window in the Chancellery building, taking it all in. He is completely thrilled by the spectacle, and several times he breaks into a little dance, jumping up and down.
JANUARY: In Germany for the month ending on January 31 of this year there are 4,803 male applicants for every 100 available job openings; this is the highest level of job scarcity yet reached in this country. (SOURCE: Data from NBER ((National Bureau of Economic Research)) tabulation of "Germany Male Applicants Per Hundred Positions 01/1896-07/1914, 01/1915-09/1934" at: http://www.nber.org/databases/macrohistory/rectdata/08/m08028.dat accessed 11/17/2013-GD).
JANUARY: In the state of Illinois in the United States of America there were 174 applicants for each 100 open jobs listed at the state's Free Employment Offices in the month ending on January 31 of this year. This is up from the level of 135 per hundred openings reported in December of last year, but well down from the high level of 223 per 100 openings which was recorded in Illinois in January, 1932. (SOURCE: Data from NBER ((National Bureau of Economic Research)) tabulation of "U.S. Labor Market Index 01/1920-12/1934" at: http://www.nber.org/databases/macrohistory/rectdata/08m08027.dat accessed 11/17/2013-GD).
FEBRUARY: In Germany on February 1 of this year newly-installed Chancellor Adolf Hitler delivers a radio address to the German people. He tells the people that his government regards it as its "first and supreme task to restore to the German people unity of mind and will." He says that the government will protect Christianity as the basis of its morality, and the family as the nucleus of the nation. The government, he says, will reorganize the national economy with two large Four-Year Plans: one for farmers and one for German workers with a "massive and comprehensive" fight against unemployment, which will "completely overcome" that scourge "within four years". His plans, he tells the people, will join Germany into the community of nations with equal status and equal rights. But to do this, he says, Germany must overcome the demoralization which it has suffered at the hands of the communists. He asks the people to give him and his party four years to correct the ruin that the nation has suffered in fourteen years at the hands of the communists. He concludes by stating that he and the party "have no desire to fight for ourselves; only for Germany." (Source: "Hitler's First Radio Address" at: facinghistory.org retrieved 2-18-2024:GD).
FEBRUARY: On February 27 of this year the German Reichstag parliament building is set ablaze. Some people in Germany as well as in foreign countries immediately suspect that Adolf Hitler's Nazi party is responsible for the arson to the building, but the Nazis quickly blame it on the Communist Party. The Nazi leaders now exert all of their energy to try to convince public opinion that the fire was just the beginning of an actual attempted political revolution by the Communists.
On the next day, February 28, the now-Chancellor Adolf Hitler succeeds in getting the old and sickly President von Hindenburg to sign a Presidential decree that suspends the broad guarantees of individual freedom given to the German people in the Constitution of the Weimar Republic. The decree suspends Sections 114, 115,117,118,123,124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich "until further notice." Under this emergency proclamation, the government is given permission to violate the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications, and warrants for searches of private dwellings and other police activities are permitted to exceed previous legal limits. (SOURCE: NAZI CONSPIRACY AND AGGRESSION--VOLUME I--Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality---United States Government Printing Office Washington, D.C.--1946, pg. 126)
MARCH: On March 3 of this year, Franz von Papen delivers a speech in Stuttgart, Germany in which he makes an "appeal to the German Conscience", sharply attacking those who regard "the [German] states simply as legal successors of the former states of the German union..." He says that, "A construction of a state is a federalist one if it rests to considerable extent upon contract law, and upon the mutual recognition of living legal units which give birth, in a legal fashion, to an all-embracing political being. The principle of force will thus be limited to a minimum; force can only be applied to prevent a decay of unity in behalf of the basic right to live." He further claims that, "No nation is less adaptable to being governed centralistically than the German nation." (Source: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume VI Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality United States Government Printing Office Washington, D.C.-1946, page 1).
MARCH: On March 9 of this year a group of SS and SA Stormtroopers raid the Cologne home of William F. Sollman, destroying his furniture and personal records. He is then taken to he Brown House in Cologne where he is beaten and tortured. Sollman is the editor-in-chief of a string of anti-Nazi newspapers. (Source: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume II-Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946, page 144).
