Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Timeline 1855-1939

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Year
& Age		 Events Historical context

1855
0		 — September 9: Houston Stewart Chamberlain, son of Captain (later Rear-Admiral) William Charles Chamberlain and Elizabeth Jane Hall, was born in Southsea, England. — Joseph Arthur, Comte de Gobineau (born 1816), finished his Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines.
— March 12 — June 25: Richard Wagner conducted 8 concerts in London. „At the best,“ Wagner wrote, „I have nothing to hope for here, and my presence as conductor of these concerts can only lead to fresh misunderstandings. [...] That the Jewish press here should cut me up is a matter of profound indifference to me“ (in an undated letter to August Roeckel.)
— Moldavia abolishes slavery.

1856
0-1		 — May: At home with his grandmother in Versailles, France.
— August 29: Death of his mother Elizabeth Jane Hall.
 — May 6: Sigmund Freud was born.
— End of the Crimean war.

1858
2-3		 — Relocation to a mansion at the Avenue de Saint-Cloud, right opposite to the Lycée Impérial. Later he attended this school until he was 11 years old. Donati's comet, Paris 1858— June 2: Discovery of Donati's comet. The appearance made a lasting impression on the 3 year old Houston S. Chamberlain. See also his memories of the phenomenon.

1859
3-4		 — — January 27: Wilhelm II was born.
— Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species.

1860
4-5		 — — September 21: Death of Arthur Schopenhauer.
— Alliance Israélite Universelle founded by Adolphe Crémieux.

1862
6-7
 — — April 20: Louis Pasteur invents the process of pasteurization. According to Pasteur, it was  „within the reach of mankind to sweep all contagious diseases from the face of the earth, if only man would finally understand that the theory of spontaneous generation of germs is a fallacy“.

1864
8-9		 — — February 1: Danish-German war. The war was caused by ethnic controversies between Danish and German speaking people in Schleswig.
— September 1: Neue Freie Presse founded. According to H. S. Chamberlain by the Alliance Israélite Universelle, „with the sole purpose to further Jewish interests.“ Some essays by Karl Marx were published in this newspaper. „The Freie Presse is a newspaper, that asks only two questions, whatever the subject — politics, commerce, science, art — may be: 1. does it harm or does it benefit Jewry? 2. does it pay or not?“ (In a letter to Leopold von Schröder, Dec. 26, 1907.)
— October 30: Denmark defeated. It lost the duchies Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg to Germany.

1866
10-11		 — Autumn: Boarding school in England. — May 7: Anarchist Ferdinand Cohen-Blind tried in vain to assassinate Otto von Bismarck. He committed suicide the next day in prison.
— June 14: Austro-Prussian War.
— August 23: Austria defeated. Treaty of Prague signed.

1867
11-12		 — Autumn: Cheltenham College. — The Habsburgers granted equal citizenship status to Hungarian Jews.

1868
12-13		 — June: at home with his father in Chatham, England. — Autumn: Elections in Britain. The Liberals under William Gladstone came to power.

1869
13-14		 — — Richard Wagner republished his essay Das Judenthum in der Musik, to „fight the influence of the Jews on our music“.

1870
14-15		 — Begin 1870: Illness. Left England to visit health resort Bad Ems on the continent.
— July 13: Witnessed, in Bad Ems, count Benedetti handing over the French demands to the king of Prussia, which would lead to the outbreak of the war. See for Chamberlain's eyewitness account his essay Erinnerungen aus dem Jahre 1870.
 — Autumn: Otto Kuntze became his private teacher.
— August: Switzerland, Luzern.
 — July 18: The doctrine of papal infallibility, by Pius IX, officially adopted. After the vote and acceptance of this dogma, the Pope declared that opponents should learn to fear the Church („ut non solum non irrideant nos inimici nostri, sed timeant potius“).
— July 19: Franco-Prussian war. The French excuse for this war was the candidacy of prince Leopold von Hohenzollern for the Spanish throne.

1871
15-16		 — Spring: Visited a spa in Montreux, Switzerland, with his aunt. German soldiers entering a french classroom— January 18: Wilhelm I proclaimed as emperor of Germany in Versailles.
— May 10: End of the war. France was obliged to pay a war indemnity of 5,000,000,000 francs. It took France two years to pay this sum.

To the right: 1870—1871. German invasion of France. Panic in the classroom. Click to enlarge.

