codes. September: Richard Hentsch makes a controversial as-
sessment at the Battle of the Marne. 6 November: Carl Hans
Lody is executed in London as a spy.
1915 Elsbeth Schragmüller assumes responsibility for military es-
pionage regarding France. December: Franz von Papen and
Karl Boy-Ed are expelled as spies from the United States.
1916 30 July: German agents explode the installation on Black
Tom Island in New York harbor.
1917 Alexander Helphand channels secret German subsidies to
Bolshevik revolutionaries. Maximilian Ronge becomes head
of the Evidenzbüro. March: The authenticity of the decoded
Zimmermann Telegram is confirmed by its author. 5 Octo-
ber: Mata Hari is executed in Paris for espionage.
1918 29 October–4 November: A sailors’ mutiny takes place in Kiel.
9 November: Emperor William II abdicates and the Weimar
Republic is proclaimed. 11 November: The armistice between
the Allies and Germany is signed, ending World War I.
1919 15 January: Revolutionary activists Rosa Luxemburg and
Karl Liebknecht are murdered while en route to prison. 11
August: The Weimar constitution is announced.
1921 German military intelligence is reconfigured as the Abwehr.
1922 Clandestine military collaboration between the Reichswehr
and the Soviet Red Army begins. 24 June: Foreign Minister
Walter Rathenau is assassinated.
1923 1 January: French and Belgian troops occupy the Ruhr. 25 Oc-
tober: The communist uprising in Hamburg is suppressed. 8–
November: Adolf Hitler leads an abortive coup in Munich.
1926 10 September: Germany joins the League of Nations.
1929 6 January: Heinrich Himmler is appointed SS-Reichsführer.
1931 8 June: Hans-Thilo Schmidt offers to sell Enigma information
to the French. 10 August: Reinhard Heydrich begins to form
the Sicherheitsdienst (SD).
1933 30 January: Hitler is appointed chancellor by President Paul
von Hindenburg. 27 February: The Reichstag is set on fire.
23 March: The Enabling Act is passed. 10 April: The Forsc-
hungsamt is established by Hermann Göring. 26 April: The
Gestapo is created, with Rudolf Diels as it first director.
xvi • CHRONOLOGY