Timeline Germany 1821-1916
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1821 Apr 20,
Franz K. Achard (67), German physicist, chemist, died.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1821 Oct 13, Rudolf Virchow,
German politician and anthropologist (cell pathology), was born.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1821 Nov 10, Andreas J Romberg
(54), German violinist and composer (Der Rabe), died.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1821 Thomas Johann Seebeck
(1770-1831), Estonia-born German physicist, discovered that applying a
temperature difference across two adjoined metals would give rise to a
small voltage. This came to be called the Seebeck effect.
(Econ, 9/6/08, TQ p.6)
1822 Jan 2, Rudolph J.E. Clausius,
German physicist (thermodynamics), was born.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1822 Jan 6, Heinrich Schliemann,
German polyglot and archeologist (discovered Troy), was born.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1822 Feb 22, Adolf Kuszmaul,
German physician (stomach pump, Kuszmaul disease), was born.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1822 Jun 25, Ernst Theodor Amadeus
(ETA) Hoffmann (46), German writer, judge, composer, died.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1822 Aug 25, F. William Herschel
(85), German astronomer (discovered Uranus), died.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1822 Gebruder Heubach (Heubach
Brothers) began a porcelain manufacturing operation in Lichte,
Thuringia, Germany. The firm became known for manufacturing doll heads
and in 2005 was still in operation as Lichte Porcelain.
(SFC, 10/5/05, p.G3)
1823 Apr 4, Karl Wilhelm Siemens,
inventor (laid undersea cables), was born.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1823 Oct 5, Carl Maria von Weber
visited Beethoven.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1823 Dec 7, Leopold Kronecker,
German mathematician (Tensor of Kronecker), was born.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1823 Johann Anton Ramboux, German
artist, created "Merenda in the Farnesi Gardens in Rome" in pen and
brown ink over pencil.
(WSJ, 7/16/98, p.A16)
1823-1900 F. Max Mueller, German philologist: "To
think is to speak low. To speak is to think aloud."
(AP, 10/14/97)
1824 Feb 9, Anna Katharina
Emmerick (b.1774), a sickly, virtually illiterate German nun, died. Her
gory visions of Jesus' last hours of suffering before his crucifixion
drew pilgrims to her bedside in the years before her death. In 2004 she
was beatified by Pope John Paul VI.
(AP, 10/3/04)(www.vatican.va/news_services)
1824 Mar 26, 1st performance of
Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis."
(SS, 3/26/02)
1824 May 7, The Ninth Symphony by
Beethoven had its premiere. The "Ode to Joy" lyric was originally
written by Friedrich von Schiller as the "Ode to Freedom."
(LGC, 1970, p.98)(WSJ, 12/10/01, p.A16)
1825 Beethoven composed his String
Quartet No. 15 in A Minor.
(http://www.karadar.net/Cataloghi/beethoven.html)
1826 Jun 4, Karl Maria FE von
Weber (39), German composer (Oberon), died.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1813 Aug
26-27, The Battle of Dresden was Napoleon’s last major victory against
the allied forces of Austria, Russia and Prussia.
(www.napoleonguide.com/battle_dresden.htm)
1826 Heinrich Schwabe, German
amateur astronomer, began a systematic program of observing the Sun
from his home in Dessau. He kept careful records of sunspots over 17
years and in 1843 noted an 11-year cycle in their frequency.
(SSFC, 5/27/01, Par p.17)(Econ, 6/28/03, p.77)
1827 Mar 26, Ludwig von Beethoven
(56), German composer, died in Vienna. He had been deaf for the later
part of his life, but said on his death bead "I shall hear in heaven."
It was later determined that he suffered from lead poisoning. In 1995
Tia DeNora authored "Beethoven and the Construction of Genius." In 2000
Russell Martin authored "Beethoven’s Hair: An Extraordinary Historical
Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved."
(WSJ, 5/29/96, p.A5)(AP, 3/256/97)(HN, 3/26/99)(SFC,
10/18/00, p.A2)(WSJ, 1/17/02, p.A12)
1827 August Marschner wrote his
opera "Der Vampyr."
(WSJ, 1/21/98, p.A16)
1828 May 22, Albrecht von Grafe,
German eye surgeon, founder of modern ophthalmology, was born.
(HN, 5/22/01)
1828 Nov 19, Franz Schubert
(b.1797), Austrian composer, died of syphilis in Vienna. In this he
composed his song cycle "Schwanengesang." His work included the C-Major
Symphony, string quartets, 3 piano sonatas, and the C-Major String
Quartet. Otto Erich Deutsch catalogued his work [hence the "D" numbers]
and wrote a documentary biography. In 1997 Brian Newbould wrote
"Schubert: The Music and the Man."
(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.32)(WSJ, 4/16/97, p.A16)(WSJ,
5/13/97, p.A21)
1828 Dec 23, Mathilde Wesendonk,
German writer, poet (Tagebuchblatter), was born.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1829 Jan 19, Johann von Goethe's
"Faust, Part 1," premiered.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1830 Jan 7, Albert Bierstadt,
painter (US landscapes), was born in Germany.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1830 Jan 8, Hans von Bulow,
pianist, virtuoso conductor, was born in Dresden.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1830 The Altes Museum was designed
by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the center of Berlin.
(WSJ, 7/29/98, p.A13)
1831 Mar 4, Georg Michael Telemann
(82), composer, died.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1831 Jun 28, Joseph Joachim,
violinist (Hungarian Concerto), was born in Kittsee, Germany.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1832 Feb 22, Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe (b.1749), poet, (Faust, Egmont) died in Weimar, Germany. Goethe
had served as minister of mines under Bismarck. He completed "Faust"
just before his death: "When Ideas fail, words come in handy." In 1988
Kenneth Weisinger authored "The Classical Facade: A Non-Classical
Reading of Goethe's Criticism." In 2006 John Armstrong authored “Love,
Life, Goethe: How to Be Happy in an Imperfect World.”
(SFEC, 4/26/98, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 8/7/03, p.A19)(SFC,
12/14/04, p.B1)(WSJ, 1/13/07, p.P10)
1832 Mar 11, Franz Melde, German
physicist (Melde test), was born.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1832 Apr 15, Wilhelm Busch, German
artist, was born. He created the precursor to the cartoon strip.
(HN, 4/15/02)
1832 May 14, Felix Mendelssohn's
"Hebrides," premiered.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1832 Jul 5, The German government
began curtailing freedom of the press after German Democrats advocated
a revolt against Austrian rule.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1833 May 7, Composer Johannes
Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany, and died on Apr 3, 1897. His works
number through Opus 122 and included: the "Hungarian Dances," the
"Haydn Variations," the "Violin Concerto in D Major," "Lullaby" and
compositions for the pianoforte, organ, chamber music, orchestral
compositions, numerous songs, small and large choral works. A biography
of his life and work was written by Karl Geiringer in 1934 titled:
"Brahms: His Life and Work." In 1997 Jan Swafford published the
biography: "Johannes Brahms." In 1998 Styra Avins published "Johannes
Brahms: Life and Letters."
(BLW, Geiringer, 1963 ed.)(AP, 5/7/97)(WSJ, 12/3/97,
p.A20)(WSJ, 5/4/98, p.A20)(HN, 5/7/99)
1833 Oct, The first Oktoberfest
was held in Munich.
(SFEC, 8/15/99, p.T3
1833 Dec 12, Matthias Hohner
(d.1902), German manufacturer (harmonica), was born.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1834-1896 Heinrich von Treitschke, German historian.
Treitschke coined the word and concept of "lebensraum"-German for
"living space"-which was later embraced by Hitler in his drive for
domination of Europe. Von Treitschke believed Prussia should be a world
power and should seize whatever land it needed. German geographer
Karl Haushofer took the idea to justify Germany’s need for more
territory for a growing population, and that notion was subsequently
taken up by Hitler and the Nazis. Haushofer became one of
Hitler’s closest advisers and his theories, known as "Weltpolitik" were
among the cornerstones of Nazi expansion.
(WUD, 1994, p.1509)(HNQ, 4/9/99)
1833-1905 Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen, German
geographer and geologist. He coined the expression "Silk Road" to
describe the ancient trade routes between China and the West.
(AM, 7/00, p.72)
1834-1919 Ernst Haeckel, German biologist,
morphologist and philosopher. He coined the terms ecology and phylogeny
and proposed the theory that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."
(WUD, 1994, p.635)(NH, 12/98, p.4,56)
1835 Oct 31, J.F.W. Adolf Ritter
von Baeyer, German chemist (Nobel 1905), was born.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1835 Dec 7, German railway
Nurnberg-Furth opened.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1835 Karl Baedeker (1801-1859),
German publisher, published "Travel on the Rhine." It was later widely
considered as the 1st modern guidebook.
(SSFC, 12/1/02, p.C3)
1835 Carl Bertelsmann founded the
Bertelsmann firm in Germany. In 2004 it was Europe’s largest media
company. Reinhard Mohn, his great, great, grandson, built it into a
global media company after the second world war.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.62)
1838 Jan 6, Max Bruch, composer
Scottish Fantasy), was born in Cologne, Germany.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1838 Apr 17, J. Schopenhauer (71),
writer, died.
(MC, 4/17/02
1838 Jul 8, Count Ferdinand von
Zeppelin (d.1917), German designer and manufacturer of airships, was
born.
(HN, 7/8/98)(WUD, 1994, p.1660)
1838 Gustav Schwab, German
historian, authored his compendium "Die Sagen des Klassischen
Altertums" (Stories from Classical Antiquity). The 1st English version
was published in 1946. It was republished in 2001 as "Gods and Heroes
of Ancient Greece."
(WSJ, 11/7/01, p.A20)
1838 Friedrich Bessel, director of
the Konigsberg Observatory, calculated the distance to star 61 Cygni
using parallax and magnitude.
(NH, 4/1/04, p.45)
1838-1840 Architect Gottfried Semper, designer of the
Dresden Semper Opera House, designed the Dresden Jewish synagogue that
was built over this time.
(SFC, 1/6/97, p.A10)
1838-1995 The Tirschenreuth Porcelain Factory
operated in Tirschenreuth, Bavaria, during this period. In 1927 it was
acquired by the L. Hutschenreuther Co.
(SFC, 9/21/05, p.G3)
1839 Oct 21, Georg von Siemens,
founder of Deutsche Bank, was born.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1839 The London Treaty, in which
all the European powers guaranteed Belgian neutrality, was signed.
(HNQ, 7/24/98)
1840 Aug 14, Baron Richard
Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, psychiatrist, was born.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1840 Wilhelm Beer of Germany drew
the first full map of Mars. It included dark "seas" and light
"continents."
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A16)
1840 Caspar David Friedrich
(b.1774), German Romantic painter, died.
(WSJ, 9/21/01, p.W2)(WSJ, 10/17/01, p.A24)
1841 Mar 31, 1st performance of
Robert Schumann's 1st Symphony in B.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1841 In Metlach, Germany, the firm
of Villeroy & Boch Pottery was founded. They made many types of
wares, including the famous Mettlach steins and are still in business.
(SFC, 5/22/96, Z1, p7)
1842 May 5, City-wide fire burned
for over 100 hours in Hamburg, Germany.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1842 Sep 4, Work on Cologne
cathedral resumed after 284-year hiatus.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1842 Oct 15, Karl Marx became
editor-in-chief of Rheinische Zeitung.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1842-1912 Karl May, German writer, specialized in
stories about noble Indians struggling to survive against the advance
of modern society.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, DB p.35)
1843 Jan 2, Wagner's opera "Der
Fliegende Holländer" premiered in Dresden.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1843 Jul 2, Samuel Hahnemann
(b.1755), German physician and founder of homeopathy, died in Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Hahnemann)
1843 Dec 4, Robert Schumann's "Das
Paradied und die Peri," premiered in Leipzig.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1843 Dec 11, Robert Koch (d.1910),
German physician, bacteriologist, and medical researcher, was born. He
won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1905.
