Tag Archives: 1933

30 January 1933

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Adolf Hitler is sworn in as the Chancellor of Germany.

On this day in 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler, leader or fÜhrer of the National Socialist German Workers Party, as chancellor of Germany.

The year 1932 had seen Hitler’s meteoric rise to prominence in Germany, spurred largely by the German people’s frustration with dismal economic conditions and the still-festering wounds inflicted by defeat in the Great War and the harsh peace terms of the Versailles treaty. A charismatic speaker, Hitler channeled popular discontent with the post-war Weimar government into support for his fledgling Nazi party. In an election held in July 1932, the Nazis won 230 governmental seats; together with the Communists, the next largest party, they made up over half of the Reichstag.

Hindenburg, intimidated by Hitler’s growing popularity and the thuggish nature of his cadre of supporters, the SA, initially refused to make him chancellor. Instead, he appointed General Kurt von Schleicher, who attempted to steal Hitler’s thunder by negotiating with a dissident Nazi faction led by Gregor Strasser. At the next round of elections in November, the Nazis lost ground—but the Communists gained it, a paradoxical effect of Schleicher’s efforts that made right-wing forces in Germany even more determined to get Hitler into power. In a series of complicated negotiations, ex-Chancellor Franz von Papen, backed by prominent German businessmen and the conservative German National People’s Party, convinced Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor, with the understanding that von Papen as vice-chancellor and other non-Nazis in key government positions would contain and temper Hitler’s more brutal tendencies.

Hitler’s emergence as chancellor on January 30, 1933, marked a crucial turning point for Germany and, ultimately, for the world. His plan, embraced by much of the German population, was to do away with politics and make Germany a powerful, unified one-party state. He began immediately, ordering a rapid expansion of the state police, the Gestapo, and putting Hermann Goering in charge of a new security force, composed entirely of Nazis and dedicated to stamping out whatever opposition to his party might arise. From that moment on, Nazi Germany was off and running, and there was little Hindenburg or von Papen—or anyone—could do to stop it.

7 August 1933

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The Iraqi government kills over 3000 Assyrians in the village of Simele.

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The Simmele Massacre of Assyrians occurred between August 7 and August 11, 1933, in the town of Simmele, North Iraq, and its surroundings. It was carried out by the Iraqi Army, led by General Bakir Sidqi, a Kurd, and Kurdish and Arab irregulars. The number of victims has been subsequently determined by researchers to be 3,000, since the massacre was not confined only to the village of Simmele.

Simmel is on the main road to Zakho, about eight miles from Dohuk, under the administration of which qodha it came. It was the largest village in the neighborhood and consisted of over one hundred Assyrians and ten Arab houses. The total population would have been about 700, most of the Assyrians belonging to the Baz tribe, with others of the Upper Tiyari and the Diz. The headman was a strong supporter of the Mar Shimun and with fifty others had followed Yacu into Syria. These fifty were almost entirely Tiyari, hardly any of the Baz being among them. The feeling of unrest in the village increased. On August 8th the Qaimaqam of Zakho appeared with a lorry full of soldiers.

No satisfactory answer has yet been given to the question why he should have come with troops into a district that was outside his administration. He entered the village and told the Assyrians to surrender their rifles, as he feared that fighting might occur between the rebel Assyrians and the Government forces, in which case the people of Simmel would be less likely to be involved if they had no rifles. Plausibly, but with lies in his heart, he assured them that they would be safe under the protection of the Iraqi flag which flew over the police post for Simmel, being a large village, had a police post of one sergeant and four men. The Assyrians then handed in their arms, which were taken away by the troops.

14 July 1933

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The Nazi eugenics begins with the proclamation of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring that calls for the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who suffers from alleged genetic disorders.

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Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany’s racially based social policies that placed the biological improvement of the Aryan race or Germanic “Übermenschen” master race through eugenics at the center of Nazi ideology.

Eugenics research in Germany before and during the Nazi period was similar to that in the United States, by which it had been partly inspired. However, its prominence rose sharply under Adolf Hitler’s leadership when wealthy Nazi supporters started heavily investing in it. The programs were subsequently shaped to complement Nazi racial policies.

Those humans targeted for destruction under Nazi eugenics policies were largely living in private and state-operated institutions, identified as “life unworthy of life”, including prisoners, degenerate, dissident, people with congenital cognitive and physical disabilities, homosexual, idle, insane, and the weak, for elimination from the chain of heredity. More than 400,000 people were sterilized against their will, while more than 70,000 were killed under Action T4, a euthanasia program.

5 December 1933

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The 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.

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On Dec. 5, 1933, national Prohibition came to an end, as Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, which had taken effect nearly 14 years earlier.
The New York Times noted that President Franklin Roosevelt made a “plea to the American people to employ their regained liberty first of all for national manliness.” The president also said, “Tthis return of individual freedom shall not be accompanied by the repugnant conditions that obtained prior to the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment and those that have existed since its adoption.”

By the end of the 1920s, even many prominent Prohibition advocates realized that Prohibition had failed and advocated for its repeal. Congress passed the 21st Amendment in February 1933. It was ratified by a series of state conventions rather than by state legislatures, which have been used to ratify every other amendment, as Congress felt that many state legislators remained beholden to pro-Prohibition interests.

14 July 1933

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The Nazi eugenics begins with the enactment of the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring” that allowed for the compulsory sterilization of any citizen who suffers from an alleged genetic disorder.