On March 13 of this year in Germany a decree establishes the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda; the head of this new Department of the government will be named shortly. (SOURCE: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume II-Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946, page 43).
In the United States of America banks begin to reopen on March 13 of this year after having been ordered to shut and to "take a holiday" by President Franklin Roosevelt. (SOURCE: Feature, "Almanac", New York Newsday, Thursday, March 13, 1997, page Q A2).
On March 17 of this year Dr. Joseph Goebbels becomes Minister for People's Enlightenment and Propaganda in the new National Socialist government in Germany. (Source: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume VI-Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946, page 177).
On March 22 of this year in the United States of America, President Roosevelt signs into effect a law that makes wine and beer containing no more than 3.2% of alcohol, legal for sale and consumption in that country, which currently has a "Prohibition Law" in effect against the sale of stronger spirits. (Source: Almanac feature, NEWSDAY, Sunday, March 22, 1998, pg. Q A2.)
On March 23 of this year in Germany the Reichstag enacts a new law conferring full legislative powers and authority to enact laws upon the Reich Cabinet. Prominent members of the top Leadership Corps of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) are among the members of the Reich Cabinet, and thus the Party-through these members- will have power to enact laws on its own volition. (SOURCE: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume II-Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946, page 43).
APRIL: At about April 1 of this year Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard takes a train from Berlin, Germany to Vienna, Austria. The train is empty. (SOURCE: The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes ((paperback)), page 25).
APRIL: On April 1 of this year the Nazi party in Germany establishes the Foreign Affairs Bureau of the Party (Aussenpolitisches Amt). Adolf Hitler says that it should not be expanded into a large bureaucratic agency, but should rather develop its effectiveness through initiative and suggestions. (SOURCE: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Documents-International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg-Document 007-PS, page 27).
APRIL: On the weekend of April 1 of this year Julius Streicher directs a national boycott in Germany of Jewish businesses, and Jews are beaten in the streets of some cities. (SOURCE: The Making of the Atomic Bomb-Richard Rhodes ((paperback)), page 25).
APRIL: On April 7 of this year the Law for the Restoration of the Career Civil Service is promulgated throughout Germany. As a result, thousands of Jewish scholars and scientists lose their positions in German universities. (SOURCE: The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes ((paperback)), page 26).
APRIL: In Washington, D.C. the U.S. Army's War Plans Division, in a memo for Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur on April 19 of this year, includes a comment which illustrates the current state of reluctant acceptance by the Army of the fact that there is no desire in the present Congress to maintain what the Planners consider to be an adequate level of manpower and supplies for the military establishment. The Planners write that recommendations for an increase in Army manpower levels would be presented to the President, to Congress, and to the Budget Office "...not with any hope or idea of obtaining immediate action, but so that those responsible would understand the condition and that it should be remedied when possible." (SOURCE: UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II The War Department CHIEF OF STAFF: PREWAR PLANS AND PREPARATIONS by Mark Skinner Watson Historical Division Department of the Army Washington, D.C. 1950, page 26).
APRIL: On April 21 of this year Robert Ley, Reichsleiter for Party Organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party), issues a directive ordering the employment of the Sturmabteilung (SA-Stormtroopers) and the SS (Shutzstaffel) in the takeover and occupation of trade union properties and in the capturing of trade union leaders, who are then to be held in "protective custody". This order says (extract): "...SA as well as SS are to be employed for the occupation of trade union properties and for the taking of personalities who come into question into protective custody. The Gauleiter [Regional Director] is to proceed with his measures on a basis of the closest understanding with competent Regional Factory Cells Director. ..." (SOURCE: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume II-Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946, page 37).
APRIL: In Germany on April 26 of this year Herman Goering establishes the secret state police, which will become universally known by its German acronym, GESTAPO, and he appoints Rudolf Diels as its deputy leader. Goering tells Diels that his main task will be "to eliminate political opponents of national socialism and Hitler". (Source: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume V-Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946, page 205, Document 2460-PS).