(http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1905/koch-bio.html)
1843 Heinrich Schwabe, German
amateur astronomer, published his results of a 17 year study on the
number of sun spots. His results showed that sunspot activity varied
over a period of eleven and a half years. Sunspot activity recorded
since this time indicates the period to average 11.2 years and to vary
from 7.5 to 16 years. This activity correlates to agricultural activity
and the price of wheat.
(SCTS, p.103)
1844 Oct 15, Friedrich Wilhelm
Nietzsche (d.1900), German philosopher, poet, and critic, was born. He
wrote 13 books and was driven to madness by a number of factors, but
one was the bland, dishonest complacency of his contemporaries, who
ignored him while honoring writers who seem like comic book figures
today... He shrilled against Christianity and its empty moral claims.
In 1998 two biographies were published: "Nietzsche in Turin: An
Intimate Biography" by Lesley Chamberlain; and "The Good
European: Nietzsche’s Work Sites in word and Image" by David Farell
Krell and Donald L. Bates. In 2000 Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M.
Higgins authored "What Nietzsche Really Said." "No one is such a liar
as the indignant man." "In individuals, insanity is rare; but in
groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." "The time for me
hasn't come yet. Some are born posthumously."
(V.D.-H.K.p.279)(SFEC, 2/8/98, BR p.9)(AP,
3/19/98)(HN,10/15/98)(AP, 12/3/98) (SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.4)
1844 Dec 18, Ludwig J. von
Brentano, German economist, was born.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1844-1845 The marriage of Friedrich V of Germany to
and English Princess Elizabeth in Heidelberg is the nominal subject of
a Turner oil painting.
(WSJ, 1/15/96, p. A-10)
1844-1913 August Bebel was an outstanding political
figure in Western European Socialism and co-founder of the German
Social Democratic Party. Bebel participated in the foundation of the
Social Democratic Party in 1869 and was sentenced to prison for treason
in 1872. As head of the Social Democrats he was chief opposition leader
in the Reichstag in the 1890s and 1900s.
(HNQ, 2/15/99)
1845 Mar 3, Georg Cantor (d.1918),
mathematician, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He grew up in
Germany and developed the field of transfinite numbers.
(http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Georg_Cantor)
1845 Mar 27, Wilhelm Conrad
Röntgen (d.1923), German scientist, was born. He discovered X-rays
(Nobel-1901).
(HN, 3/27/99)(MC, 3/27/02)
1845 May 12, August Wilhelm
Schlegel (77), German poet, interpreter, critic, died.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1845 Aug 25, Ludwig II (d.1886),
King of Bavaria (1864-86), was born at Nymphenburg. He was also called
the "Mad King" for his extravagant castles.
(HN, 1/7/99)(SFEC, 4/9/00,
p.T4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_II_of_Bavaria)
1845 Oct 19, Richard Wagner's
opera "Tannhauser," premiered in Dresden.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1845 Der Struwwelpeter, a popular
German children's book, was published by Heinrich Hoffmann. It
comprises ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children.
Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of
misbehavior in an exaggerated way. The title of the first story
provides the title of the whole book. Literally translated,
Struwwel-Peter means Shaggy-Peter.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter)
1845 Alexander von Humboldt
(1769-, German explorer, authored “Cosmos,” his 5-volume overview of
the universe.
(WSJ, 7/29/06, p.P8)
1845-1929 Wilhelm von Bode, art historian. He
supervised the construction of a museum that later bore his name.
(WSJ, 7/29/98, p.A13)
1846 Feb 9, Wilhelm Maybach,
German engineer, was born. He designed the first Mercedes automobile.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1846 Mar 13, Friedrich Hebbel's
"Maria Magdalena," premiered in Konigsberg.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1846 Sep 23, The planet Neptune
was discovered by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/23/97)
1847 Feb 16, Ludwig Philipp
Scharwenka, German composer (Album Polonaise), was born.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1847 May 14, Fanny Cacilia
Mendelssohn Hensel (41), German pianist, composer and sister of Felix
Mendelssohn, died of a stroke.
(ON, 6/07, p.8)
1847 Jul 20, Max Liebermann,
German impressionist painter, was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1847 Oct 2, Paul von Hindenburg,
German Field Marshall during World War I whose brilliant victories on
the Eastern Front promoted him to become the second president of the
Weimar Republic, was born.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1847 Oct, The German company
Siemens was founded. Johann Georg Halske and Werner von Siemens formed
their own company, Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske to
develop a new design for the Wheatstone telegraph.
(WSJ, 1/31/07, p.A10)(http://tinyurl.com/26xq4a)
1847 Nov 4, Felix
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (b.1809), German pianist and composer, died at
age 38. His work included: "Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream."
(WUD, 1994 p.895)(LGC, 1970, p.201)(ON, 6/07, p.8)
1847 Dec 30, John Peter Altgeld,
US Gov-Ill, was born in Germany. He pardoned some of the Haymarket
anarchists.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1847-1935 Max Lieberman, a Berlin artist, was
influenced but not smothered by the Impressionists.
(WSJ, 10/8/98, p.A16)
1848 Mar 20, King Ludwig I of
Bavaria abdicated to marry dancer Lola Montez.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1848 May 23, Helmuth J.L. von
Moltke, German general, chief of staff (WW I), was born.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1848 The painter-poet Josef Victor
von Scheffel published cynical poems with titles as 'Biedermann's
Evening socializing' and 'Bummelmaier's Complaint' in the Viennese
satirical magazine 'Fliegende Blätter' (Flying Leaves). These
names were combined into the pseudonym 'Gottlieb Biedermaier' by Ludwig
Eichrodt, who together with Adolf Kussmaul published poems by the
schoolmaster Samuel Friedrich Sauter under this name. The spelling
finally changed into 'Biedermeier' in 1869 when Eichrodt published
'Biedermeier's Liederlust'.
(www.rupertcavendish.co.uk/Biedermeier/WhatisBiedermeier/whatisbiedermeier.htm)
1849 Mar 19, Alfred von Tirpitz,
Prussian admiral, was born. He commanded the German fleet in early
World War I.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1849 Jul 23, German rebels in
Baden capitulated to the Prussians.
(HN, 7/23/98)
1850 Jan 6, Franz Xaver
Scharwenka, German pianist and composer (Mataswintha), was born.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1850 Jul 2, Prussia agreed to pull
out of Schleswig and Holstein, Germany.
(HN, 7/2/98)
1850 Aug 28, Richard Wagner's
opera "Lohengrin'' was premiered at Weimar, Germany, under the
direction of Franz Liszt.
(WSJ, 3/16/98, p.A20)(RTH, 8/28/99)
1850 Nov 9, Lewis Lewin, German
toxicologist and father of psycho-pharmacology, was born.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1851 Feb 6, Robert Schumann's 3rd
Symphony "Rhenish," premiered in Dusseldorf.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1851 May 20, Emile Berliner,
inventor of the flat phonograph record, was born in Germany.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1851 Paul Julius Reuter
(1816-1899), a German-born immigrant, began transmitting stock-market
quotes between London and Paris over the new Dover-Calais submarine
telegraph cable.
(http://about.reuters.com/home/aboutus/history/informationandinnovation.aspx)
1852 Apr 12, [Carl L] Ferdinand
von Lindemann, German mathematician, was born.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1852 Jun 21, Friedrich Frobel
(b.1782), founder of the Play and Activity Institute (1837) in Germany,
died. In 1840 he created the word kindergarten to describe the
institute.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_August_Froebel)
1853 Karl Gerhardt discovered
aspirin.
(SFEC,11/2/97, Z1 p.6)
1853 German physicist Heinrich
Magnus (1802-1870) first described the phenomenon, which came to be
called the Magnus effect, whereby a spinning object flying in a fluid
creates a whirlpool of fluid around itself, and experiences a force
perpendicular to the line of motion and away from the direction of
spin. According to author James Gleick (b.1954) Isaac Newton described
it and correctly theorized the cause 180 years earlier, after observing
tennis players in his Cambridge college.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_effect)
1854 Feb 6, Composer Robert
Schumann was saved from a depression-induced suicide attempt of walking
into the Rhine.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1854 Feb 17, Friedrich A. Krupp,
German arms manufacturer, was born.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1854 Feb 27, Composer Robert
Schumann was saved from a suicide attempt in Rhine.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1854 Sep 1, Engelbert Humperdinck,
German opera composer (Hansel & Gretel), was born.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1855 Jul 30, Wilhelm von Siemens,
German industrialist, was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1855 Dec 27, Paul Ehrenreich,
German ethnologist and mythologist, was born.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1856 Feb 17, Heinrich Heine
(b.1797), German journalist and poet, died in Paris. His prose work
included a series of travel memoirs that began in 1826 with “The Harz
Journey.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine)
1856 May 20, Henri E. Cross
(d.1910), French painter, was born. His real surname was Delacroix but
was changed in 1881.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1856 Jul 29, Robert Schumann (46),
German composer, died. He had starved himself to death in a madhouse.
The 1947 film "Song of Love" was based on the Robert and Clara Schuman.
In 2000 J.D. Landis authored "Longing" a novel based on the love affair
between Robert Schuman and Clara Wieck.
(BLW, 1963 ed. p.49)(WSJ, 9/22/00, p.W12)
1856 Lothar von Faber of Germany
bought a graphite mine in Siberia to secure raw material for his pencil
manufacturing operations.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.73)
1857 Feb 18, Max Klinger, German
graphic artist, painter, sculptor, was born.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1857 Feb 22, Heinrich Hertz,
German physicist, was born in Hamburg. He became the first person to
broadcast and receive radio waves. The radio wave unit of frequency was
named after him.
(HN, 2/22/01)(AP, 2/22/07)
1857 Oct 29, Conrad Haebler,
German historian (Early Printers of Spain and Portugal), was born.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1857 Dec 29, Franz Liszt's "Die
Hunnenschlacht," premiered in Weimar.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1857 H. Sichel & Sohne, the
producers of the popular Blue Nun white wine, was founded.
(SFC, 10/8/97, Z1 p.4)
1857 Franz Kruger (b.1797),
Biedermeier artist of cityscapes and rural genre scenes, died.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C7)
1858 Jan 25, Britain's Princess
Victoria (the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert),
married Crown Prince Frederick William (the future German Emperor and
King of Prussia) at St. James's Palace. The ceremony's
tradition-setting music, personally selected by the Princess Royal,
included the "Bridal Chorus" from Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin" and the
"Wedding March" by Felix Mendelssohn.
(AP, 1/25/08)
1858 Mar 18, Rudolf Diesel, German
mechanical engineer, was born in Paris. He designed the
compression-ignition engine (1893).
(HN, 3/18/99)(AP, 3/18/08)
1858 Mar 31, Norddeutscher Lloyd
Bremen launched the SS New York, a passenger cargo vessel. It was sold
to Edward Bates of Liverpool in 1874 and later wrecked near Staten
Island. In 1994 Edwin Drechsel (1914-2006) later authored a 2-volume
history of the North German shipping line.
(www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=15185)
1858 Apr 23, Max K.E. Ludwig
Planck, German physicist (Planck Constant, Nobel 1918), was born.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1859 Jan 22, Brahms' 1st piano
concerto (in D minor) premiered in Hanover.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1859 Jan 27, Kaiser Wilhelm II,
German emperor (1888-1918) during World War I, was born. He was forced
to abdicate in 1918.