1872
16-17		 — January: Rivièra, Cannes.
— Summer: Monte Generoso.
— Autumn: Travelled from Engadin to Lugano.		 —  May 22: First stone laid of Wagner's Festspielhaus in Bayreuth.
— July 4: Bismarck forbade the Jesuit Order, in an attempt to diminish the influence of the Catholic Church on state affairs.

1873
17-18		 — Summer: Visited family in Engeland and Scotland, six months.
— Winter: Cannes.		 — May 8: Philosopher John Stuart Mill died. He had written that „war is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse...“

1874
18-19		 — Summer: Switzerland. His father came over to persuade him to return to England and finish his study. He refused.
 — Autumn: Cannes. In boarding-house Bel Air he met Anna Horst, Prussian lady & his future wife.		 — November 30: Winston S. Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace.

1875
19-20		 — Summer: Interlaken, „Deutschem Haus“, to study German language. — January 14: Albert Schweitzer was born.

1876
20-21		 — — April: Bulgarian uprising against the Ottoman empire. Thousands of Bulgarian civilians butchered by bashi-bazouks. Christians responded with atrocities against the Muslim population.
— June 30: Serbia declared war on the Ottoman empire.
— August 13: 1st Bayreuther Festspiele.

1877
21-22		 — — April 24: Russo-Turkish war.

1878
22-23		 — February 27: Death of his father William Charles Chamberlain.
— May 9: Marriage with Anna Horst in Geneva.
— Autumn: Attended for the first time a Wagner opera, Tannhäuser. Disappointment.
— November: Attended the Ring-performance in Munich. Became member of the Bayreuther Patronatsvereins. Met Hermann Levi.
 — Winter: Relocated to Florence to study botany at the university. Learned to play the violoncello.		 — May 11: Anarchist Max Hödel tried to assassinate Emperor Wilhelm I, but failed.
— June 2: 2nd assassination attempt on Wilhelm I, this time by anarchist Dr. Karl Eduard Nobiling. The emperor was severely injured, but survived.
— June 13: Congress of Berlin. Meeting between the European Great Powers and the Turks, discussing Balkan affairs.
— October 19: Bismarck instituted the Sozialistengesetz, anti-Socialist laws.
— December 18: Joseph Stalin was born.


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 1879
23-24		 — May: Relocated to Geneva.
— September: Enlisted at the faculty of natural sciences of the university of Geneva.
— Wrote an essay for the Bayreuther Blätter in German. Rejected  by Hans von Wolzogen.
 — Wilhelm Marr, founder of the Antisemitenliga, published his Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. 12 editions were sold out in one year. Marr also wanted to expell all Jews to Palestine.
1880
24-25		 — — First Boer War between the British and the descendants of Dutch, German and French settlers, the „Boeren“ (lit. „farmers“). Purpose of the war was control over the rich South African diamond fields and gold mines. The Imperial troops, in their red uniforms, were an easy target for Boer snipers, and the British were defeated in 1881.
1881
25-26		 — Autumn: Obtained the degree of bachelor. To Paris for a celebration, attended the first international electrical congres. — February 5: Death of Thomas Carlyle. Chamberlain often referred to Carlyle's work, for instance in his war essays directed against England.
— March 13: Assassination of Czar Alexander II by anarchists. Pogroms against the Jews followed.
— April 19: Death of Benjamin Disraeli, writer, politician. He had written (in Tancred or The New Crusade) that „all is race; there is no other truth“, and „the decay of a race is an inevitable necessity, unless it lives in deserts and never mixes its blood“. Even the horse Tancred rides is „of high race“. H. S. Chamberlain mocked Disraeli and his racial misconceptions; as a biologist, he didn't believe in the theory of the purity of races.
— End of the First Boer War.
1882
26-27		 — July: Attended the première of the Parsifal (and the 5 subsequent performances) in Bayreuth.
— September: relocated to Vert Pré.		 — July 26: 2nd Bayreuther Festspiele.
— May 20: Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.
— October 13: Death of Comte de Gobineau.
1883
27-28		 — Meeting with Franz Liszt in Leipzig. — February 13: Death of Richard Wagner, Venice.
— March 14: Death of Karl Marx, London.
1884
28-29		 — Autumn: While working on his dissertation his nervous disease (Neurasthenia) manifested itself.
— First meeting with the French writer Édouard Dujardin in Munich. Dujardin's appreciation of Wagner's opera's was influenced by Chamberlain.
 		— January 6: Death of Gregor Mendel. His break-through genetic work was overlooked by the scientific community.


