1942 in Germany

Incumbents

National level

• Adolf Hitler

Events

• 13 January — Heinkel test pilot Helmut Schenk becomes the first person to escape from a stricken aircraft with an ejection seat.
• 20 January — World War II: Nazis at the Wannsee conference in Berlin decide that the "final solution to the Jewish problem" is deportation, and later extermination.
• 21 January — World War II: Erwin Rommel launches his new offensive in Cyrenaica.
• 3 February — World War II: Rommel suspends his offensive in Cyrenaica.
• 17 March — Holocaust: the Nazi German extermination camp Bełżec opens in occupied Poland about 1 km south of the local railroad station of Bełżec in the Lublin district of the General Government. Between March 1942 and December 1942, at least 434,508 people were killed there.
• 24 March - The deportation of Slovak Jews to Auschwitz begins.
• 27 March - The first French Jews are deported to Auschwitz.
• April — Holocaust: the Nazi German extermination camp Sobibor opens in occupied Poland on the outskirts of the town of Sobibór. Between April 1942 and October 1943, at least 160,000 people were killed in the camp.
• Spring — Holocaust: the Nazi German extermination camp Treblinka II opens in occupied Poland near the village of Treblinka. Between July 1942 and October 1943, around 850,000 people were killed there, more than 800,000 of whom were Jews.
• 12 May — World War II - Second Battle of Kharkov: In the eastern Ukraine, the Soviet Army initiates a major offensive. During the battle the Soviets capture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, only to be encircled and destroyed.
• 21 May — World War II: Mexico declares war against Germany after the sinking of the Mexican tanker Faja de Oro by the German U-boat, U-160, off Key West.
• 27 May — World War II - Operation Anthropoid: Czech paratroopers attempt to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. He survives, but is seriously injured.
• 4 June — World War II: Reinhard Heydrich succumbs to wounds sustained on May 27 from Czechoslovakian paratroopers acting in Operation Anthropoid.
• 4 June - World War II: Hitler and Mannerheim recording
• 9 June — World War II: Nazis burn the Czech village of Lidice in reprisal for the killing of Reinhard Heydrich.
• 10 June — World War II: The Gestapo massacres 173 male residents of Lidice, Czechoslovakia in revenge for the killing of Heydrich in the village.
• 11 June — Plans are made for the deportation of Jews from France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
• 23 June — The experimental early type of a nuclear reactor L-IV led to an accident, becoming the first nuclear accident in history and consisting of steam explosion and reactor fire in Leipzig.
• 1 July — 27 July — World War II: the First Battle of El Alamein.
• 2 July — American and British newspapers report that more than 1,000,000 Jews have already been exterminated by the Nazi regime across occupied Europe.
• 4 July — World War II: Twenty-four ships are sunk by German bombers and submarines after Convoy PQ 17 to the Soviet Union is scattered in the Arctic Ocean to evade the German battleship Tirpitz.
• 14 July — World War II: Germany introduces the Ostvolk Medal for Soviet personnel in Wehrmacht, on the same day that the first Dutch Jews are deported to Auschwitz.
• 18 July — World War II: Germany test flies the Messerschmitt Me 262 for the first time.
• 19 July — World War II - Battle of the Atlantic: German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions, in response to an effective American convoy system.
• 22 July — Holocaust: The systematic deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto begins, with many being transported to the new extermination camp at Treblinka.
• August - Deportation of Croatian Jews to Auschwitz begins.
• 30 August — Luxembourg is formally annexed to the German Reich.
• 31 August - 5 September — World War II: Battle of Alam Halfa
• 3 September — A German attempt to liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Lakhva leads to an uprising.
• 27 September — World War II - Both commerce raiding hilfskreuzer Stier and Liberty ship Stephen Hopkins sink following a gun battle in the South Atlantic. Stier is the only commerce raider to be sunk by Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships.
• 3 October — The first A-4 rocket is successfully launched from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. The rocket flies 147 kilometers wide and reaches a height of 84.5 kilometers, becoming the first man-made object to reach space.
• 5 October - Himmler orders all Jews in concentration camps across Germany to be transferred to Auschwitz or Majdanek.
• 14 October — A German U-boat sinks the ferry SS Caribou, killing 137.
• 23 October—4 November - World War II - Second Battle of El Alamein: British troops go on the offensive against the Axis forces.
• 3 November — World War II - Second Battle of El Alamein: German forces under Erwin Rommel are forced to retreat during the night.
• 10 November — World War II: In violation of a 1940 armistice, Germany invades Vichy France, following French Admiral François Darlan's agreement to an armistice with the Allies in North Africa.
• 19 November — World War II - Battle of Stalingrad: Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counter-attacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR's favor.
• 22 November — World War II - Battle of Stalingrad: The situation for the German attackers of Stalingrad seems desperate during the Soviet counter-attack Operation Uranus, and General Friedrich Paulus sends Adolf Hitler a telegram saying that the German Sixth Army is surrounded.
• 23 November — A German U-boat sinks the off the coast of Brazil. One crewman, a Chinese second steward named Poon Lim, is separated from the others and spends 130 days adrift until he is rescued on 3 April 1943.
• 28 December -
• * - Hitler orders Greece and Crete to be fortified and Balkan rebellions to be suppressed firmly and approves the withdrawal of Army Group A from the Caucasus.
• * - Sterilization experiments begin on women at Birkenau.

  Births

• 17 January — Ulf Hoelscher, German violinist
• 21 February — Margarethe von Trotta, German actress, film director, and writer
• 28 March — Conrad Schumann, East German border guard
• 6 June - Klaus Bednarz, German journalist
• 12 June — Bert Sakmann, German physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate
• 5 July — Hannes Löhr, German football player
• 6 August — Evelyn Hamann, German actress
• 5 September — Werner Herzog, German filmmaker
• 19 September - Wolfgang Schäuble, German politician
• 26 September - Ingrid Becker, German athlete
• 1 October — Gunther Wallraff, German investigative journalist
• 20 October — Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, German biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 21 November - Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, German politician
• 25 November - Rosa von Praunheim, German film director, author and painter
• 2 December - Ulrich Wickert, German journalist
• 3 December - Alice Schwarzer, German feminist and publisher

  Deaths

• 26 January — Felix Hausdorff, German mathematician
• 8 February — Fritz Todt, German engineer
• 12 March - Robert Bosch, German industrialist
• 14 March — Friedrich Karl Georg Fedde, German botanist
• 3 August - Richard Willstätter, German chemist
• 30 August — Martin Kirschner, German surgeon
• 1 November — Hugo Distler, German composer
• 3 December — Henner Henkel, German tennis champion
• 22 December — Kurt Schumacher, German sculptor