(HN, 1/27/99)(MC, 1/27/02)
1859 Mar 28, 1st performance of
John Brahms' 1st Serenade for orchestra.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1859 May 6, Baron Freidrich von
Humboldt (b.1769), German naturalist and explorer who made the first
isothermic and isobaric maps, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt)
1859 Oct 4, Karl Baedeker
(b.1801), German travel writer and tour guide (Die Schweiz), died.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1859 Oct 19, Georg Knorr, German
engineer (brake system trains), was born.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1859 Nov 22, Ludwig "Louis" Spohr
(75), German violinist and composer (Faust), died.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1860-1870 Erdmann and Reinhold Schlegelmilch,
apparently unrelated, began making dinnerware in the 1860s in central
Germany.
(SFC, 4/2/08, p.G2)
1861 Jan 2, Frederik Willem IV
(65), king of Prussia (1840-61) and Germany (1849-61), died.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1861 May 18, Friedrich Hebbel's
"Kriemhildes Rache" premiered in Weimar.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1861 Aug 10, Friedrich Julius
Stahl (b.1802), conservative German jurist and publicist, died in
Bruckenau. He developed the idea that Germans are a people based on
descent.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Julius_Stahl)(Econ,
2/11/06, Survey p.13)
1861 Dec 26, Friedrich Engel,
German mathematician (group theory), was born.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1861 A fossil of the prehistoric
bird Archaeopteryx was discovered in 150 million-year-old rock in a
limestone quarry in Germany.
(Hem., 10/97, p.130)
1861-1871 In 2007 Michael Knox Beran authored “Forge
of Empires: 1861-1871: Three Revolutionary Statesmen and the World They
Made,” a work of comparative history in which he focuses on the US,
Russia and the unifying German states during the 1860s.
(WSJ, 12/6/07, p.D7)
1862 Mar 19, F. Wilhelm von
Schadow (73), German painter (Modern Vasari), died.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1862 Aug 9, Hector Berlioz' opera
"Beatrice et Benedict," premiered in Baden-Baden.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1862 Oct 8, Otto von Bismarck
became German republic chancellor.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1862 Nov 15, Gerhart Hauptmann,
German author (Before Dawn- Nobel 1912), was born.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1863 Jun 2, Felix Weingartner,
conductor (Zara, Dalmatia), was born in Germany.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1863 Jul 14, Jews of Holstein,
Germany, were granted equality.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1863 Sep 13, Franz von Hipper,
German naval commander at the Battle of Jutland in World War I, was
born.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1863 Sep 30, Reinhard von Scheer,
German admiral who commanded the German fleet at the Battle of Jutland,
was born.
(HN, 9/30/98)
1863 Ludwig II (1845-1886) became
king of Bavaria after his father died.
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.T5)
1864 Jan 13, Wilhelm K.W. Wien,
German physicist (Nobel 1911), was born.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1864 Apr 10, Eugene Francis
Charles D'Albert, German pianist, composer (Golem), was born.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1864 Apr 21, Max Weber (d.1920),
German sociologist and political economist, was born. Weber drew strong
connection between Protestantism and the rise of capitalism in "The
Protestant and the Spirit of Capitalism" (1904). "He was the first
sociologist to grasp that the universe has no true meaning." In 1996
"Max Weber: Politics and the Spirit of Tragedy" by John Patrick Diggins
was published.
(V.D.-H.K.p.167)(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A1)(HN, 4/21/01)
1864 Jun 11, Richard Strauss
(d.1949), German orchestra conductor and composer, was born. His work
included "Daphne" and "Ariadne auf Naxos," (1912).
(CFA, '96, p.48)(WUD, 1994, p.1405)
1864 Jun 14, Alois Alzheimer
(d.1915), German psychiatrist, pathologist (Alzheimer Disease), was
born.
(www.ibro.info/Pub_Main_Display.asp?Main_ID=34)
1864 Hertwig and Co. of Thuringia,
Germany, introduced ceramic figurines called Snow Babies made from
bisque (unglazed clay) covered with crushed bisque “snowflakes.” The
first Snow Babies had been made of sugar candy and used as Christmas
decorations.
(SFC, 9/12/07, p.G7)
1865 Apr 9, Erich Ludendorff,
German general during World War I, was born.
(HN, 4/9/99)
1865 Jun 10, The opera "Tristan
und Isolde" by Richard Wagner premiered in Munich, Germany. Wagner had
begun the work in 1857.
(AP, 6/10/97)(WSJ, 3/12/99, p.W2)
1865 A commercial treaty was
established between Britain and the German zollverein.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A2)
1865 BASF was founded in Germany
as Badische Anilin & Soda Fabrik. Anilin was important in making
dyes and soda was used in glass, soaps and textiles.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.80)
1866 May 7, German premier Otto
von Bismarck was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1866 Jun 8, Prussia annexed the
region of Holstein.
(HN, 6/8/98)
1866 Jun 15, Prussia attacked
Austria.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1866 The New Synagogue of Berlin
was completed. It was able to seat 3,200 people for services.
(SFC, 10/21/99, p.A29)
1866 The word "ecology" was coined
by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel from the Greek oikos, for house, and
logos, for discourse. It meant the study of the relations between
living organisms and their environment.
(NH, 2/97, p.4)
1867 Feb 11, August W. Messer,
German philosopher, educator, psychologist, was born.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1867 May 14, Kurt Eisner, German
premier of revolutionary Bavaria (1918-19), was born.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1867 Bismarck unified Germany.
(WSJ, 12/2/98, p.A20)
1867 German businessman named
Augusto R. Berns purchased land across from Machu Picchu, Peru, and an
1887 document showed he set up a company to plunder the site.
(AP, 6/5/08)
1868 Apr 10, 1st performance of
Johannes Brahms' "Ein Deutches Requiem."
(MC, 4/10/02)
1868 Jun 21, The first performance
of Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger took place in Munich.
(Camelot, 6/21/99)
1868 Dec 24, Emanuel Lasker, world
chess champion (1894-21), was born in Germany.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1868 Ludwig II (1845-1886) of
Bavaria began the construction of his fairy-tale-style castle at
Neuschwanstein.
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.T5)
1869 Jun 6, Siegfried Wagner,
German opera composer, conductor, son of Richard Wagner (who composed
"Siegfried Idyll" to commemorate his birth), was born.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1869 Sep 22, Richard Wagner's
opera "Das Rheingold" premiered in Munich.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1869 Johannes Brahms
composed his "German Requiem."
(WSJ, 12/3/97, p.A20)
1869 Johann Friedrich Overbeck
(b.1789), German Nazarene artist, was born.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C7)
1869-1949 Hans Erich Pfitzner, composer and
conductor. He became a Nazi sympathizer and an enthusiastic anti-Semite.
(WUD, 1994, p.1078)(WSJ, 7/29/97, p.A12)
1870 Apr 9, Heinrich Schliemann,
German archeologist, with neither a permit nor the consent of the
Turkish landowners, had his hired men sink trenches on the summit of
the mound of Hissarlik, the spur of a limestone plateau on the
northwest coast, where he suspected that the ancient ruins of Troy lay
buried. Schliemann was hired by Frank Calvert (1828-1908), US Consular
Agent at the Dardanelles, to excavate at Thymbra. In 1999 Susan Heuck
Allen authored “Finding the Wall of Troy: Frank Calvert and Heinrich
Schliemann at Hisarlik.”
(www.lib.duke.edu/lilly/artlibry/dah/schliemannh.htm)(Nat. Hist.,
4/96, p.44)(Arch, 11/04, p.8)
1870 Jun 25, Richard Wagner's
opera "Die Walkure" was produced in Munich.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1870 Jul 19, The Franco-Prussian
War began. Napoleon declared war on Bismarck. Emperor Napoleon III of
France declared war on Germany under Otto von Bismarck. Napoleon was
defeated in three months and abdicated.
(WSJ, 3/14/95, p.A-16)(V.D.-H.K.p.260)(AP, 7/19/07)
1870 Aug 18, Prussian forces
defeated the French at the Battle of Gravelotte during the
Franco-Prussian War.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1870 Aug 25, Richard Wagner
married Cosima von Bulow. Cosima was the illegitimate daughter of Franz
Liszt and had married Hans von Bulow. She and Wagner already had 3
children by the time they married.
(LGC, 1970, p.266)
1870 Sep 1, The Prussian army
crushed the French at Sedan, the last battle of the Franco-Prussian
War.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1870 Sep 2, Napoleon III
capitulated to the Prussians at Sedan, France.
(WSJ, 3/14/95, p.A-16)(HN, 9/2/98)
1870 Sept. 2, Napoleon surrendered
to Prussia at Sedan.
(WSJ, 3/14/95, p.A-16)
1870 Oct 27, The French fortress
of Metz surrendered to the Prussian Army.
(HN, 10/27/98)
1870-1871 Brahms composed his "Triumphlied" to
celebrate Germany's victory over France and the foundation of the
German Empire. It is dedicated to the German Emperor but is really
written for Prince Bismarck.
(BLW, Geiringer, 1963 ed., p.107,318)
1870-1871 During the Franco-Prussian War there was a
shortage of beef and horse meat began to be used. Germany annexed
Alsace after the war.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, Z1 p.2)(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.T4)
1870-1919 Rosa Luxemburg, German socialist leader:
"Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks
differently."
(AP, 11/28/98)
1871 Jan 8, Prussian troops began
to bombard Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1871 Jan 18, The German Empire
(Deutsches Kaiserreich) was proclaimed in Versailles. William I
of Prussia was proclaimed "German Emperor" (which was not the same
thing as "Emperor of Germany"). The unification of Germany was the
greatest geopolitical transformation of the period. Germany went on to
adopt the mark as its common currency.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(AP,
1/18/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany)(WSJ, 5/6/08, p.A21)
1871 Jan 28, France, under a
provisional republican government, continued the war against Germany,
but was forced to surrender in the Franco-Prussian War. Surrounded by
Prussian troops and suffering from famine, the French army in Paris
surrendered. During the siege, balloons were used to keep contact with
the outside world.
(V.D.-H.K.p.260)(AP, 1/28/98)(HN, 1/28/99)
1871 Mar 1, Germans paraded down
the Champs-Elysses, Paris, France during the Franco-Prussian War.
(HN, 3/1/99)(WSJ, 3/14/95, p.A-16)
1871 Mar 27, Heinrich Mann,
Germany, novelist, essayist (Blue Angel); brother of Thomas Mann, was
born.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1871 Apr 16, German Empire ended
all anti-Jewish civil restrictions.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1871 B. Bloch & Co. was
founded in Eichwald, Germany, for the manufacture of earthenware,
porcelain dinnerware, household items and decorative pieces. The name
was changed after World War I to Eichwalder Porcelain and Stove Factory
Bloch & Co.
(SFC, 8/16/06, p.G7)
1872 Friedrich Nietzsche published
his first book: "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music," in
which Greek tragedy was interpreted along Wagnerian lines with
Appolonian and Dionysian opposites.
( LGC, 1970, p.266)(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.A20)
1872 Adolf Baeyer, German organic
chemist, combined phenol (from coal tar) and formaldehyde (from wood
alcohol), while searching for a new synthetic dye. His student Werner
Kleeberg in 1891, while searching for a shellac substitute, used the
combination to create a new resinous substance. Hendrik Baekeland later
expanded on the Kleeberg process and in 1907 filed for a US patent on
his new material Bakelite.
(ON, 9/05, p.11)
1873 Feb 2, Baron Konstantin von
Neurath, German secretary of State (1932-38), was born. After WW
II he was tried as war criminal and received jail sentence.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1873 Mar 10, Jakob Wassermann
(d.1934), novelist (My Life as German & Jew), was born in Germany.
"In every person, even in such as appear most reckless, there is an
inherent desire to attain balance."
(AP, 3/25/97)(MC, 3/10/02)
1873 Mar 19, Max Reger, composer,
pianist, prof. (Leipzig Univ), was born in Brand, Bavaria.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1873 The Verein für
Socialpolitik, Germany’s economic association, was founded.
(Econ, 1/22/05, p.48)
1873 Ludwig II of Bavaria began
the construction of his palace at Linderhof.
