1934 The SD manufactures evidence for the Night of the Long
Knives of 30 June. 1 April: Diels loses his position as head
of the Gestapo in a power struggle with Himmler. 25 July: A
Nazi coup in Austria fails.
1935 Full-scale production of the Enigma cipher machines com-
mences. Hitler forbids espionage activity in Great Britain. 2
January: Wilhelm Canaris takes command of the Abwehr. 15
September: The Nuremberg racial laws are enacted.
1936 7 March: German troops march into the demilitarized Rhine-
land. 17 June: Himmler assumes control of the unified police
forces of the Third Reich. 18 July: The Spanish Civil War
begins. 1 August: The Olympic Games open in Berlin. 25
October: A German-Italian pact establishes the Berlin-Rome
Axis.
1938 Fremde Heere, the intelligence unit of the General Staff, is
divided into eastern and western sections. 4 February: Hit-
ler takes over as supreme commander of the Wehrmacht. 13
March: “Greater Germany” is created by the annexation of
Austria. 20 June: Liselotte Herrmann is executed as a com-
munist spy. 28 September: The plan of Hans Oster and Fried-
rich Wilhelm Heinz to assassinate Hitler fails. 29 September:
The Munich Conference grants the Sudetenland to Germany.
1939 The Rote Kapelle begins to form around Harro Schulze-
Boysen and Arvid and Mildred Harnack. 23 August: The
Nazi-Soviet Pact is concluded. 31 August: The Gleiwitz inci-
dent is staged to make Poland appear as an aggressor against
Germany. 1 September: World War II begins with the inva-
sion of Poland. 14 September: Wolfgang zu Putlitz flees to
Great Britain. 21 September: Heydrich issues guidelines
for the Einsatzgruppen in occupied Poland. 1 October: The
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) is formed under Hey-
drich. 9 November: Two British Secret Intelligence Service
officers are abducted by the SD in the Venlo Affair.
1940 20 May: Tyler Kent is arrested in London as a Nazi spy. 23
October: Hitler negotiates unsuccessfully with Francisco
Franco of Spain. November: Richard Sorge begins to warn
Moscow of Hitler’s impending invasion of the Soviet Union.
CHRONOLOGY • xvii