Postcards to Hitler
Timeline of family and historical events from June 1836 to July 1943.
Color codes:
White bold = personal events of family members
White non-bold = personal events of non-family
Purple bold = anti-Semitic events and measures
Blue bold = historical events
Gray bold = fascist events and measures
Orange bold = events and measures that weakened fascism
Red bold = text of anti-Nazi postcards posted anonymously by Benno
June 13, 1836 Emanuel (Max) Neuburger born in Mönchsdeggingen, Bavaria to Moses Neuburger (b. 1795) and Lea Steinmayer (b. 1799)
Feb 19, 1837 Judith (Jette) Levinger born in Huerben (near Krumbach), Bavaria to Mathias B. Levinger and Bertha Gutmann
May 29, 1842 Moses Einstein born in Laupheim
November 21, 1843 Hannchen Mai born in Ichenhausen Ichenhausen.
1855 Arthur de Gobineau’s Essay on the Inequality of Human Races is published.
April 30, 1862, Max Neuburger and Jette Levinger married in Moenchsdeggingen, Bavaria
June 14, 1862 Markus Neuburger born in Moenchsdeggengen, Bavaria
January 17, 1867 Carl Laemmle born in Laupheim
November 23, 1868 Hugo Neuburger born in Moenchsdeggingen, Bavaria
July 19, 1870 The Franco-Prussian war begins
January 18, 1871 German unification ceremony in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles
March 4, 1871 Benno Neuburger born in Munich
March 1871 Moses Einstein marries Hannchen Mai in Laupheim.
March 18 to May 28, 1871 Paris Commune
April 14, 1871 Jewish Emancipation Law passed applies to all of Germany
September 6, 1872 Mina Einstein born in Laupheim
1872 Louis Holzer born in Stein am Kocher
March 9, 1874 Bertha Einstein born in Laupheim
July 3, 1874 Willi Holzer is born in Stein am Kocher
1874, Berta Neuburger born in Munich
April 15, 1877 Ana Einstein born in a town near Ulm
1877 New Synagogue completed in Laupheim
1878 At the Congress of Berlin, 1878, Austria Hungary obtains control of Bosnia Herzegovina
May 11, 1880 Ludwig Moses Einstein born in Laupheim
November 5, 1884, Berlin Conference of different imperialist powers discussing the division of Africa among them, included a representative from King Leopold of Belgium.
1884 Carl Laemmle emigrates from Laupheim to the U.S.
1885 Benno graduates Realschule and begins vocational school then apprenticeship with Elias Cohn Königsberger in a fabric store.
1890s Frequent anti-Semitic measures debated in the Reichstag
1892 Franco-Russian Alliance provided for mutual military aid in the event of a German attack.
1899 Simon Vogel born in Laupheim.
May 27, 1899 Paul Lowy (future husband of Hanchen Holzer) born in Salzburg, Austria.
1899 The antisemitic The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century by Houston Chamberlain published in German
1902 Willy Holzer and his wife Fanny moved from Badish ‘Stein am Kocher’ to Traunstein, together with their brother Ludwig Louis Holzer and his wife Berta.
May 18, 1902 Cäcilie (Tillie) Holzer born in Traunstein
1902 Benno begins working with his father Max in the real estate business
April 1903 Kishinev Pogrom
May 13, 1903 Hannchen Mai Einstein, Ana’s mother dies
June 1, 1903 Hanchen (Johanna) (Hansi) Holzer is born in Traunstein
January 10, 1904 Benno Holzer born in Traunstein
September 13, 1904 Ilse Holzer is born in Traunstein
January 22, 1905, Bloody Sunday Massacre in Russia (1905) sparks a Russian revolution
February 15, 1906 Ludwig Strauss, future husband of Hani Neuburger, born in Frankfurt
February 17, 1906 Hedwig (Hedi) Holzer born in Traunstein
1907 The Triple Entente agreement between France, Russia and Great Britain formed in opposition to the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.
February 9, 1907 Judith (Jette) Levinger Neuburger (Benno’s mother) dies at 69
May 26, 1907 Martha Babette Holzer nee Trautmann born in Bergzabern
June 11, 1907 Alfred Holzer born in Traunstein
October 12, 1907 Benno Neuburger and Ana Einstein are married in Munich
October 2, 1908 Fritz Neuburger is born in Munich
October 4, 1908 Klara Holzer is born in Traunstein
October 6, 1908 Austria Hungary proclaim annexation of Bosnia Herzegovina
1909 Max Holzer is born in Traunstein
October 24, 1909 Johanna (Hani) Neuburger born in Munich
1910 With 11,000 members the Jewish congregation in Munich reaches its all time high
April 1911 German sends a warship to North Africa during the Agadir Crisis off the coast of Morocco.
Basil conference
November 24, 1912, Basel international socialist peace conference of socialists parties in Europe.