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.T5)
1873 Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
began the conceptual work for his improved air machine. He planned a
rigid structure with gas held at various intervals in the framework
with engines for propulsion and a suspended gondola to house the
engines, crew and passengers.
(AHM, 1/97)
1873-1951 Fritz Thyssen, German industrialist: "When
I rest, I rust."
(AP, 7/29/97)
1874 Apr 15, Johannes Stark, Nobel
Prize-winning German physicist, was born.
(HN, 4/15/01)
1874 Jul 28, Ernst Cassirer,
German philosopher, educator (Essay on Man), was born.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1874 Aug 27, Karl Bosch, German
chemist (BASF, Nobel 1931), was born.
(MC, 8/27/02)
1874 Oct 26, Peter Cornelius,
German composer, died at 49.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1875 Feb 4, Ludwig Prandtl,
physicist (father of aerodynamics), was born in Germany.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1875 May 7, German SS Schiller
sank near Scilly Islands and 312 were killed.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1875 Jun 6, Thomas Mann (d.1955),
German novelist and essayist, was born. He was forced into exile by the
Nazis. The major part of Mann’s oeuvre is concerned with problems of
the artist per se, and no writer of our time and perhaps of any time
has probed so deeply into the artistic personality or described
so brilliantly the workings of artistic genius. His work included
Buddenbrooks (1901), Death in Venice (1912), Doctor Faustus (1947), and
The Magic Mountain. Two biographies of Mann were published in 1995:
Thomas Mann: A Biography by Ronald Hayman and Thomas Mann: A Life by
Donald Prater. "Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most
contradictory word, preserves contact -- it is silence which isolates."
(V.D.-H.K.p.367-368)(WSJ, 12/26/95, p. A-5)(AP,
10/19/98)(HN, 6/6/99)
1875 Jul 3, Ernst F. Sauerbruch,
German Nazi surgeon, was born.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1875 Sep 3, Ferdinand Porsche,
German automotive engineer, was born. He designed the Volkswagen in
1934 and the Porsche sports car in 1950.
(HN, 9/3/00)(MC, 9/3/01)
1875 Dec 12, Karl R.G. von
Rundstedt, German gen-field marshal (Normandy), was born.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1875-1926 Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian poet. He was
born in Prague to German-speaking parents. His works include New Poems
(1907), his autobiographical novel: "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids
Brigge," and his masterpieces the "Duino Elegies" and "The Sonnets to
Orpheus." His mistress was Lou Andreas-Salome, a novelist, essayist and
clinical psychologist. Ralph Freedman wrote a biography of Rilke
titled Life of a Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke in 1996. His complete works
were published in 1966 and an annotated edition in 1996. In 1997 his
early work was published: "Diaries of a Young Poet," translated by
Edward Snow and Michael Winkler. On the new year day: "And now let us
believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of
things that have never been, full of work that has never been done,
full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to
take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon
those who demand of it necessary, serious and great things."
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-12)(WSJ, 12/15/97, p.A20)(AP,
1/1/98)
1875-1965 Albert Schweitzer, German-born missionary
and Nobel laureate. "Man must cease attributing his problems to his
environment, and learn again to exercise his will -- his personal
responsibility in the realm of faith and morals."
(AP, 3/23/97)
1876 Jan 5, Conrad Adenauer
(d.1967), statesman and first chancellor of post-World War II West
Germany, was born. He was chancellor of Germany from 1949-1963. "The
good Lord set definite limits on man's wisdom, but set no limits on his
stupidity -- and that's not fair!"
(AHD, 1971, p.15)(AP, 7/1/98)(HN, 1/5/99)
1876 Aug 13, Richard Wagner's
monumental epic, "Ring of the Nibelung" premiered with 4 operas on 4
consecutive nights) at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Bavaria, Germany.
(Hem., 1/96, p.69)(MC, 8/13/02)
1876 Sep 15, Bruno Walter, [B W
Schlesinger], conductor (NY Phil), was born in Berlin, Germany.
(MC, 9/15/01)
1876 Aug 16, Opera "Siegfried"
premiered at Bayreuth. [See Aug 13]
(MC, 8/16/02)
1876 Aug 17, The opera
"Gotterdammerung" was produced at Bayreuth. [see Aug 13]
(SC, 8/17/02)
1876 Sep 15, Bruno Walter
(d.1962), [B W Schlesinger], conductor (NY Phil), was born in Berlin,
Germany.
(www.britannica.com)
1876 Nov 4, Johannes Brahms'
Symphony #1 in C, premiered at Karlsruhe.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1876 The Berlin Nationalgalerie
was inaugurated by Kaiser Wilhelm I on Museum Island in the Spree
River. It re-opened in 2002 after 4 years of renovation.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C7)
c1876 In Frankfurt the
Steigenberger Frankfurter Hof was built.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T6)
1876 A paper in the Berliner
Klinische Wochenschrift, a Germany medical journal, suggested
that salsalate could help diabetics control their blood sugar. Harvard
researchers in the 1990s conducted studies that supported the claim.
(WSJ, 1/20/09, p.A12)
1876 Carl von Linde (1842-1934),
German engineer, invented refrigeration.
(Econ, 5/24/08,
p.90)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Linde)
1876 Nikolaus Otto (1832-1891),
German inventor, first demonstrated the four-stroke engine.
(www.keveney.com/otto.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaus_Otto)
1877 Jan 22, Hjalmar Horace Greely
Schacht, president of German Reichsbank, minister of Economics, was
born.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1877 Jul 2, Herman Hesse (d.1962),
German philosopher poet and author, was born in Switzerland. His work
included "Steppenwolf" and he won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1946.
(HN, 7/2/99)(WUD, 1994, p.666)(SC, 7/2/02)
1877 Dec 2, Camille Saint-Saens'
opera "Samson et Dalila," premiered in Weimar.
(WSJ, 2/20/98, p.A16)(MC, 12/2/01)
1877 In Germany the Steiff Toy Co.
was founded. They made their first teddy bears in 1903 with black,
shoe-button eyes.
(SFC, 1/21/98, Z1 p.3)
1877 In Germany the S. Gunthermann
manufacturer of metal vehicles and other toys was founded in Nuremberg
about this time.
(SFC, 9/20/06, p.G3)
1877-78 Treaty of San Stefano, signed after
Russo-Turkish War, assigned Albanian-populated lands to Bulgaria,
Montenegro and Serbia; but Austria-Hungary and Britain block the
treaty's implementation. Albanian leaders meet in Prizren, Kosova, to
form the League of Prizren. The League initially advocated autonomy for
Albania. At the Congress of Berlin, the Great Powers overturned the
Treaty of San Stefano and divided Albanian lands among several states.
The League of Prizren began to organize resistance to the Treaty of
Berlin's provisions that affected Albanians.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1878 Feb 8, Martin Buber,
German-Israeli philosopher, theologist (Ich und Du), was born.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1878 Apr 1, Carl Sternheim, German
playwright (Hyperion, Tabula Rasa), was born.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1878 Jul 1, Treaty of Berlin
divided Africa for colonization. [see Jul 13]
(MC, 7/1/02)
1878 Jul 13, The Treaty of Berlin
amended the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano, which had ended the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. The Congress of Berlin divided the
Balkans among European powers.
(AP, 7/13/97)(HN, 7/13/98)
1878 Jul 30, German anti-Semitism
began during the Reichstag election.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1878 Oct 21, German republic
chancellor Bismarck delegated the end of "Socialism."
(MC, 10/21/01)
1878 Oct 29, Alex E. von
Falkenhausen, German general (China, WW II), was born.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1878 Topf & Sons was founded
in Erfurt, Germany, as a customized incinerator and malting equipment
manufacturer. The firm was close to the Ettersberg hill, later the site
of Buchenwald concentration camp. With the expansion of cremation in
Germany as a burial rite in the 1920s, the firm's ambitious chief
engineer Kurt Pruefer pioneered furnaces which complied with strict
regulations on preserving the dignity of the body. In 1941 the firm
agreed to build crematoria for Auschwitz and enable industrialized mass
murder.
(Reuters, 7/25/05)
1879 Mar 8, Otto Hahn, German
co-discoverer of nuclear fission, was born. He received a Nobel Prize
in 1944.
(HN, 3/8/98)(MC, 3/8/02)
1879 Mar 14, Physicist Albert
Einstein, mathematician best known for his theories on relativity was
born in Ulm, Germany. He received the Physics Nobel Prize in 1921.
(CFA, ‘96,Vol 179, p.42)(AP, 3/14/97)(HN,
3/14/02)(MC, 3/15/02)
1879 May 31, 1st electric railway
opened at the Berlin Trades Exposition.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1879 Oct 2, A dual alliance was
formed between Austria and Germany, in which the two countries agreed
to come to the other's aid in the event of aggression.
(HN, 10/2/98)
1879 Oct 9, Max von Laue, German
physicist, was born.
(HN, 10/9/00)
1879 Oct 29, Franz JHMM von Papen,
German diplomat and chancellor (1932), was born.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1879 Dec 18, Paul Klee (d.1940),
Swiss abstract painter best known for The Mocker Mocked, was born.
(HN, 12/18/98)
1879 Germany raised tariffs to
limit agricultural and steel imports.
(WSJ, 3/29/04, p.A1)
1879 Rosenthal began making
porcelain plates in Selb, Germany. Limited edition Christmas plates
were introduced in 1910.
(SFC, 12/21/05, p.G6)
1880 May 29, Oswald Spengler,
German philosopher of history, was born. He maintained that every
culture grows, matures and decays. He wrote the book "The Decline of
the West."
(HN, 5/29/99)
1880 Aug 14, Construction of
Cologne Cathedral, begun in 1248, was completed 633 years after it was
begun.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1880 Nov 1, Alfred L Wegener,
German meteorologist (continental shift), was born.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1880 Hans Hofmann (d.1966),
abstract artist, was born and raised in Munich, Germany. He lived in
Paris from 1904-1914 and moved to the US in 1931.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.B5)(WSJ, 1/15/04, p.D8)
1880 In Berlin the Weissensee
Jewish cemetery was opened.
(SFC, 10/5/99, p.A10)
1880 Bavaria and Prussia
introduced Spellingreform. Chancellor Bismarck threatened civil
servants with increased fines if the new system was used.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.45)
1880s In Germany Louis Doberman, a
night watchman and keeper of the local dog pound, refined the dog that
bears his name into a fierce creature.
(SFC, 12/11/99, p.B6)
1881 Jan 4, The "Academic Festival
Overture" by Johannes Brahms premiered in Breslau.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1881 Feb 14, Otto Selz, German
psychologist, was born.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1881 Mar 23, Hermann Staudinger,
chemist, plastics researcher (Nobel '53), was born in Germany.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1881 May 14, Rudolph Karstadt
founded his first store in Wismar, Germany. In 1999 Karstadt merged
with Quelle, a mail-order business founded in 1927 by Gustav
Schickedanz.
(WSJ, 7/17/06,
p.C8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quelle_(company))
1881 May 16, World's 1st electric
tram went into service in Lichterfelder near Berlin.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1881 Aug 8, Paul L.E. von Kleist,
German general-fieldmarshal (Eastern Front), was born.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1881 Oct 4, [Heinrich AH] Walther
von Brauchitsch, German field marshal, was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1881 The Aug. Schatz & Sohne
company was founded in Triburg, Germany, to produce clocks. These
included anniversary clocks, also called 400-day clocks, because they
could be wound to run for more than 365 days.
(SFC, 2/21/07, p.G3)
1881-1882 Dr. Muller of Germany was said to be
working at the Swiss Geisenheim viticultural station when he made the
crossing that joined the late-ripening Riesling and the early-ripening
and prolific Silvaner. The grape became know as Muller-Thurgau.
Müller-Thurgau entered the well-kept records of Germany's
vineyards in 1921, but it was not until a major symposium on the
crossing was held at Alzey in 1938 that it gained any widespread
acceptance.
