1925
The NSDAP is re-established in the Weimar Republic by Adolf Hitler. A local NSDAP group is founded in Nordhausen by, among others, the later mayor Heinz Sting.
1932
The democratic government in the Free State of Prussia, to which Nordhausen belongs, is dismissed by Reich President von Hindenburg in a coup d'état. The previous Minister President Otto Braun (SPD) is replaced by a Reich Commissioner.
In neighbouring Thuringia, NSDAP Gauleiter
1933
The NSDAP seizes power on 30 January with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor.
The "Decree for the Protection of People and State" ("Reichstag Fire Decree") legitimises the persecution of Communists and Social Democrats.
In February, the Social Democratic
In the Reichstag elections in March, the NSDAP receives 46.7 per cent of the vote in Nordhausen.
With the "Laws on the Coordination of the States with the Reich", the state and local parliaments are dissolved and newly constituted in favour of the NSDAP.
Heinz Sting becomes mayor of Nordhausen.
After the April boycott, Jews are banned from visiting the municipal swimming pool, the theatre, joining clubs and participating in public events.
In July, the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring" is passed.
The
1935
Dr Johannes Meister becomes the new mayor.
Introduction of compulsory conscription in March
On 15 September, the Reichstag unanimously adopts the "Nuremberg Laws", which stipulate racist criteria for citizenship. The legal status of Jews is increasingly restricted in the following years.
1936
Nordhausen becomes a garrison town with the establishment of the
1937
Foundation of the
1938
"Anschluss" of Austria to the German Reich in March, occupation of the Sudetenland in October
Anti-Semitic pogroms on 9/10 November: the
1939
German invasion of Czechoslovakia in March
With the Wehrmacht's invasion of Poland on 1 September, the German Reich begins the Second World War. The first Polish prisoners of war and forced labourers are brought to Nordhausen.
After "blitzkriegs", the Wehrmacht occupies France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, and in spring 1941 also Yugoslavia and Greece.
1941
The Majdanek and Auschwitz extermination camps are established in occupied Poland. Bełzec, Sobibor and Treblinka follow in 1942.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June, thousands of Soviet civilian labourers (so-called "Ostarbeiter") and prisoners of war are deported to the district and town of Nordhausen and forced to work in numerous factories.
300 Jewish women from Vienna are deployed as forced labourers in Nordhausen tobacco factories.
1942
Adolf Hitler appoints the Thuringian Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel as General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment, who in this function is responsible for the deportation of millions of men, women and children from the occupied territories for
The Jews still remaining in Nordhausen are deported to the extermination camps to be murdered.
An explosion at the underground army munitions depot in Wolkramshausen kills 145 people, many of them from Nordhausen.
1943
The defeat of the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad marks the turning point of the Second World War for the German Reich. Goebbels propagates "total war".
Dr Herbert Meyer becomes Lord Mayor on 9 May.
At the end of August, the SS set up the
1944
The Dora subcamp becomes the independent Mittelbau concentration camp. Concentration camp inmates also have to work in Nordhausen companies.
With the relocation of several branch plants to Kohnstein, the Junkers company sets up a camp for 6,000 civilian forced labourers in the Boelcke-Kaserne.
In October, the Volkssturm is set up in Nordhausen to mobilise the last military forces.
1945
Several thousand people die in
On 11 April, American soldiers liberate several hundred concentration camp inmates in the subcamp in the Boelcke-Kaserne and the main camp of Mittelbau-Dora.
On 15 April, the US occupation authorities appoint the Social Democrat Otto Flagmeyer as mayor.
On 8 May 1945, the Second World War in Europe ends with the German capitulation.
In July, Nordhausen becomes part of the Soviet occupation zone.