APRIL: At some time during this month the prototype XJF-1 Duck amphibian aircraft makes its first flight at the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation plant at Farmingdale, Long Island, New York. The Duck is a biplane equipped with a long, fuselage-mounted float and two underwing floats. (SOURCE: Article, GRUMMAN'S SEABIRDS Ducks on the Pond, Geese in the Air, Widgeons in the Sky! by Jack Dean in WINGS Magazine, August, 1994, pg. 11).
MAY: On May 1 of this year Hans Fritzsche becomes a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) in Germany. Fritzsche is head of the Wireless Service in the new Ministry for People's Enlightenment and Propaganda. (SOURCE: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume VI-Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946, page 177).
MAY: On May 2 of this year in Germany, trade union headquarters are occupied throughout the country. The union funds are seized and the unions themselves are abolished and union leaders are arrested. (Source: Article, "German Labour Front" in Wikipedia, September 12, 2024).
MAY: On May 5 of this year in Germany the leader of the committee responsible for the action to take over the free German trade unions and shutting them down reports to Adolf Hitler that the action was successful. (Source: Document 392-PS on page 382 in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume III-Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946).
JUNE: On June 9 of this year a law is enacted by the German government ; it is entitled the "Law Governing Obligations to Pay Foreign Creditors" and it deals with such matters as the setting of official rates of exchange between German currency and that of other nations. At this time Hjalmar Schact is president of the Reichsbank, the German National Bank, and this law gives him broad powers to compute rates of exchange and time for payment of foreign credits. (SOURCE: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume VI-Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946, page 467).
JUNE: At this time (about June 9 of this year) in Germany, according to a post-war interrogation of Hjalmar Schact, the country "could not pay any more the foreign creditors, but we did not want the German debtor to become released of his debt because it was only the problem of transfer involved, so the debtor had to pay to the conversion office and thereby was released of his debt, but the conversion office held that money on account of the creditor, and the intention was to pay the creditor as far and as soon as transfer would be made possible." (SOURCE: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume VI-Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946, page 469).
JUNE: On Wednesday, June 14 of this year, Chancellor Adolf Hitler addressed the assembled leaders of the National Socialist German Workers Party in Berlin. He told the assembled delegates that their party was the "bearer of the philosophy of the new Germany" and that it must expand, "for in this movement are the roots of our strength." He also said that the tasks of the party have not yet been completed, and that the law of national revolution "has not yet run its course." The dynamics of that revolution, he said, "still govern developments in Germany that irresistibly tend toward the complete reconstitution of German life." He went on to declare that, just as the party had overcome "political difficulties within Germany", it would triumph over foreign and economic problems as well. The New York Times, in its report on this meeting, said that the delegates had sent a telegram to Theodor Habicut, whom it described as "the German Nazi leader expelled from Austria", and to the Austrian Nazi party praising their "brave conduct". The party's message said that, "We think reverently of all our party comrades thrown in prison by an insane system in violation of all law." (Source: Report, " HITLER BIDS NAZIS EXPAND MOVEMENT", by "Wireless to The New York Times" from Berlin on June 14 [1933], on page L 9 of the Thursday, June 15, 1933 edition of the New York Times-retrieved from the Timesmachine at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/06/15/issue.html on 3/1/2019 by G. Dempsey).
JUNE: In an indication of continuing political developments within Germany, the New York Times reported on June 15 of this year that German President von Hindenburg had sent a letter to Doctor Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, the new Protestant Reich Bishop in which the President promised to meet with him following his return to Berlin from a vacation. This was in contrast to the recent action of Chancellor Adolf Hitler, who the newspaper said had "refused an audience" to the Bishop "whose retention as the first Evangelical Bishop of the Reich is being vigorously opposed by the Nazi German Christians." (Source: Report, "HINDENBURG TO SEE BISHOP" by the Associated Press, on page L 9 of the Thursday, June 15, 1933 edition of the New York Times-retrieved from the Timesmachine at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/06/15/issue.html on 3/1/2019 by G. Dempsey).
JUNE: On June 30 of this year in Washington, D.C. U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur, in his Annual Report, outlines three possible manpower levels for the Army, and he considers the means of mobilizing a defense force from each of those levels. The first-and lowest-level is the current authorized strength of 118,000 enlisted men. The next-higher level is the hoped-for number of 165,000 men; the highest level is the full amount allowed by the National Defense Act of 1920 (but never yet achieved): 280,000 men. (SOURCE: UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II The War Department CHIEF OF STAFF: PREWAR PLANS AND PREPARATIONS by Mark Skinner Watson Historical Division Department of the Army Washington, D. C. 1950, page 26).