(www.winepressnw.com/features/story/4842844p-4779998c.html)
1881-1934 Ernst Paul Lehmann made tin toys over this
period in Brandenburg. His toys included a toy mule that kicked while
pulling a cart driven by a clown called "the balky mule."
(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)
1882 Mar 24, German scientist
Robert Koch announced in Berlin that he had discovered the bacillus
responsible for tuberculosis.
(AP, 3/23/97)
1882 Jun 24, Joseph Joachim Raff
(60), German opera composer, died.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1882 Jul 26, Richard Wagner's
final opera "Parsifal," premiered in Bayreuth, Germany.
(WSJ, 7/2/99, p.W11A)(MC, 7/26/02)
1882 Sep 10, The 1st international
conference to promote anti-Semitism met in Dresden, Germany (Congress
for Safeguarding of Non-Jewish Interests).
(MC, 9/10/01)
1882 Sep 22, Wilhelm Keitel,
German field marshal, was born.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1882 Oct 3, Gunther von Kluge,
German field marshal, was born.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1882 Dec 16, Walther Meissner,
German physicist (Meissner effect), was born.
(MC, 12/16/01)
1882 The Berlin Philharmonic
Orchestra was founded.
(SFC, 6/24/99, p.E6)
1883 Feb 13, Richard Wagner
(b.1813)), revolutionary German composer (Die Walkure), died in Venice.
Composer Leon Stein (d.2002 at 92) later authored "The Racial Thinking
of Richard Wagner." In 2007 Jonathan Carr authored “The Wagner Clan,”
The Saga of Germany's Most Illustrious and Infamous Family.
(WSJ, 2/4/99,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner)(Econ, 9/8/07, p.85)
1883 Feb 23, Karl Jaspers,
existentialist philosopher, was born in Oldenburg, Germany.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1883 Mar 14, Karl Marx (64),
German political philosopher (Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital), died
in London.
(AP, 3/14/97)(MC, 3/14/02)
1883 May 18, Walter Gropius
(d.1969), architect and founder of the Bauhaus school of design, was
born in Berlin, Germany. "The human mind is like an umbrella. It
functions best when open."
(V.D.-H.K.p.363)(AP, 10/7/98)(SC, 5/18/02)
1883 Jul 27, Albert Franz Doppler
(61), composer, died.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1883 Nov 18, Wilhelm Siemens,
German-British physicist (steam engine), died.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1883 Germany under Chancellor Otto
von Bismarck adopted the first compulsory health insurance program on a
national scale.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1883 Richard Wagner, composer,
died. Composer Leon Stein (d.2002 at 92) later authored "The Racial
Thinking of Richard Wagner."
(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.A20)
1884 Apr 24, Otto von Bismarck
cabled Cape Town that South Africa had become a German colony.
(HN, 4/24/98)
1884 May 18, Heinrich R.
Göppert, German paleo-botanist, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1884 Jun 10, Johann Gustav Droysen
(b.1808), German historian, died in Berlin. His books included
“Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen” (1833), a study of Alexander the
Great.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Gustav_Droysen)
1884 Jul 7, Lion Feuchtwanger,
German philosopher, writer (Jud Suss), was born.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1884 Dec 30, Anton Bruckner's 7th
Symphony in E, premiered in Leipzig.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1884 Germany under Chancellor Otto
von Bismarck adopted a national workman's compensation program.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)
1884 Ottmar Mergenthaler
(1854-1899) of Germany invented the Linotype machine that produced
newspaper type and was used until it was replaced by computers.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.A21)
1884 Robert Koch, German
microbiologist, rediscovered, isolated and cultured the cholera
bacillus, Vibrio cholerae. Italian anatomist Fillipo Pacini discovered
the bacillus in 1854, but did not prove that it caused cholera.
(ON, 5/05, p.10)
1884 Southwest Africa (later
Namibia) was made a German protectorate.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.T4)(SFEC, 4/30/00, p.T4)
1885 Feb 26, The Congress of
Berlin gave Congo to Belgium and Nigeria to England.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1885 Mar 31, Franz Wilhelm Abt
(65), German composer, choir conductor, died.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1885 May 14, Otto Klemperer,
conductor, composer, was born in Breslau, Germany.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1885 May 19, German chancellor
Bismarck took possession of Cameroon & Togoland.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1885 Nov 10, Paul Daimler, son of
Gottlieb Daimler, became the first motorcyclist when he rode his
father's new invention on a round trip of six miles.
(HN, 11/10/99)
1885 Nov 30, Albrecht (von)
Kesselring, German field marshal, was born.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1885 Dec 29, Gottlieb Daimler
patented the 1st bike in Germany.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1885 The 70-room Herrenchiemsee
Castle of Ludwig II of Bavaria was built on an island in Lake Chiemsee.
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.T4)
1885 Bavaria issued measures aimed
at controlling Gypsies and gathering information about them.
(WSJ, 1/19/00, p.A20)
1886 Jan 25, Wilhelm Furtwangler,
conductor, composer, was born in Berlin, Germany.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1886 Jan 26, Karl Benz patented
the 1st automobile. [see Jan 29]
(MC, 1/26/02)
1886 Jan 29, 1st successful
gasoline-driven car was patented by Karl Benz in Karlsruhe. [see Jan 26]
(MC, 1/29/02)
1886 Mar 27, Ludwig Mies Van Der
Rohe, German-US architect (Bauhaus), was born.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1886 Apr 28, Erich Salomon, German
photographer, was born.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1886 Jun 13, King Ludwig II (40),
King of Bavaria, drowned in Lake Starnberg. Bavarian leaders had
conspired to remove Ludvig II from office and got a doctor, who never
saw him, to declare him insane. He was captured and taken to a mansion
on Lake Starnberg where he was found floating dead with his doctor. In
1996 Greg King authored "The Mad King."
(AP, 6/13/97)(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.T5)
1886 Jul 3, In Germany Karl Benz
drove the 1st automobile. [see Jan 29]
(MC, 7/3/02)
1886 Jul 31, Franz Liszt,
composer, died in Bayreuth. His work included the symphonic poem "Les
Preludes" and the "Faust Symphony." Cosima-von-Bulow was a illegitimate
daughter of Liszt and married to Richard Wagner. A 3 volume biography
of Liszt (1977, 1983, 1996) was written by Alan Walker, Vol 3 was
titled: "Franz Liszt: The final Years." Deszno Legany of Hungary
earlier wrote: "Liszt and His country: 1874-1866."
(WSJ, 6/18/96, p.A14)
1886 Aug 20, Paul Tillich,
German-US theologian and philosopher who wrote "Systematic Theology,"
was born.
(HN, 8/20/98)(MC, 8/20/02)
1886 The firm of Robert Bosch GmbH
was founded. It later became a world leader in automotive electronics.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.A30)
1886 A handful of German families,
led by Elisabeth Nietzsche-Foerster (1935), founded the Aryan colony
Nueva Germania in the jungles of Paraguay. The idea had been originally
suggested by composer Richard Wagner in 1880. The colony fell apart in
1893 and Elisabeth Nietzsche-Foerster, described by her brother,
Friedrich Nietzsche (d.1900), as a “vengeful anti-Semitic goose,”
returned to Germany where she edited and promoted the work of her
brother.
(SSFC, 3/13/05, p.C6)
1887 Jun 20, Kurt Schwitters
(d.1948), German artist, was born. He spent a year and a half in an
internment camp on the Isle of Man during WW II where he managed to
create some 200 works of art from salvaged scraps.
(WSJ, 8/19/97, p.A17)(HN, 6/20/01)
1887 Feb 11, Ernst "Putzi"
Hanfstangl, German politician and confidante of Hitler, NSDAP &
American school chum of Roosevelt ), was born.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1887 Jul 22, Gustav Hertz, German
physicist, was born.
(HN, 7/22/02)
1887 Nov 10, Arnold Zweig, German
antifascist and author (Erziehung vor Verdun), was born.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1887 Nov 28, Ernst Roehm, early
Nazi and German staff member, later Bolivian leader, was born.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1887-1891 German colonial administrators made
Bagamoyo, Tanzania, their capital.
(SSFC, 7/13/03, p.C9)
1888 Jan 24, Ernst Heinrich
Heinkel, German inventor (1st rocket-powered aircraft), was born.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1888 Feb 27, Lotte Lehmann, German
opera singer, was born.
(HN, 2/27/01)
1888 Mar 5, Friedrich Schnack,
German journalist, writer (Rosewood), was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1888 Jun 15, Wilhelm II became
emperor of Germany.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1888 German scientists discovered
that small amounts of poison might actually do an organism good. The
paradoxical effect was called hormesis.
(WSJ, 12/19/03, p.B1)
1889 Mar, Friedrich Nietzsche
entered an asylum 2 months after a mental collapse at age 44.
Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth edited his writings from this time on.
(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.A20)
1889 Apr 20, Adolf Hitler, leader
of National Socialist Party (1921-1945), was born in Braunau, Austria.
He was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933-1945 and started World
War II by invading Poland. He committed suicide in his Berlin bunker.
The German Fascist leader, promised to bring Germany to the promised
land on one condition: that the state would have total control over all
the organs, organizations, and citizens of the nation. Brigitte Hammann
later authored "Hitler in Vienna: A Dictator’s Apprenticeship." In 1998
Ron Rosenbaum published "Explaining Hitler," a look at the various
agendas and needs of different scholars in their examination of Hitler.
In 1999 Ian Kershaw published "Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris."
(V.D.-H.K.p.309)(HN, 4/20/98)(SFEC, 10/18/98, BR
p.5)(WSJ, 1/21/98, p.A16) (AP, 4/20/99)(HN, 4/20/99)(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A6)
1889 May 1, Bayer in Germany
introduced aspirin in powder form.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1889 Aug 16, Buffalo Bill's Wild
West Show star Annie Oakley, using a Colt .45, shot the ash off the end
of a cigarette held in the mouth by a young German Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Appearing at Berlin's Charlottenburg Race Course, Oakley asked in jest
for a volunteer from the audience and, to her horror, the young ruler
of the Reich stepped forward. A nervous Oakley successfully performed
the trick shot. Years later, after the start of WWI, Oakley reportedly
wrote to the Kaiser, asking for a second shot.
(HNPD, 8/16/99)
1889 Sep 26, Martin Heidegger,
existentialist philosopher and writer, was born in Germany. He wrote
"Being and Time," and criticized the tyranny of modern technology over
man.
(WUD, 1994, p.657)(WSJ, 8/28/97, p.A12)(MC, 9/26/01)
1889 Prussia under Chancellor Otto
von Bismarck adopted old-age and invalidity pensions. Prussian average
life expectancy was about 45.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R25)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.18)
1889-1945 Emmy Esther Scheyer was a promoter and
collector of the Weimar artists known as the Blue Four. In 1998 the
book "The Blue Four: Feininger, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Paul Klee" was
edited by Vivian Endicott Barnett and Josef Helfenstein" to accompany
an exhibition.
(SFEC, 8/23/98, BR p.12)
1890 Jan 4, Alfred G. Jodl, German
Wehrmacht general and chief of staff, was born.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1890 Feb 15, Robert Ley, German
chemist, MP (NSDAP), was born.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1890 Mar 20, Germany’s Kaiser
Wilhelm II fired republic chancellor Otto Von Bismarck.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1890 Dec 5, Berlioz' opera "Les
Troyens," premiered in Karlsruhe.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1890 Dec 26, Heinrich Schliemann
(86), German businessman and archaeologist, died. He discovered the
site of ancient Troy in 1870-1871.
(NH, 4/96, p.48)(MC, 12/26/01)
1890 Rwanda became part of German
East Africa.
