A Timeline of Hitler's Rise to Power

This timeline covers the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, from an obscure group to rulers of Germany. It is meant to support the narrative of Germany’s interwar period.

1889

April 20: Adolf Hitler is born in Austria.

1914

August: Having avoided serving in the military before, a young Hitler is enthused about the start of World War One. He joins the German military; an error means he can remain there.

1918

October: The military, fearing the blame from inevitable defeat, encourage a civilian government to form. Under Prince Max of Baden, they sue for peace.

November 11: World War One ends with Germany signing the armistice. 

1919

March 23: Mussolini forms the fascists in Italy; their success will be a huge influence on Hitler.

June 28: Germany is forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles. Anger at the treaty and the weight of reparations will destabilize Germany for years.​

July 31: A socialist interim German government is replaced by the official creation of the democratic Weimar Republic.

September 12: Hitler joins the German Workers’ Party, having been sent to spy on it by the military.

1920

February 24: As Hitler becomes increasingly important to the German Workers’ Party thanks to his speeches, they declare a Twenty-Five Point Program to change Germany.

1921

July 29: Hitler is able to become chairman of his party, which is renamed the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or NSDAP.

1922

October 30: Mussolini manages to turn luck and division into an invitation to run the Italian government. Hitler notes his success.

1923

January 27: Munich holds the first Nazi Party Congress.

November 9: Hitler believes the time is right to stage a coup. Aided by a force of SA brownshirts, the presence of WW1 leader Ludendorff, and browbeaten locals, he stages the Beer Hall Putsch.

It fails.

1924

April 1: Having turned his trial into a grandstand for his ideas and become known across Germany, Hitler is given a derisory five-month prison sentence.

December 20: Hitler is released from jail, having written the start of "Mein Kampf".

1925

February 27: The NSDAP had gone away from Hitler while he was absent; he reasserts control, determined to pursue a notionally legal course to power.

April 5: Prussian, aristocratic, right-leaning war leader Hindenburg is elected president of Germany.

July: Hitler publishes "Mein Kampf", a ranting exploration of what passes as his ideology.

November 9: Hitler forms a personal bodyguard separate from the SA, called the SS.

1927

March 10: The ban on Hitler speaking is lifted; he can now use his mesmeric and violent speechmaking to convert voters.

1928

May 20: Elections to the Reichstag yield just 2.6 of the vote to the NSDAP.

1929

October 4: The New York Stock Market begins to crash, causing a great depression in America and around the world. As the German economy was made dependant on the US by the Dawes plan and after, it begins to collapse.

1930

January 23: Wilhelm Frick becomes interior minister in Thuringia, the first Nazi to hold a notable position.

March 30: Brüning takes charge of Germany via a right-leaning coalition. He wishes to pursue a deflationary policy to counter the depression.

July 16: Facing defeat over his budget, Brüning invokes Article 48 of the constitution which allows the government to pass laws without Reichstag consent. It is the start of a slippery slope for failing German democracy, and the start of a period of rule by Article 48 decrees.

September 14: Boosted by the rising unemployed, the decline of center parties and a turn to both left and right extremists, the NSDAP get 18.3% of the vote and are the second largest party in the Reichstag.

1931

October: The Harzburg Front is formed to try and organize Germany’s right into a workable opposition to the government and the left. Hitler joins.

1932

January: Hitler is welcomed by a group of industrialists; his support is broadening and gathering money.

March 13: Hitler comes a strong second in the presidential elections; Hindenburg just misses out on the election on the first ballot.

April 10: Hindenburg defeats Hitler at the second attempt to become President.

April 13: Brüning’s government ban the SA and other groups from marching.

May 30: Brüning is forced into resigning; Hindenburg is talked into making Franz von Papen chancellor.

June 16: The SA ban is revoked.

July 31: The NSDP poll 37.4 and become the largest party in the Reichstag.

August 13: Papen offers Hitler post of vice-Chancellor, but Hitler refuses, accepting nothing less than being Chancellor.

August 31: Hermann Göring, long a leading Nazi and a link between Hitler and the aristocracy, becomes President of the Reichstag and uses this to manipulate events.

November 6: In another election, the Nazi vote shrinks slightly.

November 21: Hitler turns down more government invites wanting nothing less than to be Chancellor.

December 2: Papen is forced out, and Hindenburg is influenced into appointing the General, and prime right-wing manipulator Schleicher, chancellor.

1933

January 30: Schleicher is outmaneuvered by Papen, who persuades Hindenburg than Hitler can be controlled; the latter is made chancellor, with Papen vice-chancellor.

February 6: Hitler introduces censorship.

February 27: With elections looming, the Reichstag burns thanks to a communist extremist. 

February 28: Citing the attack on the Reichstag as evidence of mass communist intent, Hitler passes a law ending civil liberties in Germany.

March 5: The NSDAP, riding on the communist scare and aided by a now tame police force boosted by masses of SA, polled 43.9%. They ban the communists.

March 21: "Day of Potsdam" - The Nazis open the Reichstag in a carefully stage-managed act which tries to show them as heirs of the Kaiser.

March 24: Thanks to threatening the Reichstag, Hitler has the Enabling Act passed; it makes him a dictator for four years.

July 14: With other parties being banned or splitting, the NSDAP is the only political party left by law.

1934

June 30: "Night of the Long Knives" -- dozens killed as Hitler shatters the power of the SA, which had been challenging his goals. SA leader Röhm is executed after hoping to merge his force with the army.

July 3: Papen resigns.

August 2: Hindenburg dies. Hitler merges posts of chancellor and president.