JUNE (NO SPECIFIC DATE): At about this time, according to the American staff preparing for the trial of the major alleged German war criminals in Nuremberg, Germany, "the Nazi conspiritors, having acquired governmental control over Germany, were in a position to enter upon further and more detailed planning with particular relationship to foreign policy. Their plan was to re-arm and to re-occupy an fortify the Rhineland, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and other treaties, in order to acquire military strength and political bargaining power to be used against other nations." (Source: Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression-Volume I-Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality--United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.--1946, page 22).
JULY: On July 14 of this year a decree is issued in Germany that makes it illegal for any political party except the Nazi Party (National Socialist Gerrman Workers' Party) to exist in that country. Also, at about this time, and looking forward to the about-to-be-signed Concordat between the Vatican and the German government, Adolf Hitler demands the "voluntary" dissolution of the Catholic Center Party, which is by now the only remaining active free democratic party in Germany. (SOURCE: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) New York, NY 2000, pg. 85).
JULY: On July 20 of this year a Concordat between the Vatican and the German government is signed. This agreement says that the Roman Catholic Church will keep priests and other religious influences out of politics; for his part, Adolf Hitler agrees to allow complete freedom to confessional schools throughout Germany, and makes other concessions. One of these additional provisions of the agreement is that the Catholic Youth Organization in Germany should be allowed to continue functioning free of government interference. Pope Pius XI says that he is pleased that the German government is now being led by a man who is completely opposed to Communism and Russian nihilism in all its forms. The Holy Father even goes so far as to ask God to bless the German Reich. On a more earthly level, the Vatican orders all Catholic Bishops in Germany to swear allegiance to the National Socialist regime.

On this same day, July 20, 1933, a law is enacted in Germany that orders the dismissal of officials who belong to the Communist Party or who are otherwise engaged in helping to push forward the aims of the Communist doctrine. The law also provides for the dismissal, in the future, of those who are found to be active for Marxism, Communism, or Social Democracy. This is called the Law to Supplement the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service of 20 July 1933. (SOURCE: NAZI CONSPIRACY AND AGGRESSION--VOLUME II--Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality---United States Government Printing Office Washington, D.C.--1946, pg. 44).
JULY: In Washington, D.C. on July 20 of this year the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War, Planning Branch, issues Circular 2, which is the basic directive for procurement planning. It directs the supply arms to classify all their procurement needs into three groups: those with very difficult problems; those with minor problems; and those with no problems. (SOURCE: United States Army in World War II-The War Department-The Army and Economic Mobilization by R. Elberton Smith, page 48).
JULY (NO SPECIFIC DATE): At some time during this month a law is enacted in Germany, called the "Law for the Prevention of Heriditarily Diseased Offspring". This law calls for the mandatory sterilization of anyone who had one or more of a broad range of conditions, such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, Huntington's chorea or imbecility, all of which were thought to be hereditary. In addition, chronic alcoholism was also covered under this law, and its victims were also made subject to forced sterilization. (SOURCE: See website for the "holocaust forum" here:).
AUGUST: On August 4 of this year Adolf Hitler writes a letter to his closest (and one of his few) boyhood friends, August Kubizek. The German leader says that he would be very happy to meet with him and to recall what Hitler calls 'the best years of my life".
SEPTEMBER: In the September 1, 1933 edition of The Times of London there is an anonymous rburteview of H. G. Wells' book The Shape of Things to Come. The critic expresses the opinion that Wells has "attempted something of the sort on earlier occasions - that rather haphazard work, 'The World Set Free' comes particularly to mind-but never with anything like the same continuous abundance and solidity of detail." (Source: The Making of the Atomic Bomb-by Richard Rhodes ((paperback)), pg. 26).