(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)
1890 August Kuehne and Friedrich
Nagel founded the forwarding and commissioning business in 1890 in
Bremen, northern Germany, concentrating on cotton and consolidated
freight. By 2006 the company was a world leader in arranging seaborne
cargo.
(www.kn-portal.com/about/)(Econ, 6/17/06, Survey
p.12)
1891 Jan 8, Walter Bothe,
subatomic particle physicist (Nobel 1954), was born in Germany.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1891 Jan 24, Max Ernst,
German-French surrealist painter, sculptor, was born. [see Apr 2]
(MC, 1/24/02)
1891 Apr 2, Max Ernst, German
painter and sculptor, founder of surrealism, was born. [see Jan 24]
(HN, 4/2/98)
1891 May 18, Rudolf Carnap,
philosopher (German Logical Positivist), was born.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1891 Jun 21, Hermann Scherchen,
conductor (Nature of Music), was born in Berlin, Germany.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1891 Sep 16, Karl Doenitz, German
Admiral who succeeded Hitler in governing Germany, was born.
(HN, 9/16/98)
1891 Nov 15, Erwin Rommel, field
marshal in World War II, was born. He commanded the Afrika Korps in
North Africa and defended the Normandy coast on D-Day.
(HN, 11/15/99)
1892 Feb 8, Fritz Todt, German
Reichs minister (Organization Todt) succeeded by Albert Speer, was born.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1892 May 2, Manfred von Richthofen
(the Red Baron), was born. He was a German pilot and greatest ace of
world War I with 80 planes to his credit.
(HN, 5/2/99)
1892 May 31, Gregor Strasser,
German pharmacist, NSDAP-Reich organization founder, was born.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1892 Aug 30, The Moravia, a
passenger ship arriving from Germany, brought cholera to the United
States.
(HN, 8/30/98)
1892 Dec 6, E. Werner von Siemens
(75), German industrialist (Siemens AG), died.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1892 The neo-Baroque Theater am
Schiffbauerdamm was built in East Berlin.
(WSJ, 7/27/99, p.A21)
1892 Ernst von Mendelssohn
Bartholdy acquired the mansion at Boernicke, Germany and 4,500 acres.
The mansion was lost to the Nazis in the early 1930's and to the
Soviets in 1945. In 1994 it passes to the control of a former Communist
leader, Karl Heinz Posselt, the local deputy mayor. The Mendelssohn
family is still seeking control.
(WSJ, 12/5/95, p.A-1)
1892 Count Zeppelin left the army
and began work on his lighter-than-air ship.
(AHM, 1/97)
1893 Jan 12, Hermann Goring,
Reichsmarshal of the Third Reich and commander of the Luftwaffe, was
born. He committed suicide before he was to be hung for war crimes.
(HN, 1/12/99)
1893 Jun 1, The opera "Falstaff"
was produced (Berlin).
(DT internet 6/1/97)
1893 Jul 26, George Grosz
(d.1959), German satiric artist and illustrator, was born. He arrived
in Berlin in 1911 and began drawing what he saw in a style of
expressionism and the journalistic style of Heinrich Zille. A
collection of his work was published in 1997 based on an exhibition
catalog titled: "The Berlin of George Grosz: Drawings, Watercolors and
Prints, 1912-1930."
(SFEC, 7/13/97, BR p.10)(HN, 7/26/01)
1893 Sep 7, The Rhine river was
officially closed for bathing. It had been determined the Rhine was
infected with cholera.
(MC, 9/7/01)
1893 Dec 23, The Engelbert
Humperdinck opera " Haensel und Gretel " was first performed, in
Weimar, Germany.
(AP, 12/23/07)
1893 Franz von Stuck, Franz von
Lembach, and others were part of the Munich Secession movement in art.
(WSJ, 3/19/97, p.A16)
1893 German artist Franz von Stuck
painted "Sin," a shocking work of a bare-breasted woman whose shoulders
were entwined with a gleaming-eyed snake.
(WSJ, 3/19/97, p.A16)
1893 Rudolph Diesel, German
engineer, developed his diesel engine.
(WSJ, 1/14/05, p.W10)
1893-1939 Ernst Toller, German poet and dramatist:
"History is the propaganda of the victors."
(AP, 10/7/97)
1894 Apr 26, Rudolf Hess, Nazi
leader, was born. He was the Hitler deputy who flew to England to
negotiate an Anglo-German treaty.
(HN, 4/26/99)(MC, 4/26/02)
1894 Jun 26, Karl Benz of Germany
received a US patent for a gasoline-driven auto.
(MC, 6/26/02)
1894 In Germany the Zum Auspannen
der Pferde (Z.A.D.P.) was founded by Sophie von Sell as a society to
honor the ex-chancellor Bismarck by unharnessing his horses and drawing
his carriage on his return to Berlin after being dismissed by Wilhelm
II.
(BLW, Geiringer, 1963 ed.p.107)
1895 Feb 27, Rudolf von Eschwege,
German fighter pilot with 20 victories in World War I, was born. He was
the only German fighter pilot on the Macedonian Front.
(Internet)
1895 Mar 4, Gustav Mahler's 2nd
Symphony, premiered in Berlin.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1895 Apr 23, Russia, France, and
Germany forced Japan to return the Liaodong peninsula to China.
(HN, 4/23/99)
1895 Jul 10, Carl Orff, composer
(Carmina Burana/Antigonae; Mozart prize 1969), was born in Munich,
Germany.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1895 Sep 8, Adam Opel (58), German
manufacturer of sewing machines and bicycles, died. In 1899 the firm
acquired a car factory.
(MC, 9/8/01)(www.histomobile.com)
1895 Oct 4, Richard Sorge, German
spy for USSR in Tokyo (WW II), was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1895 Nov 8, Wilhelm Konrad von
Röntgen (50), German physicist, discovered X-rays.
(ON, 11/04,
p.6)(www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beamline/25/2/25-2-assmus.pdf)
1895 Nov 16, Paul Hindemith
(d.1963), composer and violinist, was born in Hanau, Germany. His work
included "Cardillac."
(WUD, 1994, p.672)(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A8)(MC, 11/16/01)
1895 Nov 25, Wilhelm Kempff,
pianist (Unter dem Zimbelstern), was born in Juterbog, Germany.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1895 Theodore Fontane (1819-1898),
German novelist and poet, authored Effi Briest, the last of the great
19th-century novels of adultery.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effi_Briest)
1895-1935 The C.A. Lehmann & son Co. ran a
porcelain factory in Kuhla, Thuringia.
(SFC, 8/19/98, Z1 p.6)
1896 Jan 5, An Austrian newspaper
(Wiener Presse) reported the discovery by German physicist
Wilhelm Roentgen of a type of radiation that came to be known as
"X-rays."
(AP, 1/5/98)
1896 Apr 28, Heinrich von
Treitschke, German historian, died.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1896 Aug 9, Otto Lilienthal,
German aerodynamic engineer, made his last glide when his glider No. 11
was upset by a sudden gust of wind and he was unable to regain control.
Lilienthal broke his back in the crash and died the next day in a
Berlin clinic. He had made more than 2,000 test flights in gliders and
convinced many people that flight was possible and set the stage for
early aviation. He once wrote that "we must fly and fall, fly and fall
until we can fly without falling." He also influenced flight theory by
using bird flight as a model for the basis of aviation.
(HNPD, 8/9/98)
1896 Nov 27, Richard Strauss'
"Also Sprach Zarathustra" (Thus Spake Zarathustra) debuted in Frankfurt.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1896 In Germany Magnus Hirschfield
under a pseudonym published the pamphlet "Sappho und Sokrates," that
examined same sex love.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, DB p.47)
1896 The Schafer & Vater
porcelain factory began operating about this time in Rudolstadt,
Germany, and continued operations to 1962.
(SFC, 5/24/06, p.G3)
1897 Mar 9, Premiere of (parts of)
Gustav Mahler's 3rd Symphony in Berlin.
(MC, 3/9/02)
1897 Apr 3,
Johannes Brahms (63), German composer, conductor (Hungarian
Dances), died.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.B11)(MC, 4/3/02)
1897 Jun 14, Dr. Karl Wolfert and
his mechanic were killed in Germany when their dirigible, powered by a
Daimler car engine, crashed on its 4th flight.
(ON, 3/03, p.10)
1897 Jun 23, Winifred
Wagner-William, German organizer (Bayreuth Wagner Festival), was born.
(MC, 6/23/02)
1897 Jul 31, The commercial treaty
between Britain and the German zollverein (established in 1865) was
denounced by Britain and pronounced to end in one year.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A2)
1897 Aug 10, A modern version of
aspirin was developed. The active ingredient of aspirin was invented by
a German worker for Bayer.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A5)(PBS, 8/10/97)
1897 Oct 28, Hans Speidel, Nazi
chief-staff and NATO-supreme commander, was born.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1897 Oct 29, Joseph G. Goebbels,
German Nazi Propaganda Minister who died of suicide in Hitler’s bunker,
was born.
(HN, 10/29/98)
1897 Nov 13, The first metal
dirigible was flown from Tempelhof Field in Berlin.
(HN, 11/13/98)
1898 Feb 10, Bertolt Brecht,
German poet and dramatist, was born. He is best remembered for his
plays Three Penny Opera and Mother Courage.
(HN, 2/10/99)
1898 Mar 8, Richard Straus' "Don
Quixote," premiered in Keulen.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1898 Jun 26, Wilhelm Emil
Messerschmitt, German engineer, was born. He built fighters and jet
aircraft for Nazi Germany.
(HN, 6/26/99)
1898 Jul 30, Otto von Bismarck
(b.1815), German statesman and former "Iron" chancellor (1871-1890),
died. He held the German social security system as his greatest
accomplishment. In 1986 Lothar Gall authored “Bismarck.”
(WUD, 1994, p.151)(WUD, 1994, p.A27)(WSJ, 6/23/07,
p.P10)
1898 Sep 10, Empress Elisabeth of
Bavaria (60), Queen of Hungary and wife of Emp. Franz Josef II, was
assassinated in Geneva by the Italian anarchist Luigi Luccheni. A 1997
German rock musical, "Elisabeth," by Michael Kunze and Sylvester
Levay was based on her life.
(EWH, 1968, p.744)(WSJ, 12/8/97, p.A1,13)
1898 Sep 20, Theodore Fontane
(b.1819), German novelist and poet, died. He is regarded by many to be
the most important 19th-century German-language realist writer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Fontane)
1898 Dec, In Germany Emil and
Joseph Berliner founded Deutsche Grammophon, dedicated to manufacturing
the gramophone record and player invented by Emil.
(SFEC,12/797, DB p.45)
1899 Feb 23, Erich Kastner
(d.1974), German poet, novelist and children’s author (Emil and the
Detectives), was born. "The only people who attain power are those who
crave it."
(AP, 12/1/98)(HN, 2/23/01)
1899 In Berlin a tunnel was dug
under the Spree River.
(WSJ, 12/2/98, p.A20)
1899 A treaty between American,
Germany and Britain gave Western Samoa to the Germans and Eastern Samoa
to the Americans. In an Anglo-German treaty the UK renounced its rights
to the Samoan Islands
(HN, 1/16/99)(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.45)
1899 Munich police established a
central office for Gypsy affairs.
(WSJ, 1/19/00, p.A20)
1900 Mar 2, Kurt Weill, composer
(The Threepenny Opera), Brecht collaborator, was born in Dessau,
Germany.
(HN, 3/2/01)(SC, 3/2/02)
1900 Mar 6, Gottlieb Daimler (65),
designer of the 1st motorcycle, died.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1900 Mar 23, Erich Fromm (d.1980),
German-American psychologist (Sane Society), was born in Frankfurt,
Germany. He wrote "The Sane Society." "Modern man thinks he loses
something, time, when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not
know what to do with the time he gains, except kill it."
