Timeline: 1933 - 1945
| German Reich | Dachau Concentration Camp |
|---|---|
| 1933 | |
| Adolf Hitler becomes
Reich Chancellor: the founding of the National Socialist dictatorship |
Opening of a concentration camp for political prisoners near Dachau (March 22,1933) |
| 1934 | |
| "Röhm Putsch" – the rise of the SS | Murder of 21 NSDAP functionaries and political opponents who had been arrested during the "Röhm Putsch" |
| 1935 | |
| Nuremberg Laws institutionalizing racial discrimination | New prisoner groups are sent to the camp e.g. Jehova’s Witnesses, homosexuals, emigrants |
| 1936 | |
| Heinrich Himmler becomes Chief of the German Police: the beginning of constructing a system of concentration camps | Terror in the camp is intensified |
| 1937 | |
| During mass arrests thousands are taken into “preventive custody” and sent to concentration camps | Start of the erection of a new camp with a capacity for 6,000 prisoners |
| 1938 | |
| Annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland November Pogrom ("Reichskristallnacht") |
Political opponents from the annexed territories are deported to the camp as well as over 11,000 German and Austrian Jews in November |
| 1939 | |
| Attack on Poland: start of the Second World War | Deportation of hundreds of Sinti and Roma to the Dachau Concentration Camp |
| 1940 | |
| After the capitulation of France, French, Dutch, Belgian territory has been occupied und Luxemburg annexed |
Over 13,000 prisoners are sent from Poland> |
| 1941 | |
| Attack on the Soviet Union | Start of the mass shooting of more than 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war |
| 1942 | |
| "Wannsee Conference" on the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" | "Invalid Transports" – more than 2,500
prisoners murdered with poison gas at
Hartheim Castle near Linz Start of medical experiments on prisoners |
| 1943 | |
| "Total War": forced labour is radicalized in order to secure the "Final Victory" | Start of the installation of more than 150 subsidiary camps in which the prisoners were subjected to perform forced labour for the armaments industry |
| 1944 | |
| The Western Allies land in Normandy, Russian troops reach the eastern border of Germany | 10,000 Jewish prisoners are killed "through work" in
subsidiary camps At the end of 1944, over 63,000 prisoners are in the Dachau concentration camp and its subsidiary camps: The catastrophic living conditions lead to the outbreak of a typhus epidemic |
| 1945 | |
| Unconditional surrender (May 8, 1945), occupation and division of Germany | Thousands die of typhus, in the course of evacuation
marches or as a result of malnutrition Founding of an International Prisoner Committee (CID) Liberation of the camp by US Army troops (April 29, 1945) |