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 1885
29-30		 — Winter: Suffered from a cardiac affection.
— Relocated to Dresden (3 Reichenbachstraße) to rest.
— Read Plato and Immanuel Kant, visited musea, attended opera and vaudeville.
— Wrote Notes sur Lohengrin, for the Revue Wagnérienne, first essay published.		 — February: Founding of the monthly journal La Revue Wagnérienne, by Édouard Dujardin and Théodore de Wyzewa. H. St. Chamberlain wrote several essays for this magazine.
1886
30-31		 — Published Notes sur Parsifal.
 — March: Meeting with wagnerites Édouard Dujardin, Teodor de Wyzewa, van Santen Kolff and Jules Laforgue in Berlin.
 — July 23: Attended the première of Tristan und Isolde in Bayreuth.		 Ludwig II and Richard Wagner - Painting by Kurt von Roszinsky— June 13: Ludwig II, king of Bavaria and wagnerite, drowned under suspicious circumstances in the Starnberger lake.

To the right: Richard Wagner (at the piano) and King Ludwig II, in a nocturnal scene, castle Neuschwanstein. Painting by Kurt von Roszinsky. Click to enlarge.

— July 31: Death of Franz Liszt, Bayreuth.
1887
31-32		 — Published Notes sur Tristan. — Rückversicherungsvertrag (rear cover pact), Bismarck's treaty with Russia promising neutrality in the case of attacks by others, in exchange for Germany's acknowledgement of Russia's claims in Balkan affairs.
1888
32-33		 — June 12: Meeting with Cosima Wagner in the house of the sculptor Gustav Kietz, Dresden.
— July 20: His first published essay written in German, Die Sprache in Tristan und Isolde und ihr Verhältnis zur Musik.
— Attended the première of the Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Bayreuth. 		 — March 9: Death of Wilhelm I.
 — Wilhelm II crowned emperor of Germany. 