1913 Eugen Fischer publishes Die Rehobother Bastards claiming the dangers of “racial mixing”
December 5, 1913 Kate Roth, future wife of Fritz Neuburger, born in Breidenbach am Herzberg, Germany
April 12, 1914 Gretel Bergmann (high jumper) born at 9 Sebastianstrasse in Laupheim
June 28, 1914, 19 year old Gavrilo Princip shoots Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo, Bosnia
July 23, 1914, Austria-Hungary issues ultimatum to Serbia
July 28, 1914 Austria-Hungary shells the Serbian capital of Belgrade
July 30, 1914 Russian military mobilization announced
July 31, 1914 Austria-Hungary and Germany announce military mobilization Germany demands Russia demobilize within twelve hours.
August 1, 1914, German declares war on Russia in support of Austria-Hungary, with Austria-Hungary following suit on 6 August. .
August 2, 1914, France orders full mobilization in support of Russia
August 3, 1914, Germany invades Belgium and declares war on France
August 4, 1914, Britain declares war on Germany
December, 1914 The wartime rationing of flour begins in Germany.
September 12, 1914, Ernst Neuburger (son of Benno and Ana) dies at six days old
February 21, 1915, Beginning of the Battle of Verdun
April 5, 1915, Max Neuburger (Benno’s father) dies in Munich at age 78.
August 13, 1915 Markus Neuburger (Benno’s brother) dies in Chicago, Illinois. Wife’s name Sarah Neuburger
January 7, 1916, Ludwig Moses Einstein (Ana’s brother) 35, dies of stomach cancer.
February 1916 First anti-war flyers and posters started showing up in Munich’s streets; they declared that the war was a huge “swindle”.
March 24, 1916, Left members of the SDP (Independent Social Democratic Party) expelled for criticizing Social Democratic Party stand on the war
August 29, 1916, Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff replace Falkenhayn as supreme commanders of German military
October 11, 1916 German War Ministry orders a census of Jews at the front
December 1916 German Auxiliary Service Act imposes compulsory military service for all men aged 17 to 60.
April 6, 1917, the USPD Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany founded at a conference in Gotha, with Hugo Haase as the party's first chairman.
June 1, 1917 Louis and Willi Holzer sent to serve at the western front
June 22, 1917 Benno reports for military service
September, 1917 Benno sent to Dachau munitions factory as a military guard.
October 25, 1917, Bolshevik revolutionaries, The Storming of The Winter Palace and seizure of power from Kerensky’s Provisional Government in Russia.
1918 Klara Holzer starts school with Catholic nuns in Traunstein
September 29, 1918, Ludendorff, and Hindenburg tell Kaiser Wilhelm that Germany is losing the war and must seek armistice.
September 29, 1918, General Eric Ludendorff maneuvers to put the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in power.
October 24, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses Ludendorff from command of German military.
October 30, 1918 Erich Ludendorff departs for Sweden on a forged pass port.
November 1, 1918, A thousand sailors arrested for mutiny in Kiel, faced trial and execution.
November 3, 1918, German Navy shoots down 9 rebellious sailors and injures 29
November 4, 1918, The sailors in Kiel rebel – Kiel comes under control of 40,000 rebellious sailors and marines.
November 5 – 8, 1918 A revolution spreads throughout Germany
November 7, 1918, Kurt Eisner of the USPD, at a meeting the Munich Worker’s and Soldiers’ Council proclaims the “Free State of Bavaria” The army defects to the revolutionaries as the Bavaria's Ludwig III goes into exile ending the 738 year rule of the Wittelsbach dynasty.
November 9, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates and flees to Holland
November 11, 1918, Armistice declared. World War I ends.
January 12, 1919, Elections to the Bavarian State Parliament held
February 21, 1919, Kurt Eisner assassinated by Count Arco, an aspiring fascist.
February 26, 1919, 100,000 attend the funeral march for Kurt Eisner in Munich
April 7, 1919, Socialists proclaim a Munich Council Republic. After a week the pacifist intellectual leaders, Landauer, Muhsam and Toller are replaced by communists Eugen-Levine, Max Levien and Rudolf Egelhofer who proclaim a second Council Republic.
May 2, 1919 30,000 counter revolutionary troops of the Friekorp, some wearing Swastikas on their helmets, march into Munich, overthrow the Council Republic and murder 600 to 1000 defenders of the Counci
May 9, 1919 Western Allies announce the terms of the Treaty of Versailles
June 28, 1919, Germany signs the Versailles Treaty in Paris
March 13, 1920, Lüttwitz and Dr Wolfgang Kapp, an East Prussian civil servant and co-founder of the extreme-right wartime Fatherland Party, attempts a coup to overthrow
the German (Weimar) government.
Winter, 1920 The book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion appears in Munich bookstores for the first time.
December 25, 1920, The Völkischer Beobachter appears in Munich as a weekly for the nascent Nazi Party
June 24, 1922, Walther Rathenau, foreign minister of Germany’s Weimar Republic – murdered by rightwing assassins.
July 27, 1922, Bertha Einstein Holzer dies in Traunstein.
October 29, 1922, Mussolini becomes Italian Prime Minister after the fascist March on Rome.
May 27, 1923, Johanna (Hansi) Holzer (daughter of Bertha and Louis) marries Paul Lowy in Munich
November 8, 1923, Hitler attempts a Beer Hall Putsch in Munich
February 26, 1924, The trial of Hitler and other Munich putschists begins.