(AP, 4/21/97)(HN, 3/23/99)(SS, 3/23/02)
1900 Apr 2, Heinrich Besseler,
German musicologist, was born.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1900 May 5, Hans
Schmidt-Isserstedt, German composer, conductor (Hassan gewinnt), was
born.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1900 Jun 12, German Navy Law
called for a massive increase in sea power.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1900 Jun 17, Martin Bormann,
deputy Führer to Hitler, was born.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1900 Jul 2, Count Ferdinand Adolf
Heinrich August von Zeppelin (1838-1917) made the 1st successful flight
of his lighter-than-air ship LZ-1 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The 400
foot craft stayed aloft 17 minutes before it crashed.
(AHM, 1/97)(WSJ, 2/120/00, p.A1)(ON, 3/03, p.11)
1900 Aug 25, Philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche (55) died in Weimar, Germany. In 1999 Ronald Taylor
translated into English the book "Nietzsche and Wagner" by Joachim
Köhler. In 2002 Taylor translated Joachim Kohler’s "Zarathustra’s
Secret: The Interior Life of Friedrich Nietzsche." In 2004 Georges
Liebert authored "Nietzsche and Music."
(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.A20)(AP, 8/25/00)(SSFC, 6/9/02,
p.M5)(WSJ, 1/28/04, p.D6)
1900 Oct 7, Heinrich Himmler,
chicken farmer who became the head of the German Gestapo in Hitler's
Germany, was born. [see Oct 20, 1900]
(HN, 10/7/98)
1900 Oct 8, Maximilian Harden was
sentenced to six months in prison for publishing an article critical of
the German Kaiser.
(HN, 10/8/98)
1900 Oct 20, Heinrich Himmler,
head of SS, was born. [see Oct 7, 1900]
(MC, 10/20/01)
1900 Nov 7, Heinrich Himmler, Head
of the Nazi SS and organizer of extermination camps in Eastern Europe,
was born.
(HN, 11/7/98)
1900 Nov 19, Anna Seghers, [Netty
Radvanyi-Reiling], German author (7th Cross), was born.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1900 Nov 30, A German engineer
patented front-wheel drive for automobiles.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1900 Dec 1, Kaiser Wilhelm II
refused to meet with Boer leader Paul Kruger in Berlin.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1900 Dec 14, Max Planck
(1858-1947), German physicist, presented the quantum theory at the
Physics Society in Berlin. Planck, demonstrated that energy, in
certain situations, can exhibit characteristics of physical matter.
Planck was rewarded the Nobel Prize (1918) in Physics for his work on
blackbody radiation.
(HN, 12/14/98)(MC, 12/14/01)
1900s The Blue Rider movement of
expressionist painting centered in Munich in the early 1900s.
(HNQ, 1/26/00)
1900-1949 The "Letters of Heinrich and Thomas Mann"
of this period were translated to English and published in 1998.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, BR p.6)
1901 Feb 23, Britain and Germany
agreed on a boundary between German East Africa [later Tanganyika,
Rwanda and Burundi] and Nyasaland [later Malawi].
(HN, 2/23/98)(WUD, 1994, p.593,990)
1901 Mar 6, A would-be assassin
tried to kill Wilhelm II in Bremen, Germany.
(HN, 3/6/98)
1901 Oct 15, Bernard von Brentano,
German writer (Big Cats), was born.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1901 Oct 15, Hermann Abs, director
(Deutsche Bank) and Hitler's advisor, was born.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1901 Oct 23, Georg von Siemens,
founder of Deutsche Bank, died.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1901 Nov 21, Richard Strauss'
opera "Feuersnot," premiered in Dresden.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1901 Nov 25, Josef Gabriel
Rheinberger (62), German composer and music theorist, died.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1901 Dec 5, Werner Heisenberg
(d.1976), German physicist, was born. He discovered the uncertainty
principle and won the Nobel Prize in 1932.
(V.D.-H.K.p.337)(MC, 12/5/01)
1901 An elevated monorail,
"hanging railway," was built in the Ruhr Valley.
(WSJ, 4/13/99, p.A1)
1901 Wilhelm Maybach, a German
engineer and industrialist was the chief designer of the first Mercedes
and later went on to build power plants for Zeppelin airships with his
son. Maybach had worked with Gottlieb Daimler since 1883 on developing
efficient internal-combustion engines. The two formed the
Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft in 1890 to build automobiles. In 1909, he
organized a company with his son Carl to build aircraft engines,
including power plants for the Zeppelin airships.
(HNQ, 8/28/00)
1901 A conference of
German-speaking countries in Berlin settled on a single German spelling
system (orthography).
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.45)
1902 Mar 9, Alma Schindler
(d.1964), daughter of landscape painter Emil Schindler, married
composer Gustav Mahler (d.1911) in Vienna. He immortalized her in the
first movement of his Symphony No. 6, and he dedicated Symphony No. 8
to her. After his death Alma became involved with Oskar Kokoschka, who
painted her many times, most notably in "The Tempest" (1914; "Die
Windsbraut"). In August 1915 she married the architect Walter Gropius.
During her lifetime Alma Mahler became friends with numerous celebrated
artists, including the painter Gustav Klimt (who made several portraits
of her), composer Arnold Schoenberg, the writer Gerhart Hauptmann, and
the singer Enrico Caruso. The composer Alban Berg dedicated his opera
Wozzeck (1921) to her. In 1929 she married writer Franz Werfel.
(MC,
3/9/02)(http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/arc/libraries/feuchtwanger/exiles/werfel.html)
1902 May 10, Joachim Prinz,
author, Rabbi of Berlin (1926-37), was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1902 May 12, Heinrich Kirchner,
German sculptor, was born.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1902 Jun 23, Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Italy renewed the Triple Alliance for a 12 year
duration.
(HN, 6/23/98)
1902 Aug 13, Felix Wankel,
inventory of the rotary engine which bears his name, was born in
Germany.
(HN, 8/13/00)(MC, 8/13/02)
1902 Aug 22, Leni Riefenstahl,
[Helene Bertha Amalie], actress, Hitler's favorite cinematographer
(Triumph of the Will, Tiefland), was born in Germany.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1902 Aug 31, Mathilde Wesendonk
(73), German author and poetess, died.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1902 Nov 1, Eugen Jochum, German
conductor (Hamburg Orch), was born in Babenhausen, Bavaria.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1902 Dec 11, Matthias Hohner
(b.1833), German clockmaker and harmonica manufacturer, died. He began
making harmonicas in 1857. Exports to America began in 1862.
(www.eharmonica.net/history.htm)
1902 Max Ophuls (d.1957), later
film director, was born in the Rhine Valley of Jewish parents. He made
films in Germany, France, Netherlands and the US.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, DB p.50)
1903 Jan 18, Berthold Goldschmidt,
German-British (opera) composer (Beatrice Cenci), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1904 Jan 12, Anxious Germans
opened fire on Ovaherero at Okahandja. The Herero people of Southwest
Africa (Namibia) had risen in rebellion against German colonial rule.
The deadly Deutsche Schutzruppe “peacekeeping regiment” quelled the
tribes. They eventually annihilated 75% of the Herero and Nama peoples.
In 1981 Jon M. Bridgeman authored “The Revolt of the Hereros.”
(www.umich.edu/news/MT/NewsE/10_05/steinmetz.html)(SSFC, 6/25/06,
p.E5)
1904 Mar 7, Reinhard Heydrich,
German SS Leader and Architect of the "final solution," was born.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1904 Mar 8, The Bundestag in
Germany lifted the ban on the Jesuit order of priests.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1904 Apr 24, Friedrich Siemens
(77), German industrialist, died.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1904 Jun 11, German General Lothar
von Trotha arrived in SW Africa (later Namibia) to take over from the
colonial Governor, Theodor Leutwein, the direction of a campaign to
quell a native uprising.
(www.umich.edu/news/MT/NewsE/10_05/steinmetz.html)
1904 Jul 5, Ernst Mayr, biologist,
was born in Germany. He emigrated to the US in 1931. Mayr helped define
the concept of species as a group of interbreeding populations. He
helped found the modern evolutionary synthesis with Theodosius
Dobzhansky, Julian Huxley and George Gaylord Simpson, that brought
together a genetic understanding of how species adopt to their
environment.
(NH, 5/97, p.8)(SFC, 7/5/04, p.A6)
1904 Aug 9, Friedrich Ratzel (59),
German social-geographer (Lebensraum), died.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1904 Aug 11, German General Lothar
von Trotha defeated the Hereros tribe near Waterberg, South Africa.
[see Namibia]
(HN, 8/10/98)
1904 Aug 14, The cattle-herding
Hereros, a tribe of Southwest Africa (later Namibia), became the first
genocide victims of the 20th century. Kaiser Wilhelm II had sent
General Lothar von Trotha to put down a Herero uprising along with the
groups of rebellious Khoikhoi. Trotha drove the Hereros into the desert
and then issued a formal "extermination order" (Schrecklichkeit)
authorizing the slaughter of all who refused to surrender. Out of some
80,000 Hereros, 60,000 died in the desert. Of the 15,000 who
surrendered, half of those died in prison camps. Some 9,000 escaped to
neighboring countries. In 2004 a senior German government official
apologized for the genocide during a ceremony in Namibia marking the
100th anniversary of the uprising. In 2005 a German minister
acknowledged violence by German colonial powers and admitted that
following uprisings, the surviving Herero, Nama and Damara were
interned in camps and put to forced labor of such brutality that many
did not survive.
(www.umich.edu/news/MT/NewsE/10_05/steinmetz.html)(HNPD,
4/14/99)(AP, 8/14/04)(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.E5)
1904 Aug 29, Werner
Forssman, German urologist, was born. He was the first to catheterize
his own heart and won a Nobel prize in 1956.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1904 Oct 2, General Lothar von
Trotha: “I, the great General of the German soldiers, send this letter
to the Herero people (SW Africa-Namibia). The Herero are no longer
German subjects... The Herero nation must...leave the country. If they
do not leave, I will force them out with the Groot Rohr (cannon). Every
Herero, armed or unarmed...will be shot dead within the German borders.
I will no longer accept women and children, but will force them back to
their people or shoot at them.”
(www.umich.edu/news/MT/NewsE/10_05/steinmetz.html)
1904 Oct 18, Mahler's 5th symphony
premiered in Cologne.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1904 Nov 27, A German colonial
army defeated Hottentots at Warmbad in Southwest Africa (later
Namibia).
(HN, 11/27/98)
1904 Dec 9, Von Schlieffen order
von Trotha to pardon all Ovaherero, after tens of thousands had
perished in the desert, except those who were "directly guilty
and the leaders.”
(www.umich.edu/news/MT/NewsE/10_05/steinmetz.html)
1904 Dec 24, German SW Africa
abolished the slavery of young children. [see Namibia]
(MC, 12/24/01)
1904 Max Weber (1864-1920), German
sociologist and political economist, authored "The Protestant Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism." Weber wrote "the modern man is in general,
even with the best will, unable to give religious ideas a significance
for culture and national character which they deserve." Weber visited
the US in this year.
(WSJ, 6/14/95, p.A-14)(WSJ, 8/19/96, p.A11)(WSJ,
11/13/02, p.D10)
1904 Reinhard Piper (d.1953)
founded R. Piper Verlag, a publishing house grounded in philosophy,
literature and the arts.
(SFC, 3/30/00, p.C5)
1904 In Germany the O&M
Hausser toy company was founded in Ludwigsberg. They used they
"Elastolin" trade name for small composition figures that included
soldiers of various countries.
(SFC, 1/13/99, Z1 p.6)
1905 Feb 1, Germany contested
French rule in Morocco.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1905 Mar 4, Gerhart Hauptmann's
"Elga" premiered in Berlin.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1905 Mar 15, Berthold Schenck von
Stauffenberg was born. He later attempted to assassinate Hitler.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1905 Mar 19, Albert Speer, German
architect, minister of Armament (NSDAP), was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1905 Apr 1, Berlin and Paris were
linked by telephone.