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 1889
33-34		 — Fall: Relocated to Vienna (VI Blümelgasse 1).
 — Research into plant physiology.		 — April 20: Adolf Hitler was born, Braunau am Inn.
1890
34-35		 — Summer: Read Immanuel Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft during illness.
— September 11—25: Vacation in Bosnia and Herzegovina with his wife Anna.
— November: Cosima Wagner visited Chamberlain in Vienna.
 — H. S. Chamberlain's brother, the japanologist Basil Hall Chamberlain, published his book Things Japanese.		 — March 18: Bismarck forced to resign.
— Rückversicherungsvertrag (rear cover pact) with Russia denounced by Bismarck's successor Caprivi, fearing that certain secret parts of the pact concerning Russia's interest in the strategic Dardanelles-region would annoy England and France in case of disclosure. As could be expected, the Czar was not amused.
1891
35-36		 — Invited by the Austrian-Hungarian minister of finance B. von Kállay, autocrat of Bosnia. According to Chamberlain, the reign of Kállay was „an example of the tremendous advantages of the administration of a benign tyrant, as meant by Plato“ (In a letter to Cosima Wagner, Febr. 20th, 1891).
— May, June, July: At rest. Vacation on horseback with his wife Anna in Bosnia-Herzegovina for a few months.
— Winter: Planned books to write. Lectures for the Wiener Wagnerverein.		 — April 9: Alldeutscher Verband founded.
— September 11: Jewish Colonization Association founded by multi-millionaire Maurice baron de Hirsch.
— September 16: Karl Dönitz was born.
 — November 15: Erwin Rommel was born.
1892
36-37		 — January 19 (in the morning): Decision to become a writer (after encountering what he called the „writing demon“). Flood of creative ideas.
— February 9: Meeting with Massenet in the home of Oesterlein, founder of the Viennese Wagner-museum. According to Chamberlain, Massenet's opera Werther was „a vomitory“. See Chamberlain's letter to Cosima Wagner, Feb. 10, 1892.
 — February: Wrote his first stage-play Der Tod der Antigone.
— Summer: First book published: Das Drama Richard Wagner's. It didn't sell.
— December 18: H. St. Chamberlain and Siegfried Wagner attended the première of Bruckner's 8th symphony, conducted by Hans Richter, in Vienna.
— Winter: Lectures for the Wiener Wagnerverein.		 — January 1: New York Ellis Island immigrant depot opened.
— May: Ijebu war. Nigerians massacred at the Yemoja River by British troops using machine guns.
— Treaty between France and Russia, the Franco-Russian Alliance, signed.
1893
37-38		 — October: Praeger-affair. Visited family in Engeland, stayed for six weeks.
— November: On his way back to Vienna he visited the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé in Paris.
 — January 12: both Hermann Göring and Alfred Rosenberg were born.
— December 26: Mao Zedong was born. Already in 1899 Chamberlain wrote that „in the communistic State of the Chinese bestial uniformity predominates“ (Foundations, Vol. II, p. 353).
1894
38-39		 — Translated Das Drama Richard Wagner's into French.
— Published Richard Wagner's echte Briefe an Ferdinand Praeger.
 — June: Asked and got Cosima Wagner's permission to write his Richard Wagner biography.
— September: Health-resort Herkulesbad.
 — Armenian people massacred by the Turks. The extermination of Armenians continued up till 1918. Later, this systematic killing of more than 1 million people was mentioned by Adolf Hitler as an example of a mass murder already forgotten by the world.
 — Gobineau Vereinigung (Gobineau Society) founded in Freiburg, with Professor Ludwig Schemann as president. Chamberlain became the most influential member of this society, though he rejected Gobineau's racial theories as „scientific phantasmagorias“.
— October 15: Dreyfus affair.
1895
39-40		 — Richard Wagner manuscript finished, first large work.
 — Winter: Resumed his research into botanics. Wrote an unpublished survey of literature concerning the ascending of plant saps.		 — September 28: Death of Louis Pasteur.
1896
40-41		 — Wrote Die ersten zwanzig Jahre der Bayreuther Bühnenfestspiele.
 — February:  Publisher Bruckmann charged him with a new work. Subject: the nineteenth century.
— March: Richard Wagner book sales reached 2000 copies. Remarkable, because the book was quite expensive (30 Mark).
— April 8: Première of Chamberlain's play „Der Weinbauer“ in Zurich.
— May 6: Finished the manuscript of Recherches sur la Sève ascendante.
— May 17: Delivered a Wagner-lecture for the Viennese Jugendbund.
 — June: Wrote the preface to Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts.
— Autumn: Vacation in Switzerland and Venice, where he worked on the corrections of his dissertation concerning the ascending of plant saps.