SEPTEMBER: In London, England on September 12 of this year Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard is safe here, he has money in the bank, but he is only another anonymous Jewish refugee who is down and out here, lingering over morning coffee in a hotel lobby, unemployed and unknown. (SOURCE: The Making of the Atomic Bomb-by Richard Rhodes ((paperback)), pg. 27).
SEPTEMBER: In its report today on the meeting in London of The British Association, The Times of London says that "Lord Rutherford was reported to have said that whoever talks about the liberation of atomic energy on an industrial scale is talking moonshine." (SOURCE: The Making of the Atomic Bomb-by Richard Rhodes ((paperback)), pp. 27-28).
SEPTEMBER: On September 14 of this year in London, England expatriate German Communists begin a "show trial" presided over by a panel of international jurists. Among the well-known names on this committee are D. N. Pritt of England and Arthur Garfield Hays of the United States. The purpose of the trial is to determine who really was guilty of starting the fire in the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany. This is being done to counter the German charges that German Communists had set the building ablaze. (SOURCE: Adolf Hitler- by John Toland Ballantine Books October 1977 ((paperback)), pg. 322).
SEPTEMBER: On September 19 of this year the German Communists living in England announce the verdict of their ad hoc court that has been investigating the real cause of the recent fire in the German Reichstag building in Berlin. The court finds that, "grave grounds exist for suspecting that the Reichstag was set on fire by, or on behalf of, leading personalities of the National Socialist Party." (SOURCE: Adolf Hitler- by John Toland Ballantine Books October 1977 ((paperback)), pg. 322).
SEPTEMBER: Also at some time in September of this year Hungarian-born physicist Leo Szilard is living in London, England and supporting himself on funds derived from his patent licenses, refrigeration consultring fees and Privatdozent (teaching) payments. He is also busy finding jobs for others and he can't be bothered to seek one for himself. (SOURCE: The Making of the Atomic Bomb-Richard Rhodes ((paperback)), pg. 26).
SEPTEMBER: At this time a week's lodging and three meals a day at a good London hotel cost about 5.5 Pounds. (SOURCE: The Making of the Atomic Bomb-Richard Rhodes ((paperback)), pg. 26).
SEPTEMBER: At some time during this month the anti-Semitic Premier of Hungary, Julius Gombos, visits Germany and he is received by Adolf Hitler in Erfurt. Alfred Rosenberg, at this time leader of the Nazi Party's Foreign Affairs Bureau, will later report that, "With this visit the official cordon of isolation surrounding National Socialism was pierced for the first time." (SOURCE: Translation of Document 007-PS, Brief Report on Activities of the Foreign Affairs Bureau of the Party from 1933 to 1943 by Alfred Rosenberg, in NAZI CONSPIRACY AND AGGRESSION, VOLUME III, Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosection of Axis Criminality, United States Government Printing Office Washingrton 1946, page 29).
OCTOBER: On October 10 of this year the German ambassador in Washington, D.C. sends two telegrams to Berlin, in which he states that U.S. Representative Dickstein of New York, the Chairman of the House Committee on Immigration, has announced that he plans to call a meeting of his committee in the near future to look into pro-National Socialist (Nazi) activities in the United States.

OCTOBER: On October 13 of this year the German government passes yet another in the recent long string of laws designed to solidify the Nazi Party's hold on political power in the country. This law, called a " law to guarantee public peace", provides, among other things, that it shall be a capital offense or a very serious crime for a person to "...undertake[...] to kill a member of the SA or the SS, a trustee or agent of the NSDAP...out of political motives or on account of their official activity." (SOURCE: NAZI CONSPIRACY AND AGGRESSION--VOLUME II--Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality---United States Government Printing Office Washington, D.C.--1946, pg. 44)
OCTOBER:    On October 14 of this year the Nazi Party leaders in Germany, in furtherance of their plan to  rearm and to reoccupy the Rhineland, lead Germany "to leave the International Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations". (SOURCE: NAZI CONSPIRACY AND AGGRESSION VOLUME I Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality---United States Government Pringting Office Washington, 1946, page 22).
