Medical examination of recruits in June 1935
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R43590, photographer: not stated
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16 March 1935
Adolf Hitler announces the reintroduction of compulsory military service and the expansion of the Wehrmacht to 580,000 men. This is a breach of Germany's obligations according to the Treaty of Versailles.
Ballot for the national referendum on 13 January, 1935 in the SaarBundesarchiv, Bild 102-16497, photographer: Pahl, Georg1 March 1935
The Saar region is incorporated into the German ReichBeforehand, a referendum in the Saar region in January of this year achieves a 90% vote in favour of re-incorporating the Saar into the German Reich. This brings 2,600 people to leave the Saar region for France already at the end of January.
Office building, Vesey Street 20, New YorkDeutsches Exilarchiv 1933-1945 der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek, Archive of the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom, New York / Deutsche Akademie im Exil, EB 70/117, © Marie-Luise Hahn 19921935
Establishment of the American Guild for German Cultural FreedomWhen the American Guild For German Cultural Freedom is founded, the writer Thomas Mann, who is also president of the literature department of the German Academy in Exile says: “I consider it a social responsibility of import and urgency […] to work for the free German cultural life outside of the Reich borders […] and to preserve German culture, which is dear and important to other peoples and whose survival is valued by humanity, and to bring it through a time of darkness into the future, where it can once again find a place at home. […] It is now important to bring the lively German intellect through night and winter […].May 1935
The film Abdul the Damned by Austrian director Karl Grune, with the exiled German actor Fritz Kortner in the lead role, premieres. The film takes aim at dictators Hitler and Mussolini.21 June 1935
Writers' congress "for the Defence of Culture" in ParisThe Congress is called into being by French writers. More than 250 participants from 38 countries respond, and the German writers attending include Anna Seghers, Heinrich and Klaus Mann, Bertolt Brecht and Lion Feuchtwanger.8 June 1935
In further rounds of denaturalisation, writer Bertolt Brecht, actress Erika Mann and writer Walter Mehring, among others, lose their German citizenship.
Reich Legal Gazette with the "Reich Citizen Act"Reichsgeseztesblatt, issue from 15 September 1935, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin15 September 1935
So-called "Nuremberg Laws" passed at the Nuremberg RallyThis collective term refers to the race laws that had long been discussed in Nazi circles and which, using racist criteria, strip Jews of almost all their civil rights, degrading them to second-class citizens.26 September 1935
In Paris, Heinrich Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger and other prominent German émigrés discuss a popular front against the Nazi regime
Carl von Ossietzky in a concentration camp, presumably EsterwegenBundesarchiv, Bild 183-93516-0010, photographer: not stated27 October 1935
Thomas Mann and Albert Einstein, both German Nobel Prize winners living in exile, call for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to Carl von Ossietzky, at the time interned in a concentration camp.1936
The Man who Fell from Germany by writer Konrad Merz is published. The novel, which deals with life in exile, is issued by Querido and brings the author to prominence in exile circles.