 — October: Wrote the „Gardone-manuscript“, Die Lebenslehre, an outline of a posthumously published but unfinished work (Natur und Leben) while travelling by train to visit friends in Gardone.		 — July 30: Death of Otto von Bismarck.
— Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). Assimilation was no option for the Jews; a Jewish state was needed, according to Herzl.
1897
41-42		 — Spring: His dissertation Recherches sur la Sève ascendante published.
 — April 1: Started writing Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts.
 — Published Heinrich von Stein und seine Weltanschauung.		 — August 29—31: First Zionist congress in Basle. The infamous book The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, allegedly a record of the proceedings of this congress, was published a few years later. Both Henry Ford and Winston Churchill were convinced of the authenticity of this document.
 — Jewish industrialist and politician Walther Rathenau published his Höre, Israel! (Hear, Israel!) in which he summoned the Jewish population in Germany to assimilate and to adopt German virtues.
1898
42-43		 — October 3: Beginning the corrections of Die Grundlagen. — August 28—31: Second Zionist congress held in Basle. Chamberlain referred to this congress and incorporated some speech-material in his Grundlagen (p. 328).
— September 10: Elisabeth von Wittelsbach (Empress Sissi) assassinated by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni.
1899
43-44		 — Finished Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. — February: Rudyard Kipling wrote „The White Man's Burden“.
— Second Boer War. 28,000 Boers, most women and children, died in British concentration camps. H. S. Chamberlain referred to these events as a typical example of British evilness (Neue Kriegsaufsätze p. 54). Some 17,000 black civilians starved to death in special „black“ camps.
— August 15—18: Third Zionist congress held in Basle.
1900
44-45		 — January: 1st edition of the Grundlagen, 2500 copies, sold out.
— Parsifal-Märchen published.
— Plans for books on Immanuel  Kant and Goethe.
— April 27, 15:00: Imperious impulse to begin writing his Kant-book. Hurried home.
— Visited family in Engeland, four weeks.
— First meeting with the Austrian mystic and writer Rudolf Kassner, author of Das neunzehnte Jahrhundert (1947). Kassner later distanced himself from Chamberlain and his ideas.
 — May 13: Death of Hermann Levi, Wagner's Parsifal-conductor.
— August 13—16: Fourth Zionist congress (held in London).
— August 25: Death of Friedrich W. Nietzsche.
1901
45-46		 — October 28: First meeting with Emperor Wilhelm II at Prince Eulenburg's castle Liebenberg.
— October 29: First meeting with theologian Adolf von Harnack.
— Worte Christi published.		 — December 29—30: Fifth Zionist congress (held in Basle).
1902
46-47		 — Drei Bühnendichtungen published.
— Met Hermann Graf Keyserling for the first time.
 — End of the second Boer War. Boers defeated.
1903
47-48		 — July: Met Paul Topinard at the Schynige Platte, Switzerland.
 — June 11: Serbian king Alexander Obrenović and his wife assassinated.
1904
48-49		 — March: Grundlagen book sales reached 20,000 copies.
— August: Finished his Kant-book.
 — February 10: Russo-Japanese War.
— April 8: Entente Cordiale treaty signed between the UK and France.
— July 3: Death of Theodor Herzl.
1905
49-50		 — Arische Weltanschauung (Aryan World View) Published.
— December 7: Immanuel Kant Published. 6,000 copies were printed in 1st edition, it sold 1,000 copies in one year.		 — Albert Einstein published his Special theory of relativity. According to H. S. Chamberlain, Einstein's theories were just „sophisms“.
1906
50-51		 — Divorced from his first wife Anna Horst.
 — A cheap edition (Volksausgabe) of the Grundlagen was published, 10,000 copies were sold within one week.
— Autumn: Began writing his Goethe-book.
 — March 19: Adolf Eichmann was born.
— Germany built her first U-Boot.
1907
51-52		 — Visited family in Engeland, six weeks. — July: The British Army tested a vehicle with chain tracks, the Caterpillar, an invention by David Roberts.
— August 31: Anglo-Russian Convention signed. Together with the Entente Cordiale, signed between the UK and France (1904), and the Franco-Russian Alliance (1892) this completed the series of treaties directed against Germany. Later, during WW1, Chamberlain and with him lots of Germans wondered if not the war was prearranged.
1908
52-53		 — Visited family in Engeland, four weeks.
 — December 27: Married his second wife Eva, the daughter of Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima.		 — Turkish revolution.
— Adolf Hitler relocated to Vienna to study arts, but was rejected by the academy.