OCTOBER:    On October 14 of this year Adolf Hitler formally announces on the radio that Germany is leaving the disarmament conference, and withdrawing its membership in the League of Nations. He complains about the lack of equal rights for Germany in the League, but he takes pains to reassure France that he has peaceful intentions toward her, and that he hopes for a reconciliation between the two countries. Hitler says that he is calling for a nation-wide plebiscite-to be held by the end of this month-to approve the decision to withdraw from the League.
    Along with Hitler's radio address, the German government issues an official proclamation to the nation. Click here for text of proclamation.

     Within hours of this radio address, Hitler starts to receive many notes and letters of congratulations. The Catholic Action movement in Germany sends a telegram setting forth their unanimous support of Hitler's decision, as do many other groups and individuals. At some time in the later half of this month, Cardinal Faulhaber issues a statement backing the withdrawal, and urging a yes vote in the plebiscite. Every bishop in Bavaria approves the Cardinal's statement. The Cardinal refers to "the horrors of Bolshevism" should the vote fail, and the need to protect public order and restore work to the unemployed. The Cardinal's statement reflects the general feeling of resentment in Germany about what is considered to be the too-harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty.

    However, despite the general approvals that Hitler receives for his decision to take Germany out of the League of Nations, the Italian Premier Mussolini is very disturbed by the decision. The German ambassador to Italy sends a telegram to the German Foreign Office saying that "Il Duce" deplores the move "extremely". Mussolini feels that the move is a heavy blow to his own prestige, and he doesn't see any "way out of the situation and did not know how Germany intended to make any further progress."
OCTOBER: On October 16 of this year two National Socialist (Nazi) party members from New York, N.Y., Captain F. C. Mensing of the NewYork agency of the North German Lloyd lines, and Walter H. Schellenberg of Robert C. Meyer & Co. in New York, meet with an official of Department III of the German Foreign Office to call for an end to Nazi party activity in America. An agreement to do so is reached and submitted to Hitler's Deputy, Rudolph Hess, who also approves it.
OCTOBER: In Vatican City on October 16 of this year the German Ambassador to the Ho;y See, Diego von Bergen, sends a long telegram to the German Foreign Minister in Berlin. Von Bergen tells the Foreign Minister that the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pacelli, is still on good terms with Germany, but that the Pope is under great pressure to condemn Germany. (SOURCE: DOCUMENTS ON GERMAN FOREIGN POLICY--U. S. Department of State ((1959))-Series C ((1933-1937))-Vol. II, pages 3-5).
OCTOBER: In Berlin, Germany also on October 16 of this year Berhard W. von Bulow, State Secreatry of the German Foreign Ministry, sends a telegram to the German Embassy in Italy. Von Bulow says that the "last Italian proposal is no basis for negotiation", and that it should be "quietly buried" and forgotten. (SOURCE: DOCUMENTS ON GERMAN FOREIGN POLICY--U. S. Department of State ((1959))-Series C ((1933-1937))-Vol. II, pages 2-3).
OCTOBER: On October 18 of this year, Adolf Hitler is interviewed by the London Daily Mail's correspondent Ward Price. Hitler says that, while Germany will not accept discrimination against itself by other countries, the German people certainly do not want to have another World War.
OCTOBER: On October 19 of this year German Foreign Minister von Neurath gives formal notice to the League of Nations that Germany intends to withdraw from that body. (SOURCE: DOCUMENTS ON GERMAN FOREIGN POLICY--U. S. Department of State ((1959))-Series C ((1933-1937))-Vol. II, pg. 2, Note 2).
Among Hitler's campaign stops this month, as he travels about Germany urging support for his decision to take the country out of the League of Nations, and to abandon the disarmament talks, is one at a Siemans Company plant, where he tells the workers that the country must be united if it is to regain its rightful place among nations. He asks them to accept him as their Fuhrer, their leader. He says that he has proven that he can lead them, and that he does not belong to any single group, but to the people in general.
OCTOBER: At some time during October of this year in Germany, the 1st Battalion of what will later become the Deutschland Regiment or "D" Regiment of the Waffen SS is created, using a cadre of about 35 hand-picked men, one from each Standarte of the Allegemeine SS [General or Administrative Branch of the SS], and who [these selectees] had been posted to the "Munich Regiment" of the Bavarian provincial police. The first cadets are selected for training as future officers of the SS, and graduates from this first class will continue on to attend the SS Officers' Academy at Bad Toelz in Bavaria. (SOURCE: DAS REICH THE MILITARY ROLE OF THE 2NDS SS DIVISION By James Lucas Cassell Military Paperbacks 2002, pg. 17).
