I’m continuing my WWII Timeline series with a look at January – March 1938 in this post.
A Timeline of WWII, Winter 1938
January 5, 1938
The Nazi Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names forbid Jews from changing their names.
January 28, 1938
President Roosevelt called for a massive rearmament program for the U.S.
February 1938
Adolf Hitler bullied Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg into giving him control of Austria’s interior ministry.
February 4, 1938
Adolf Hitler became commander-in-chief of the German armed forces, the Wehrmacht, and the German war minister.
February 5, 1938
The Nazi Law on the Profession of Auctioneer excluded Jews from the profession.
March 12, 1938
Germany announced Anschluss, a union with or annexation of Austria, which had a population of 200,000 Jews, most living in Vienna. Nazi troops entered Austria and began arresting and publicly humiliating the Austrian Jews, making them perform tasks such as getting on their hands and knees and scrubbing the pavement.
March 13, 1938
The new Nazi government in Vienna declared Austria a province of the Greater German Reich.
March 18, 1938
The Nazi Gun Law banned Jewish gun merchants.
Late March 1938
The SS was placed in charge of Jewish affairs in Austria and Adolf Eichmann established an Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna.
Two weeks after the Anschluss, the National Socialist Gauleiter (regional head) of Upper Austria, August Eigruber, announced the building of a concentration camp at the town of Mauthausen on the Danube. Political opponents and those considered criminal or antisocial would be imprisoned at Mauthausen and forced to work in the granite quarries.
March 24 – April 7, 1938
Japan’s first military defeat in modern history occurred during the Battle of Taierzhuang. The Chinese killed approximately 16,000 Japanese soldiers during the two-week battle.
Sources:
This series of posts is based on a compilation of timelines from:
The History Place:
The National WWII Museum Interactive Timeline
The Mauthausen Concentration Camp
Antisemitic Legislation 1933 – 1939
World War II Chronicle by the Editors of Publications International, Ltd.
Most recent post from the series:
© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2019
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