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 1909
53-54		 — Spring: Relocated to Bayreuth, Wahnfriedstraße 1.
— Grundlagen book sales reached 60,000 copies.		 — February 12: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.
1910
54-55		 — The Grundlagen was translated into English, (The Foundations of the nineteenth century), and into Czech (Základy Devatenáctého století). — May 6: Death of King Edward VII. Later, in his war-essay Deutsche Freiheit, H. S. Chamberlain called the king an „intriguer“, probably because of his diplomatic role behind the scenes preceding the signing of the treaties between Great Britain and both France and Russia, directed against Germany.
— May: Return of Halley's comet. End of the world predicted by woo-woos.
1912
56-57		 — Autumn: Published Goethe.
— Commenced writing Einführung in die Betrachtung der Natur für Nichtgelehrte, never finished due to the intervention of the „writing demon“ (Chamberlain's words). Started writing another, unnamed book instead (probably „Mensch und Gott“), but the outbreak of WW1 made it impossible to continue this work.		 — April 14: Disaster with the Titanic. 1,500 passengers drowned in the icy waters of the Atlantic.
1913
57-58		 — The Grundlagen was translated into French, La Genèse du 19me siècle. — May 29: Paris, first performance of Le Sacre du Printemps from the anti-Semitic composer Igor Stravinsky.
1914
58-59		 — Beginning of 1914: short visit to France.
— Grundlagen book sales reached 87,000 copies.
— Shortly after the outbreak of the war suspected — unjustly — of spying for England, because of the telescope on the rooftop of his house.
— October 28: Finished first series of Kriegsaufsätze (war essays, propaganda for the German cause). 8,000 copies were sold within a few days.
— December: Kriegsaufsätze book sales reached 33,000 copies, another 20,000 were printed in a 4th edition.		 — June 28: Assassination of the Austro-Hungarian successor to the throne, Arch-Duke Ferdinand, and his wife, Duchess Sophie in Sarajewo, by a Serbian separatist. The Serbian authorities obstructed the investigation of the murders.
— July 24: The Russian government warned Austria-Hungary for war with Serbia.
— July 28: Austria proclaimed war on Serbia. Russia and France mobilized their armies.
— July 31: Russian troops accumulated at the German frontier.
— August 1: Mobilization of the German army. Russian troops crossed the German frontier. Beginning of the first world war.
— October 9: Fall of Antwerp.
1915
59-60		 — February: The American senator Albert J. Beveridge, while in Germany, made a detour to visit H. St. Chamberlain in Bayreuth. Beveridge had read the „Foundations“ and told Chamberlain it had a tremendous impact in „certain circles“ in America. In his Philippine speech, Jan. 9th, 1900, Beveridge had said:
„God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic people for a thousand years for vain and idle contemplation and self-administration. No! He has made us the master organizers of this world...“
— February: Kriegsaufsätze book sales reached 100,000 copies.
— February 12: Finished Neue Kriegsaufsätze.
 — March: Kriegsaufsätze book sales reached 150,000 copies.
 — April: Kriegsaufsätze book sales reached 175,000 copies. A special trenches-edition sold 50,000 pieces.
 — April Grundlagen book sales reached 100,000 copies.
 — April 24: Received the iron cross for his services to the German empire.
 — Politische Ideale published.
 — Die Zuversicht published.
 — October: Nearly half a million copies of the Kriegsaufsätze sold.
 — November 17: Meeting with Count Zeppelin in Frankfurt.		 Lusitania - Fred Spear— May 7: Sinking of the liner Lusitania after a torpedo attack of the U20. One torpedo was fired, two explosions heard, the second probably from a secret cargo of ammunition. Despite her 175 watertight compartments the ship sank, taking 1198 passengers with her. Germany apologized, much to the annoyance of H. St. Chamberlain. See his letter to Prof. Josef Kohler, June 6th, 1915.