June 23, 1924 Margaret Lowy, daughter of Hansi and Paul, born in Salzburg, Austria
1924 Hedi leaves Catholic school in Traunstein to study homemaking (haus haltungs Schule) in Frankfurt
September 1924 The Dawes Plan for organizing Germany’s reparation payments goes into effect after approval in the Reichstag
October 23, 1924 Cäcilie (Tillie) Holzer marries Hermann Spatz in Wolfratshausen
November 1924 Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain is published
February 1925 The Völkischer Beobachter reappears in Munich after having been shut down following the failed beerhall putsch and arrest to Hitler in 1923.
July 1925, The French withdraw from the Ruhr region.
February 28, 1925, Friedrich Ebert SPD president of Germany dies and is replaced in an election by Hindenburg
November 15, 1925, Wilhelm (Willy) Spatz, son of Cäcilie (Holzer) and Hermann Spatz born in Wolfratshausen.
September 1926 Under the Locarno Treaties Germany becomes a member of the League of Nations with a seat on its council as a permanent member
November 29, 1926 Moses Einstein dies and is buried in Laupheim.
1926 Fritz Neuburger graduates from Wilheims Gymnasium and begins to work for a sports shoe company Thormann and Dannhäuser.
1927 Leopold Holzer (older brother of Klara) dies at age 22
May 20, 1928, German federal elections, Social Democratic Party (SDP) wins 30% of the vote (9 million with 153 seats). The Nazis win 3% of the vote (810,000 with 12 seats).
October 24, 1929, the Black Thursday Wall Street stockmarket crash on New York’s Wall Street
September 12, 1930, German Federal Elections, SDP wins 24%, (8.5 million votes 153 seats). The Nazis win 18% (6.3 million votes and 107 seats)
December 4, 1930, The film All Quiet on the Western Front opens in Berlin.
December 11, 1930, All Quiet on the Western Front film is banned in Germany.
January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
February 27, 1933, A huge fire engulfs and guts the Reichstag building in Berlin. One man, Marinus van der Lubbe, an alleged communist, is accused of the arson.
February 28, 1933, The Reichstag Fire Decree invokes article 48 of the Weimar constitution. Most civil liberties, habeas corpus, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of free association and public assembly, and the secrecy of the post and telephone are suspended indefinitely.
March 20, 1933, Munich Chief of Police Heinrich Himmler announces the establishment of a “concentration camp for political prisoners” near Dachau, ten miles northwest of Munich.
March 22, 1933, The first 60 inmates arrive at Dachau concentration camp.
March/April 1933 Munich: Jewish stores were sprayed nightly with acid or smeared with such inscriptions as ‘Jew, stinking Jew, out with the Jews’. In May the smashing of window panes of Jewish shops begins.
April 1, 1933, during the Nazi’s first boycott of Jewish businesses a banner is displayed at the entrance to the Traunstein town square with the inscription "Do not buy from Jews, he expels you farmers of house and farm."
April 11, 1933, Himmler puts Dachau under SS jurisdiction, when it had been under Bavarian State Police
June 12, 1933, Census of all Germans begins
November 10, 1933 Benno’s sister Bertha dies at age 59
April 1934 The Nazi People's Court (Volksgerichtshof) established.
May 12, 1934, Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister, says publicly, “Jews must learn to break with their past behavior and leave public places in Germany to the Germans”.
May 18 and 24, 1935 Anti-Jewish riots in downtown Munich.
June 18, 1935, England signs naval treaty with Third Reich implicitly accepting the legitimacy of Germany’s revision of Versailles and strengthening Hitler’s hand in Germany.
July 1935, Hitler officially designates Munich Capital of the Nazi Movement
September 15, 1935 Huge Party Day rally in Nuremberg and the declaration of the Nuremberg racial laws (Nuremberg, 120 miles from Munich.
January 7, 1936 Fanny Holzer dies in Traunstein
March, 1936 the exhibition "Blut und Rasse" (Blood and Race) comes to Traunstein
April, 1936 Benno, Ana, Fritz and Hani move to 44 Trogerstrasse from their apartment on Liebherrstrasse
August 1 - 14, 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin
October 13, 1936 Alfred Holzer marries Martha Babette Trautmann in Bergzabern
November 7, 1936 “Bolshevism: The Great Anti-Bolshevist Show” opens in the library wing of the massive Germany Museum of technology on the Isar.
1935 – 1937 “The purification process also fully progressed at the local level Thus the Munich city fathers who had excluded the Jews from public swimming pools in 1935 took further bold step in 1937. Now the Jews were to be forbidden access to municipal baths and showers.”
took further bold step in 1937. Now the Jews were to be forbidden access to municipal baths and showers.”
June 18, 1937, Munich: The "Great German Art Exhibit" opens up at the new art museum on Haus de Kunst on Prinzregentstrasse. Another exhibition begins not far away in a dilapidated building formerly used to store plaster casts of classical statuary. This was the infamous Ausstllung Entarteter Kunst (Exhibition of Degenerate Art), a display of some 650 works by German artists identified with the avant-garde.