NOVEMBER: On November 2 of this year German Vice-Chancellor von Papen makes a political speech in Essen, Germany in which he appeals to the Catholics there to vote for Hitler's decision to take Germany out of the League of Nations. He says that Hitler wants a "reconciliation with all those who were not in his ranks" during the early years of the Party's struggles. (Source: NAZI CONSPIRACY AND AGGRESSION Volume VI Office of United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality, 1946, pp. 102-103)..
NOVEMBER: On Saturday night, November 11, President Paul von Hindenburg makes a radio address to the German people in which he backs Hitler's decision to leave the League of Nations. He urges the people to show their national honor by supporting the Reich government. He calls on the people to defend the principle of equality among nations, and to show the world that German national unity has been restored.
NOVEMBER: On November 12 of this year, German citizens go to the polls to vote in a national plebiscite to indicate their approval or disapproval of Hitler's decision to take their country out of the League of Nations. Hitler had deliberately chosen this date for the plebiscite; it is one day after the anniversary of the armistice that had ended the last war.

NOVEMBER: On November 13 of this year the results of the German plebiscite are announced. A full 95.1% of those voting have approved Hitler's action in taking Germany out of the League of Nations. There is some international skepticism about this result, and of the fact that the vote at the Dachau concentration camp was 2,154 out of 2,242 inmates voting "yes". In the Reichstag election, 92.2% of the votes go to the Nazi Party, which just happens to be the only party on the ballot. Although the results are met with skepticism by some foreign observers, they are in fact a true reflection of the sentiments of the German people at this time.
DECEMBER:   As of December 20 of this year, legal proceedings are pending in New York City, N. Y. against Heinz Spanknoebel for having acted as an unregistered agent of a foreign government (Germany). At the same time, U. S. Representative Samuel Dickstein from New York, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Immigration, is conducting hearings in an effort to uncover "Nazi agents" who have been admitted to America under false pretenses, and then to have them deported. In both cases, the underlying charges against the "Nazi agents" are that they are trying to undermine the U. S. Constitution, and that they are trying to destroy American institutions.

     In the Spanknoebel case, an indictment against him had been handed down on November 10 of this year, but he had already fled the country. It is, however, still possible that he may be found guilty of contempt of court.

     At this time also, there is an ongoing investigation into the activities of an organization called the Association of the Friends of the New Germany.
Finally, a German citizen named Herr Roell has been sentenced by the magistrate involved in the New York Grand Jury investigation, for contempt of court in that he has refused to turn over to the Jury a list of Nazi Party members living in New York.
DECEMBER: As of December of this year, Gernmany is poised on the brink of becoming a tolitarian state, and the people are playing a willing part in the process. It is partly due to the circumstances of the times and partly due to the peoples' wish to conform to what is expected of them, and just partly the result of the Nazi Party's terroristic tactics. (SOURCE: Adolf Hitler-- by John Toland--Ballantine Books ((paperback)), pg. 321).
(NO SPECIFIC DATE): In the period from 1919 until this year (not counting the fact that Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor this year), "no less than five Catholic Center Party members became chancellors in ten [German] cabinets." (SOURCE: Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII by John Cornwell Penguin Books ((paperback)) New York, NY 2000, pg. 81).
(NO SPECIFIC DATE): At some time during this year the book, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States by L. C. Gray is published in the United States of America. This book details the spread of cotton cultivation in the South. (Source: The American Nation...to 1877 Second Edition ((paperback)), John A. Garraty, pg. 283 ((Supplementary Reading list)) ).
(NO SPECIFIC DATE): At some time during this year in the United States of America the expatriate Hungarian mathematician and physicist John von Neumann, at age twenty-nine, is the youngest member appointed to the newly established and independent research institute in Princeton, New Jersey-the Institute for Advanced Study. (SOURCE: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes A Touchstone Book Published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo ((paperback)) 1988, pg. 109).

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