To the right: Enlist. Mother and child, passengers of the Lusitania, drowning. Poster by Fred Spear. Click to enlarge.

 — April 22: First use of chlorine gas by the Germans on the Western front. This was an invention by the Jewish chemist Fritz Haber, a genius whose investigations also led to the production of Zyklon B. According to Haber, it were the French and not the Germans who made first use of poison-gas, albeit unsuccessfully, in rifle ammunition.
1916
60-61		 — Wrote Ideal und Macht. 20,000 copies were ordered at once.
— August 9: Naturalized and became a German citizen.
— September: Visited health resort Bad Gastein.
— Deutsches Wesen published.
— Hammer oder Amboß published.		 L'enfer - Leroux, Detail— February 21: Verdun offensive. The garrison was conquered by the Germans, but recaptured by the French army in November. 980,000 men were killed.
— July 1: Somme offensive. In November, when the offensive ended, the Entente forces had gained 12 km. 1,1200,000 soldiers lost their lives.

To the right: L'enfer, the inferno of Verdun, detail. Painting by Georges Leroux. Click to enlarge.
1917
61-62		 — Der Wille zum Sieg published.
— Demokratie und Freiheit published.
— Chamberlain joined the Deutsche Vaterlandspartei, founded by Wolfgang Kapp and admiral Tirpitz.
 — April 6: United States declared war on Germany.
— September 2: Deutsche Vaterlandspartei (DVP) founded.
 — November 2: Balfour Declaration, the British government promised to yield Palestine territory to the Zionists.
— October: Russian revolution.
— Oswald Spengler wrote the first part of Der Untergang des Abendlandes.
1918
62-63		 — January: Demokratie und Freiheit book sales reached 30,000 copies.
— Rasse und Nation published.		 — Spanish flu pandemic. The flu probably caused more deaths than the war.
— August: Orderly A. Hitler received the Iron Cross for shown courage.
— November 7: Coup of Jewish socialist Kurt Eisner in Bavaria. He founded a revolutionary parliament, and constituted soldiers' and workers' councils.
 — November 9: Proclamation of the German Republic.
— November 11: End of the first World War.
 — November: Riots of communists in all major cities of Germany.
— Emperor Wilhelm II fled to Holland.
 — Alfred Rosenberg introduced the anti-Semitic Protocols of the learned elders of Zion to Germany.
1919
63-64		 — Autobiography Lebenswege meines Denkens published. — January 5: Spartacus revolt in Berlin.
— January 15: Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, Jewish communists and instigators of the Spartacus plot, arrested and executed.
— February 21: Bavarian revolutionary president Kurt Eisner murdered by German patriot Lieutenant Anton Graf Arco auf Valley, because of his willingness to provide the British authorities with „evidence“ proving Germany to be solely responsible for the outbreak of WW1. Arco, being half-Jewish, was denied membership of the Thule-gesellschafft, and hoped to prove his loyalty to Germany with this assassination. He was sentenced to death but released from prison after 5 years.
— March 21: Communist revolution in Hungary led by the Transsylvanian Jew Béla Kun. He is held responsible for the extermination of Tatars and other ethnic minorities.
 — April 7: Communist takeover in Munich.
— April 30: Communists tortured and murdered 10 hostages in the cellar of the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich. Among them Prince von Thurn und Taxis and Thule-gesellschaft secretary Countess Heila von Westarp.
— May 12: Winston Churchill proposed to use poison gas to pacify „uncivilised“ Arab and Kurdish tribes.
— June 28: Versailles treaty signed.
1920
64-65		 — — February 7: The Entente handed over a list with the names of 895 German „war criminals“ for extradition.
— February 17: The Netherlands refused to extradite Emperor Wilhelm II.
 — February 24: First mass-meeting of the NSDAP in the Hofbräuhaus, Munich. Hitler joined.
— March 13: Kapp-putsch in Berlin.
— March 15: Communist revolt in Ruhr-area.
— June 3: 1 dollar = 50 mark.
1921
65-66		 — Mensch und Gott published.
— Herrn Hinkebein's Schädel published.		 — January 24: Paris conference. Germany's reparation payments fixed at 269,000,000,000 goldmark. Furthermore, Germany had to yield 12% of its export earnings. These measures would ruin Germany economically.
 — March 8: French, Belgian and English troops occupied German territory.
— April 1-6: 3rd. Solvay Conference. German scientists were not invited nor welcome, despite chairman H. A. Lorentz' efforts.
— August 26: German minister Matthias Erzberger, first signer of the armistice, murdered by right wing extremists.
 — September 9: 1 dollar = 110 mark.
1922
66-67		 — Became honorary freeman of the city of Bayreuth. Walther Rathenau. Painting by Edvard Munch— March 12: Demonstration of right wing extremists with swastika emblema in Berlin.
— June 24: German (and Jewish) minister of foreign affairs Walther Rathenau assassinated. He had end-responsibility for carrying out the hated Versailles-resolutions.
 — July 12: France expelled 500 German civilians from Elsaß-Lothringen and confiscated their possessions.
— August 15: 1 dollar = 1,040 mark.
 — December 31: 1 dollar = 7,500 mark.