September 13, 1937 Hani Neuburger leaves Germany for the U.S.
September 13, 1937, Johanna Hani Neuburger leaves Germany for the U.S.
November 6, 1937 Max Holzer arrested for sexual contact with non-Jewish women.
November 8, 1937, to January 31, 1938 "The Eternal Jew", the largest anti-Jewish exhibition of the prewar years opened in Munich’s Deutsches Museum”.
January 20, 1938 Max Holzer convicted of violating Nuremberg blood law.
February 21, 1938, Nazi Chamber of Industry and Commerce issues directory of names and addresses of 1745 Jewish businesses in Munich in preparation to "Aryanize" them.
March 8, 1938 Reich Minister of Justice orders Jews who were sent to prison for “race defilement” to be re-arrested by the Gestapo after completing their sentences and taken off to concentration camps.
March 12, 1938, Anschluss, -- Germany annexes Austria
April 6, 1938, Max Holzer sent to Amberg penitentiary
April, 1938 Carl Laemmle writes to Secretary of State Hull complaining of how his efforts to rescue Jews is being thwarted by U.S. Consulate officials.
April 26, 1938 The decree calling for the registration and potential sequestration of Jewish property on behalf of the four-year plan
January – November, 1938 800 Jewish firms changed hands, including 340 factories, of which the majority were producing leather goods or clothing.
June 14, 1938, the “Third Ordinance on the Reich Citizenship”describes a business as “Jewish” if the owner was Jewish and a commercial and limited partnerships had at least one Jewish company shareholder.
June 22, 1938, Schmeling - Louis fight takes place in Yankee stadium before a sellout crowd. Louis defeats Schmeling in one round.
July 6, 1938 a list of businesses and services off limits to Jews is published -- including credit and real estate.
July 6 – 14 Conference in Evian-les-Bains France on the Jewish refugee crisis yields no positive results. Hitler seized on this to drive home the message that Jews were unpopular everywhere.
July 8, 1938, Munich's central synagogue on Herzog-Max-Strasse is torn down on Hitler’s orders.
July 23, 1938 The Nazi government decrees that Jews had to obtain new identification papers. When they collected them they found a “J” stamped on the front.
July 25, 1938 All but 709 of the remaining 3,152 German Jewish doctors lose their license to practice; the 709 were denied the right to call themselves doctors but can treat Jewish patients, who would otherwise be deprived of medical care altogether.
July, 1938 Jewish cattle traders are denied licenses. Jews no longer permitted to operate as traveling salesmen.
July 28, 1938 Fritz Neuburger leaves Germany for the U.S.
August 17, 1938 New law #174, declares that beginning January 1, 1939 all German Jews must add a second name, Israel for men and Sarah for women. These names would thereupon be used to identify them on all official documents, including passports.
September 15, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain meets Hitler in Berchtesgaden. Chamberlain accepts Hitler’s proposal of Sudetenland union with Germany
September 17, 1938, Germany begins a low intensity war on Czechoslovakia
September 27, 1938 decree allows only 172 of 1,753 Jewish lawyers to continue to practice law
September 29 - 30, 1938 Munich Conference: Great Britain and France agree to German occupation of the Sudetenland, previously western Czechoslovakia.
Early October 1938, Klara Holzer goes to Paris to visit her cousin Simon Vogel
October 5, 1938 Following request by Swiss authorities, Germans mark all Jewish passports with a large letter "J" to restrict Jews from immigrating to Switzerland.
October 28, 1938, 17,000 Polish Jews living in Germany expelled; Poles refused to admit them; 8,000 are stranded in the frontier village of Zbaszyn.
October 28, 1938 Reynard Heydrich’s Foreign Currency Control Office prepared measures to restrict the Jews’ power of disposal over their own assets.
November 7, 1938, In reprisal for his family's torturous treatment of October 27, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan shoots German diplomat Ernst vom Rath, in German Embassy in Paris.
November 8, 1938, Wilfrid Israel calls on the British Embassy in Berlin in an attempt to repudiate Herschel Grynszpan's actions of November 6, 1938.
November 8, 1938 German government announces that all Jewish newspapers and magazines are to cease publication. (There are at the time three Jewish newspapers with national circulation, four cultural papers, several sports papers and several dozen community bulletins).
November 9, 1938, News reaches Berlin that Vom Rath has died of his wounds.
November 9, 1938 A German newspaper, Lokalanzeiger describes Grynspan as “only one of a gang of bandits”.
November 9-10, 1938, Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass): Anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland; 200 synagogues destroyed; 7,500 Jewish shops looted; 30,000 male Jews sent to concentration camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen). 191 Synagogues are set afire by Nazi Storm troopers.
November 10, 1938 Himmler declares any Jews found to possess a gun will serve 20 years in prison.
November 10, 1938 London Times reports that Jewish shops in Munich were attacked by mobs incited by Brownshirts most of whom appeared to be members of the Putsch veterans who had marched in Munich the day before. Kaufinger Strasse in Munich, one of the main street, looked as if it had been bombed by air..
