1933

The year in brief

In 1933 Hitler built a dictatorship in Germany within a few months. On 30 January Hindenburg appointed him chancellor, and Papen’s conservatives believed they would “box him in”. After the Reichstag fire a decree of 28 February suspended civil rights, in March a concentration camp was set up at Dachau, and the Reichstag, by 444 votes to 94, gave the government the right to make laws without parliament. On 1 April SA squads stood outside Jewish shops all over Germany. In May the offices of the free trade unions were seized, and on 14 July the NSDAP became the only party. In October Germany left the League of Nations, which Japan had already left in March, rejecting the report on Manchukuo. In the United States Roosevelt began the New Deal, and in November the United States became the last great power to recognise the USSR.