The Nuremburg Laws of 1935 stripped Jews of their citizenship, the right to vote and particiaption in professions such as civil service, medicine, law and education.
March / 1938: Germany annexes Austria in what's called, The Anschluss.
October / 1938: Germany annexes the Sudetenland, a predominantly ethnic German territory along Czechoslovakia's western border with Germany. The region had been taken from a defeated Germany under the Treaty of Versailles following World War I.
March / 1939: Germany annexes the remainder of Czechoslovakia and renames the portion they occupy, The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Hungary and Poland are ceded territory along their Czech borders and a Slovak republic is formed in the east.
September / 1941: Reinhard Heydrich, the notorious ' Butcher of Prague', is appointed by Hitler as Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. He employs the 'whip and sugar' method by implementing brutal, repressive measures which include mass executions, curbing Jewish rights and eventually deporting them to death camps while simultaneously winning over the populace through social improvements and employment.
May / 1942: The plot to assassinate Heydrich was code named 'Operation Anthropoid' by Britain's Special Operations Executive or SOE. In A Republic's Rise, I take literary license and focus on the novel's fictitious characters, imagining their roles in this very real plot. I strongly recommend reading about the actual event and the courageous men and women involved.