November 10, 1938, 500 Jews arrested in Munich and sent to Dachau.
November 10 Hitler and Goebbels meet in an Osteria in Munich finalizing a draft of a decree bringing the pogrom to an end. They discussed no insurance compensation for Jews; gradual expropriation of Jewish businesses.
November 10, 1938 Benno arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp.
November 10, 1938 Traunstein Nazis invade Holzer home at 6 Kernstrasse and evict the family.
November 10, 1938 Mina Einstein taken from her home and with Laupheim Jewish residents forced to watch the burning of the Laupheim synagogue.
November 11, 1938, The palace of Munich Catholic archbishop, Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber attacked and damaged in retaliation for having provided a truck for a Munich rabbi to rescue religious objects from the Ohel Yaakov synagogue before it was pulled down on Kristallnacht.
November 11, 1938 Hermann Spatz, attempting to hide a gun to avoid arrest is caught near his home in Wolfratshausen and sent to Dachau.
November 12, 1938, A conference called by Hermann Göring on the final expropriation of Jewish property. Here they discussed measures to limit Jewish ability to travel by train by giving others priority – Jews would be the last to be seated.
November 12, 1938 Decree bars Jews from being a foreman or chief clerk in any factory or store or for engaging in handicrafts. All Jewish retail businesses to be transferred to Aryan hands.
November 12, 1938 Jews prohibited from entering theaters, concerts, cinemas, music halls, dance floors or other places of entertainment under threat of punishment to the places of entertainment and the Jews themselves.
November 12, 1938 Goebbels announces that from January 1, 1939 no Jew could be a retailer, an exporter, or manager of a business. No Jew could be a foreman or chief clerk in any store or factory. No Jew could engage in handicrafts. All Jewish ships ‘will gradually will be placed in Aryan hands’. Any Jewish business not sold to Aryans by the start of the New Year would be taken by the state.
November 14, 1938, German Minister of Education decrees Jews are forbidden from enrolling in any German or Austrian university or attending lectures.
November 15, 1938 All Jewish pupils expelled from German schools
November 22, 1938 Gauleiter Wagner establishes the Wealth Administration Corporation of Munich. The corporation liquidates Jewish businesses for a small percentage of their value, then sells them to third parties for profit.
November 25, 1938 Benno released from Dachau.
December 3, 1938 Jews banned from using public libraries.
December 3, 1938 Jews deprived of driver’s licenses.
December 6, 1938 Jews prohibited from using sports or playing fields, public baths and outdoor swimming pools.
December 12, 1938 One billion mark fine levied against German Jewish community for the destruction of property during Kristallnacht
January 1, 1939 Goring ordered the cessation all Jewish business activity as of Jan. 1, 1939.
January 17, 1939 Jewish dentists lose their licenses to practice
January 30, 1939 Hitler in Reichstag speech: if war erupts it will mean the Vernichtung (extermination) of European Jews
February 9, 1939 Traunstein authorities declare their town "free of Jews".
March 15, 1939, Germans invade and occupy Czechoslovakia after the Czech president orders troops not to fire on invading Germans.
May 13, 1939, The MS St. Louis sets sail from Hamburg to Cuba with 900 Jewish refugees. Unable to off load in Cuba, the U.S. or Canada the refugees are returned to Europe where approximately 25% of them are eventually murdered.
August – September 1939 The Gestapo begins the systematic murder (euthanasia) of “mentally deficient” people in Germany, calling them “mercy killings”. Jews in care homes were especially targeted.
August 23, 1939, Non-Aggression Pact signed between Germany and he USSR.
September 1939 Jewish communities forced to create a file of all Jews fit for work between ages 16 & 55 for forced labor. The age limit was raised repeatedly.
September 1, 1939, Germany invades Poland. On that day 395,950 Jews lived in Warsaw, Poland's capital. WORLD WAR II begins.
September 24, 1939 Carl Laemmle dies
September 25, 1939, Great Britain’s Cabinet Committee on Refugees resolves that the defeat of Germany takes priority over protecting fugitives from Nazi mistreatment.
November 8, 1939, An unsuccessful attempt on Hitler's life by George Elser at the Burgerbraukeller on Rosenheimerstrasse in Munich brings attacks on Jews in Bavaria.
November 10, 1939. Completion of the 1939 German racial census.
Mid November, 1939, The Nazi governor general of occupied Poland decrees that the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw be shut off from the rest of the capital.
November 23, 1939 Frank orders that " All Jews and Jewesses within the Government-General (Poland) who are over ten years of age are required to wear . . . the Star of David."
February 11, 1940 Karoline Strauss born in New York to Hani (Neuburger) Strauss and Ludwig Strauss.
March, 1940 The British Royal Air Force begins bombing Germany
April, 1940 The U.S. under Roosevelt moves the immigration and naturalization service to the Justice Department.
May 10, 1940, Germany invades Belgium, Holland, and France. Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister
May 15, 1940, After five days of resistance, Holland surrenders to Germany. At the time 140,000 Jews lived in the country. France shocks Churchill and reports total defeat at the hands of the Germans in only five days of battle. The French have no reserves to put up a credible counterattack.