To the right: portrait of Rathenau by Edvard Munch, 1907. Note the ominous shadow on the wall. Rathenau said about this painting: “Isn't that a nasty looking fellow? That's what one gets when one let oneself be portrayed by a great artist: one becomes more real than one really is...“
1923
67-68		 — September 30: Meeting with Adolf Hitler in Bayreuth.
— October 7: H. St. Chamberlain's letter to Hitler.		 — January 11: France occupied Ruhr-area.
— January 31: 1 dollar = 50,000 mark.
— March 31: French troops shot 13 German workers on strike in front of the Krupp-factory in Essen.
— June 1: 1 dollar = 75,000 mark.
— August 8: 1 dollar = 5,500,000 mark.
— September 17: 1 dollar = 150,000,000 mark.
— October 16: Famine revolt in Berlin.
— October 19: 1 dollar = 12,000,000,000 mark.
— October 22: 1 dollar = 40,000,000,000 mark.
— November 9: Unsuccessful coup of Adolf Hitler in Munich (beer hall putsch). NSDAP forbidden.
 — November 15: 1 dollar = 4,200,000,000,000 mark.
— December: Death of Dietrich Eckart, one of the founders of the Nazi party, and member of the occult Thule-Gesellschaft.
1924
68-69		 — — January 14: London conference to mitigate measures against Germany (plan Dawes).
— Hitler dictated Mein Kampf in prison in Landsberg am Lech to Rudolf Hess. He was released at the end of the year.
1925
69-70		 — Rasse und Persönlichkeit published. — February 25: Refoundation of the NSDAP, Munich.
— April 16: Terrorist attack on St. Nedelya Church, Sofia, by Bulgarian communists. 150 People were killed.
— April 26: Hindenburg elected Reichspresident.
 — Der Proceß, from the Jewish author Franz Kafka, published. Story about a man who has to stand trial, but no one explains what he is charged for. Might be meant as a metaphor for the position of the Jews at that time.
 — September 5: Article in the Völkischer Beobachter in honour of Chamberlain's Grundlagen.
1926
70-71		 — May 8: H. St. Chamberlain visited by Hitler and Goebbels in Bayreuth. — May 18: Geneva disarmament conference.
 — September 8: Germany joined the league of nations.
— December 27: Zyklon-B patented as insecticide by Dr. Walter Heerdt.
1927
71		 — January 9: Death of H. S. Chamberlain in Bayreuth, Germany. He was interred at the Bayreuth cemetery. On his gravestone the words of Luke 17:21: „Das Reich Gottes ist inwendig in euch“ („The Kingdom of God is within you“). Chamberlain had often cited this text, because he felt that here lies the decisive difference between Judaism and Catholicism on the one hand and Christianity as it should be on the other. Adolf Hitler attended the funeral. — January 31: International military commission withdrew from German territory.
— February: Hitler appeared on the cover of the Illustrierter Beobachter.

1929 — — February 11: Paris conference, revision of plan Dawes. Germany's reparation payments fixed at 114,000,000,000 goldmark up till 1988 (plan Young).
 — October 13: New York stock exchange crash.

1930 — — February 27: SA-Sturmführer Horst Wessel assassinated (by communists some say, but, more likely, by lower-order criminals. The opinions differ).
 — September 14: For the first time the national-socialists won more seats for the Reichstag elections than the communists (107 against 77).
— NSDAP number of members reached 400.000.

1932 — — February 27: The national-socialists proclaimed Hitler as candidate for the upcoming elections.
— April 13: SA and SS officially forbidden.
— December 31: 5,773,000 unemployed in Germany.

1933 — — February 27: The Dutch communist Rinus van der Lubbe burnt down the Reichstag building. Some conspiracy theorists believe that the real fire-raisers were the Nazi's themselves, but this is not true. Van der Lubbe: „I can only repeat again that I set fire to the Reichstag all by myself. The other suspects [...] have nothing to do with it. This is my trial! I am the suspect! And I want my verdict, whether it be 20 years in prison or death...“ (from M. Schouten's biography „Rinus van der Lubbe 1909-1934“, 1986, p. 123).
 — March 5: Adolf Hitler won the elections for the Reichstag with 44% of the votes.
 — June 27: Beginning of the Autobahn-project.
 — October 14: Germany left the league of nations.

1934 — — July 25: Austrian Bundeskanzler Dollfuss assassinated by national-socialists.
— August 2: Death of Hindenburg.

1935 — — September 15: Proclamation of the Nürnberg laws.
 — October 3: Italian-Abessinian war.

1936 — — July 17: Outbreak of the Spanish civil war.
 — August 1: Opening of the olympic games in Berlin by Adolf Hitler.

1937 — — March 4: Encyclical from Pope Pius XI, concerned about the events in Germany: „Mit brennender Sorge...“
 — September 25: Mussolini visited Hitler.
 — December 20: Death of Ludendorff.

1938 — — March 13: Anschluß (annexation) of Austria to Germany, operation Otto.
— September 19: France and England agreed on a plan involving the annexation of Czecho - Slovakian Sudeten-regions to Germany.
— September 22: The English prime minister Neville Chamberlain met Hitler in Godesberg.
— October 1: German troops invaded Czecho-Slovakia.
— November 9: Kristallnacht, night of pogroms all over Germany against the Jews.
— December 17: Otto Hahn split the uranium-atom.

1939 — — March 31: England and Poland signed mutual assistance treaty.
— April 1: End of the Spanish civil war. General Franco came to power.
 — August 22: England warned Germany for war.
— September 1: Germany invaded Poland, to reconquer former German territory, lost after WW1. England declared war on Germany. Outbreak of WW2.



Last update November 18th, 2012