May 30, 1940 Hermann Spatz, husband of Cacilie (Tillie) Holzer Spatz and father of Wilhelm, dies of a heart attack at the age of 43 while working as a slave laborer in Munich.
June 4, 1940, First British bombing of Munich, bombs fell outside city limits causing little damage.
June 11, 1940, Italy joins war on the side of Germany.
September 1940 The Luftwaffe begins the blitz bombing of England.
September 1940 The anti-Semitic film Jud Süss launched at the Venice Film Festival where it received the “Golden Lion” award and rave reviews. It opened in German theaters in October.
November 8, 1940, During annual Beerhall Putsch ceremony in Munich, as Hitler finished his speech at the Lowenbraukeller —(the Burgerbraukeller had been too badly damaged by the 1939 bombing) 20 British bombers attacked the city destroying 20 structures and killing one person and injuring ten.
November 15, 1940 Warsaw ghetto is officially declared to be in existence. Work begins to build walls to circle district.
November 28, 1940 The anti-Jewish film Der Ewige Jude, The Eternal Jew, is released.
January 30, 1941 Hitler repeats his threats of annihilation of the Jews at a programmatic speech he makes in front of the Reichstag.
March 15, 1941 Fred (Fritz) Neuburger and Kate Roth married in New York.
March 17, 1941 six Jewish forced laborers were sent from the Aryanization Office to Oberach near Rottach am Tegernsee to demolish 14 former SA barracks under the direction and supervision of local carpenters to make way for Milbertshofen
May 10, 1941, Rudolf Hess, aid to Hitler, flies to Britain and bails out over Glasgow.
June 1941 to August 1942 Milbertshofen concentration camp built by Jewish forced labor.
June 6, 1941 Max Holzer transferred from Amberg prison to Zweibrucken convict (penitentiary) station.
June 18, 1941 Hansi, Paul and Margaret arrive in New York from Barranquilla, Colombia on the ship Santa Rosa
June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa; Germany invades the Soviet Union. German killing squads, the Einsatzgruppen begin to organize local collaborators in Lithuania, Latvia and the Ukrainian states and the killing of thousands of Jews.
July 31, 1941, Goering commands Reinhard Heydrich, "to carry out all the necessary preparations with regard to organizational and financial matters for bringing about a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence." - That influence now covered a dozen countries. - "I further charge you with submitting to me promptly an overall plan... for the execution of the intended FINAL SOLUTION of the Jewish question."
August, 1941 Munich’s second ‘Jewish Settlement’ opened within the confines of the Sisters of Charity convent in the suburb of Berg am Laim.
July & August 1941 Clemens August Graf von Galen, bishop of Munster, delivers sermons calling for the rule of law to be restored in Germany. “Unless this call for justice is answered this German folk and Fatherland, despite the heroism of its soldiers and its famous victories, will perish from inner rot and foulness”.
September, 1941 Adolf Hitler decides that the 300,000 Jews of German, Austrian or Czech nationality, sometimes referred to as Reich Jews, should be deported from Germany by the end of the year. Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich are given the task of organizing the deportation.
September 15, 1941 Reich Minister of the Interior issued an ordinance allowing Jews to use public transport only with an exemption from the police. Munich as “Capital of the Movement” allowed no exemption for Jews while in other cities exemptions were allowed for Jewish slave laborers.
September 15 – 17, 1941 Hitler orders the deportation of Jews from the Reich and the Protectorate.
On Sept 18, 1941, Himmler notifies SS General Arthur Greiser Gauleiter and Reich governor of the Warthau that “the Fuhrer wanted the Old Reich and the Protectorate emptied and disencumbered of Jews” and “that this should be done by moving them from west to east as soon as possible”.
September 19, 1941, All Jews above the age of six ordered to wear a yellow star of David on their outer clothes.
September 20, 1941, Benno puts the first of his anti-Nazi Postcard in the mail. It read: "The Eternal mass murderer Hitler, 'Pfui' "(I Spit on You!)
September 20, 1941, Kiev, capital of Ukraine, falls to the German army after a three month battle.
September 24, 1941, A chain of explosions in captured Kiev kills hundreds of German officers and soldiers. Bombs were planted under buildings formerly used by the Red Army or KGB
September 29 – 30 33,771 Jews massacred at Babi Yar outside Kiev
September 30, Postcard 2 "Hannover Mannheim Pfui. Hitler Pfui".
October 1, 1941 Postcard 3 "The swineherd's dog Hitler" and on the place for messages, "Murderer".
October 1, 1941, Operation Typhoon, the Nazi drive to take Moscow begins.
October, 1941 Himmler decree bans Jewish emigration from the Reich.
October 16, 1941 In response to Hitler's plea that all Jews must leave Germany, the first of twenty trains leave Germany for the East. Jews from Luxemburg and Vienna are part of the deportation. Within the next month 19,827 Jews from Germany (Reich Jews) would be sent to Lodz.
October 23, 1941 Father Berhard Lichtenberg arrested for protesting against German deportation of the Jews and is sent to prison. In 1943 he is sent to Dachau but dies on the way.
October 27, 1941 Fred and Hanny deposit $860 with Atlantic Tours to procure a tourist visa on behalf of Benno and Anna to enter Cuba
November 5, 1941 Jews in Munich began to hear rumors that deportation are imminent.
November 7, 1941 Jews subject to deportation were instructed not to leave their homes as of November 11. They received a detailed list of the items they had to take with them. The luggage could not exceed 50 kg in weight. They were expected to pay for ‘travel expenses' for their deportation.
November 14, People from Berg am Laim camp were transferred to Milbertshofen to await their deportation.
November 20, 1941 Last letter sent from Benno and Anna to the U.S.
November 20, 1941, Benno Holzer and his cousin Cäcilie (Tillie) Spatz and her 16-year-old son Wilhelm and Alfred Holzer and his wife Martha among the 1000 deportees from Munich sent east. The train took 3 days to arrive in Kaunas.
November 24, 1941 A ghetto is set up in Theresienstadt. Jews begin to be sent there by Eichmann from all corners of the Reich. Eventually it would be a major center for the gathering and re-deportation of Jews to the death camps.
November 25, 1941 Benno Holzer, Cäcilie Spatz, her 16-year-old son Wilhelm, Alfred Holzer and his wife Martha, Cacilie’s sister in law Flora and Flora’s 19 year old daughter along with 1000 deportees from Munich and others from Berlin and Frankfurt (1,159 men, 1,600 women, and 175 children in all) were shot dead in a grassy pit at Ninth Fort near Kaunas, Lithuania. Einsatzkommando 3 of Einsatzgruppe A. The commander of Einsatzkommando 3 was Karl Jäger.
November 25, 1941 An amendment to the Reich citizenship law strips German Jews of their nationality. (Reich Citizens Act of 25 November 1941)
November 30, 1941 Jews begin to arrive at Theresienstadt from Prague.
December 7, 1941, Japan Attack Pearl Harbor: The United States enters the War.
December 11, 1941 The United States declares war on Germany
January 11, 1942 Post card 4 has the word "Heil" on the stamp and over Hitler's picture the word 'Murderer'. Under the picture were the words "God is in Heaven. Hitler is a horrible person. God decides for all people and doesn't tolerate other gods".
January 12, 1942 Post card 5 has the word "Robespierre" above the stamp and "Pfui" on the stamp itself as well as a cross to the left of the stamp and one underneath it.
January 14, 1942 Post card 6 there is the word "them" on the top half of the stamp, then a long line and a phrase across the stamp "Heil the new God of 1933 - 1943". And then there is the phrase in capital letters "Is that right?"
January 17, 1942, Post card 7 there is the word "Tyrant" across the Fuhrer's picture. Then there is an addition, "Pile of rubbish".
January 20, 1942 Wannsee Conference in Berlin: Heydrich outlines plan to murder Europe's Jews.
January 22, 1942, Post Card 8 under the stamp there is a phrase, "As long as there is an idiot, the world is also so", and in the text part there is "meanness".
January 23, 1942, Post Card 9 there is the word "Heil" and across the picture of the Fuhrer "Terror power" and under the stamp, "the new God". On the text part of the card, "the murderer of 5,000,000".
January 30, 1942 Hitler repeated his so-called prophecy of the extermination of the Jews.
February 10, 1942, Post Card 10 has on the stamp the word "Hitler" and across the stamp there are the words: "Dog, murderer". And below, "Bandit, scoundrel, criminal". And to the left and below the stamp there is a cross.
February 21, Post Card 11 1942 the head of the Fuhrer is thickly crossed and there is written " ? " and "criminal" below the stamp (allegedly bore the stamp of Benno’s company is brought to the main post office and turned over to the secret police.
February 23, 1942, Post card 12 the head of the Fuhrer is also crossed. There is a word below, "Krepiere" (?) and to the left "Beast", and then below, "Murderer, rascal".
February 23 On the postcard of the same date above and across the stamp there are the words "Here is the bloody dog".
February 24, 1942 Hitler that “the hour would come when the most evil world enemy of all time will be put out of action for at least one thousand years”. In less than a month, on February 24, 1942, he returned to this same theme in his yearly message marking the foundation of the Nazi Party in Munich. Hitler told the alte Kampfer that now, unlike at the start of their struggle, they were “no longer alone in fighting the alliance of Jewish capitalism and communism. . . the ideas of the National Socialist and Fascist revolutions (having) conquered “great and powerful states”.
February 28, 1942 Post card 14 There is an inscription above the stamp "The dog" and "murderer" under it. And there is a thick cross over the picture of the Fuhrer and a picture of a triangle in the form of three dots.
March 16, 1942 (Monday) Benno and Anna are forced to leave their apartment at 44 Trogestrasse and sent to Milbertshofen.
March 24, 1942 Benno arrested by the Gestapo at Milbertshofen and taken to the Gestapo prison at Munich.
April 4, 1942 Benno is officially arrested him and transferred to the police for pre-trial detention at the prison Munich-Neudeck. Brought to a Munich courthouse the same day, in his first court hearing Benno Neuburger admitted to have produced and sent out the 14 postcards with comments about Hitler.
April 10, 1942 Benno, being held in the Munich Gestapo jail, is charged with crimes against the regime for mailing post cards denouncing Hitler.
May 1942 A ban on correspondence from Theresienstadt is reimposed when several persons were arrested for having received correspondence and parcels through other channels.
May 19, 1942 Benno writes a letter to Ana from prison, but authorities refuse to allow it to be sent because it mentions a coming trial.
May 21 to July 4, 1942, Benno in prison in Muenchen Stadelheim Prison.
May 27, 1942, The president of the Second Senate of the People’s Court prepared the ordered to reveal the accusations to Neuburger and grant him ten days for a response. The indictment was sent the next day. In addition, the president appointed the Berlin lawyer Dr. Heinz Bergmann as the public defense counsel.
June 6, 1942 Reinhard Heydrich, chief architect of the Holocaust, injured in an assassination attempt near Prague, dies
June 1942 to February 1943 6 letters written and distributed by the White Rose anti-Nazi group in Munich, anonymously through the mail.
June 27, 1942, White Rose group in Munich begins its activities distributing its first letter.
June 28, 1942, Beginning of Nazi operation Case Blue in the Soviet Union
June 30, 1942 Ana’s “legal advisor” Felix Koenigsberger sends a letter to the investigative judge at the Munich courthouse. He wrote that the over 70-year old Benno Neuburger was in custody for months now and his wife, Ana, had not heard anything about the reasons for his arrest
July 8, 1942 at 10 pm, Benno arrives at the Berlin-Moabit prison, the pre-trial detention center.
July 12, 1943. White Rose distributes its 4th letter.
July 17, 1942 Ludwig Louis Holzer deported from Munich to Theresienstadt
July 20, 1942 Benno tried in the Berlin “Peoples’ Court”, sentenced to death and sent to the notorious Plötzensee prison in Berlin
July 23, 1942 Willi Wolf Holzer, deported from Munich to Theresienstadt.
July 23, 1942 Ana Neuburger writes her last postcard from the deportation collection camp in Munich Milbertshofen to her cousin Ilse Schuster in Munich, before being sent by train that same day to Theresienstadt.
July 23, 1942 The killings begin at Treblinka death camp 80 kilometers northeast of Warsaw.
August 19, 1942 Mina Einstein deported from Laupheim to Theresienstadt. Soon aftr Laupheim is declared “Free of Jews”.
September 1942 a ban on correspondence is once again lifted at Theresienstadt Replies had to be forwarded to the prisoners by the Jewish Communities outside the Ghetto.
September 17, 1942 Benno’s last request made, and ignored.
September 18, 1942, Benno executed by guillotine in Berlin at the Plötzensee Prison’s converted workroom in the early morning.
September 19, 1942, Anna transferred by train from Theresienstadt to Treblinka death camp in Poland. She is murdered there.
September 19, 1942 Willi Holzer deported from Theresienstadt to Treblinka and murdered there.
September 19, 20, 1942. Heavy allied bombing of Munich
November 8, 1942, Mina Einstein dies in Theresienstadt ghetto.
January 1, 1943 Ludwig Louis Holzer dies in Theresienstadt ghetto.
January 6, 1943 Max Holzer completes his prison sentence and is transferred to Auschwitz.
January 13, 1943, Gauleiter (mayor) of Munich, Paul Geisler delivers a speech in Munich’s Deutsches Museum that provokes a rebellion among women students
January 25 to February 28 5th letter from the White Rose distributed
January 31, 1943, German troops surrender at Stalingrad.
February 2, 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad formally ends with German defeat
February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl arrested in Munich
February 18, 1943, Goebbels gives his “Total War” speech in Berlin
February 22, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst tried and executed in Munich, at Stadelheim prison
February 27, 1943, the Gestapo in Nazi Germany began the “Final Roundup of Berlin Jews,” arresting all Jews in the city of Berlin. They were to be sent to Auschwitz. Protests in Berlin of wives of Jewish men arrested succeeded in freeing some.
March 10, 1943, Max Holzer dies in Auschwitz concentration camp.
March 13, 1943 Hedwig Holzer is sent by train from Munich to Auschwitz. She and the 218 others are sent there in cattle cars. According to one source she died of Typhus in Auschwitz on March 13.
July 19, 1943 Linda, oldest child of Fred Neuburger, born in New York.
2018 Memorial plaque placed at 6 Kernstrasse, Traunstein, in memory of
the members of the Holzer family murdered during the years 1941 to 1943.
November 2021, Reading the names of the Jewish deportees from Munich of November 20, 1941
July 11, 2022, Memorial Steele placed at 44 Trogerstrasse, Munich, former home of Ana and Benno Neuburger after a memorial meeting at the Stuck Museum.
July 11, 2022 Commemorative event for Anna and Benno Neuburger at the Stuck Museum on Princeregentenstrasse in Munich.