(HN, 4/1/98)
1905 Nov 9, Erika Mann, German-US
author (Other Germany) and daughter of Thomas Mann, was born.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1905 Dec 9, Richard Strauss' opera
"Salome," premiered in Dresden. Soprano Marie Wittich delegated the
dance of the seven veils to a member of the corps de ballet.
(http://operetta.stanford.edu/Strauss/Salome/main.html)(WSJ,
10/16/03, p.D8)
1905 The expressionist art group
"Die Bruecke" (the Bridge) was formed by German painters that included
Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.
(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.A17)
1905 Adolph Menzel (b.1815),
German painter, died. He combined elements of many styles and was
considered the greatest artist in Germany at the time and was Prussia’s
foremost historical artist. He was considered Germany’s French
Impressionist.
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A20)(WSJ, 7/16/98, p.A16)
1906 Feb 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(d.1945), German Protestant theologian, was born. "If you board the
wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other
direction."
(AP, 8/27/00)(HN, 2/4/01)
1906 Mar 19, Adolf Eichmann, Nazi
Gestapo officer, was born. He was captured in Argentina and put on
trial in Israel.
(HN, 3/19/99)
1906 Mar 19, Ermanno
Wolf-Ferrari's "Quattro Rusteghi," premiered in Munich.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1906 Mar 31, G.B. Shaw's German
version of "Caesar and Cleopatra," premiered in Berlin.
(MC, 3/31/02)
1906 Oct 3, The first conference
on wireless telegraphy in Berlin adopted SOS as warning signal.
(HN, 10/3/98)
1906 Oct 14, Hannah Arendt,
historian (Origins of Totalitarianism), was born in Germany.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1906 Nov 9, Arthur Rudolph,
Nazi-turned-American rocket engineer, was born.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1906 Nov, Alois Alzheimer
(1864-1915), German psychiatrist, first described the symptoms of a
progressive neurodegenerative disease that caused memory loss, dementia
and ultimately death. This was based on his patient, Auguste D (56).
She was the first person to have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's
disease.
(WSJ, 5/13/97, p.B1)(Econ, 7/29/06, p.72)
1906 Dec 14, First U1 submarine
was brought into service in Germany.
(HN, 12/14/98)
1906 The 1st gay periodical "Der
Eigene" was published.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, DB p.66)
1906 Alfred Lothar Wegener (26),
German meteorologist, joined an expedition to survey Greenland’s
glacier-fringed coast.
(ON, 9/04, p.8)
1907 May 9, Baldur von Schirach,
German writer, Nazi Youth leader, convicted war criminal, was born.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1907 Aug 13, Alfred Alwin Felix
Krupp, arms manufacturer, was born in Essen, Germany.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1907 Aug 15, Joseph Joachim (76),
German violinist, composer, died.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1907 Oct 27, The first trial in
the Eulenberg Affair ended in Germany. Prince Philip Eulenberg was an
aristocrat and former diplomat who was an old friend of the Kaiser's.
Others were jealous of Eulenberg's position. Maximilian Harden, editor
of the magazine Die Zunkunft, began to print a series of articles in
the fall of 1906 which alleged that Eulenberg and other highly placed
men were homosexuals.
(HN, 10/27/98)
1907 Nov 15, Count Claus Schenck
von Stauffenberg, German anti fascist colonel, was born.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1907 Dec 28, Erich Mielke
(d.2000), later head of the East German Stasi, was born in Berlin.
(SFC, 5/26/00, p.D3)
1907 Johannes Klepper licensed,
improved and marketed a folding kayak.
(Hem, 9/04, p.50)
1907 In Berlin the Hotel Adlon on
the Unter den Linden was founded by Lorenz Adlon. It was burned to the
ground during WW II and reconstructed in 1997.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.T5)
1908 Apr 18, Joseph Keilberth,
German conductor (Bayreuther Festspiele), was born.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1908 Jun 10, Ernst B. Chain,
German chemist, bacteriologist (penicillin, Nobel 1945), was born.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1908 Jun 12, Otto Skorzeny,
German-Austrian SS colonel who led glider rescue of Mussolini, was born.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1908 Aug 11, Britain's King Edward
VII met with Kaiser Wilhelm II to protest the growth of the German navy.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1908 Sep 5, Joaquin Nin-Culmell
(d.2004), composer, was born in Berlin to Joaquin Nin, a Cuban pianist,
and singer Rosa Culmell. His older sister was Anais Nin
(SFC, 1/16/04, p.A1)
1908 Sep 20, Alexander
Mitscherlich, German psychotherapist, was born.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1908 Dec 9, A child labor bill
passed German Reichstag forbidding work for children under age 13.
(HN, 12/9/98)
1909 Feb 9, France agreed to
recognize German economic interests in Morocco in exchange for
political supremacy.
(HN, 2/9/97)
1909 Mar 2, Great Britain, France,
Germany and Italy asked Serbia to set no territorial demands.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1909 Jul 2, Fritz Haber and Carl
Bosch of the BASF company succeeded in combining nitrogen from the air
with hydrogen from coal to make ammonia.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.29)
1909 Nov 4, Opera "Il Segreto di
Susanna" was produced in Munich.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1909 Adolf Hitler painted a series
of views around Linz, Austria, including the watercolor "Mountain
Chapel."
(WSJ, 7/24/02, p.D12)
1909 Wilhelm Maybach, German
engineer and industrialist, organized a company with his son Carl to
build aircraft engines, including power plants for the Zeppelin
airships.
(HNQ, 8/28/00)
1910 Jan 3, The Social Democratic
Congress in Germany demanded universal suffrage.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1910 May 27, Robert Koch (b.1843),
German bacteriologist (TB, Cholera, Nobel), died.
(http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1905/koch-bio.html)
1910 Jun 14, Rudolf Kempe,
conductor, was born in Niederpoyritz, Germany.
(MC, 6/14/02)
1910 Jun 22, German bacteriologist
Paul Ehrlich announced a definitive cure for syphilis.
(AP, 6/22/01)
1910 Sep 11, Gerhard Schroder,
German chancellor, was born.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1910 Sep 12, Gustav Mahler's 8th
Symphony premiered in Munich with 1028 musicians.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1910 In Germany there was an
important show on Islamic art in Munich.
(WSJ, 12/11/97, p.A21)
1910 Herman Lons, German writer,
authored his novel “The Warwolf: a peasant chronicle.” It was set in
the time of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), during which some 10
million people died including 4 million Germans. In 2006 it was made
available in English.
(WSJ, 6/16/06, p.P8)
1911 Jan 10, Two German cruisers,
the Emden and the Nurnberg, suppressed a native revolt on island of
Ponape in the Carolina Islands [Caroline Islands, east of the
Philippines] when they fired on the island and land troops.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1911 Jan 26, The Richard Strauss
opera "Der Rosenkavalier" premiered in Dresden, Germany.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1911 Jan 31, The German Reichstag
exempted royal families from tax obligations.
(HN, 1/31/99)
1911 Mar 16, Josef Mengele, MD,
PhD, SS ("The Angel of Death at Auschwitz"), was born in Gunzburg,
Germany.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1911 Apr 1, Gunther Rennert, opera
director, producer, was born in Essen, Germany.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1911 May 16, Zeppelin
"Deutschland" was wrecked at Dusseldorf.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1911 Jun 29, Klaus E.J. Fuchs,
German nuclear physicist, spy, was born.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1911 Aug 1, Konrad Duden (b.1829),
German philologist, died. His 1880 dictionary represents the start of
the Duden series and included 28,000 words on 187 pages.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Duden)
1911 Aug 31, Anthony Fokker's
demonstrated the aircraft "Snip."
(MC, 8/31/01)
1911 Nov 20, Gustav Mahler's "Das
Lied von der Erde" premiered in Munich.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1911 Nov 29, German atomic
physicist Konrad Fuchs, was born.
(HN, 11/29/98)
1911 Dec 23, Emmanuel
Wolf-Ferrari's opera "I Giojelli Della Madonna" was produced in Berlin.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1911 Munich police began
fingerprinting all Gypsies.
(WSJ, 1/19/00, p.A20)
1912 Jan, Alfred Wegener, German
scientist, suggested that the continents had drifted to their present
positions from the break-up of a single primeval super-continent. He
said that the break up of Pangaea came at the end of the Mesozoic era.
(DD-EVTT, p.22,189)(ON, 9/04, p.8)
1912 Mar 23, Werner von Braun,
rocket expert (I Aim at the Stars), was born in Wirsitz, Germany.
He led the development of the V-2 rocket during World War II.
(HN, 3/23/99)(SS, 3/23/02)
1912 May 2, Axel Springer, German
newspaper magnate, was born.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1912 May 18, Georg von Opel,
German auto manufacturer, was born.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1912 Jun 17, The German Zeppelin
SZ 111 burned in its hanger in Friedrichshafen.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1912 Jun 28, Karl F. von
Weisacker, German physicist, philosopher, was born.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1912 Sep 9, Kurt Sanderling,
conductor (E Berlin Symph 1960-77), was born in Arys, Germany.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1912 Nov 24, Austria denounced
Serbian gains in the Balkans; Russia and France backed Serbia while
Italy and Germany backed Austria.
(HN, 11/24/98)
1912 Dec 5, Italy, Austria, and
Germany renewed the Triple Alliance for six years.
(HN, 12/5/98)
1912 German psychologist William
Stern introduced the term "intelligence quotient" and abbreviation
"IQ."
(WSJ, 7/18/97, p.A15)
1912 Heinrich Muller and Heinrich
Schreyer started the Schreyer & Co. toy company in Nuremberg,
Germany. The name was shortened to Schuco in the 1920. They began
making “Yes/No” toys in 1921 and after WWII these were called “Tricky”
toys. In 1999 Schuco became part of the Simba Dickie Group.
(SFC, 4/23/08, p.G6)
1912 Wilesco Schroeder Co. of
Ludenscheid, Germany, was founded by Wilhelm Schroeder to manufacture
aluminum utensils and carving sets. By the 1960s it expanded to produce
toy tractors and fire engines.
(SFC, 11/1/06, p.G2)
1912 Karl May (b.1842), German
author of US Western novels, died. A third of his 80 books were set in
the American West and included "Son of the Bear Hunter," "The Spirit of
Llano Estacado" and the 4 Winnetou novels.
(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A1)
1913 Jan 12, Kiel and
Wilhelmshaven became submarine bases in Germany.
(HN, 1/12/99)
1913 Jan 15, The first telephone
line between Berlin and New York was inaugurated.
(HN, 1/15/99)
1913 Feb 18, Artur Axmann, Nazi
youth leader, was born.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1913 Mar 22, Martha Modl, German
singer, soprano (Wagner), was born.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1913 Mar 29, The Reichstag
announced a raise in taxes in order to finance the new military budget.
(HN, 3/29/98)
1913 Jul 14, Fritz Erler, German
politician (SDP), was born.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1913 Sep 26, Ernst Schnabel,
German sailor and dramatist (Anne Frank), was born.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1913 Oct 15, Klaus Barbie, gestapo
chief (Lyon), was born.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1913 Oct 17, Zeppelin LII exploded
over London, killing 28.
(HN, 10/17/98)
1913 Dec 18, Willy Brandt, Mayor
of Berlin and Chancellor of West Germany, was born as Herbert
Frahm. He was chancellor from 1969-74 and won a Nobel Prize in
1971.
(HN, 12/18/98)(MC, 12/18/01)
1913 An imperial edict based
nationality on bloodlines rather than birthplace and laid the base for
Germany’s citizenship law. The law was modified in 1993.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A13)(SFC,
5/7/99, p.D2)
1913 Germany launched the SS
Vaterland, a passenger ship. It happened to be in NY harbor when war
broke out in 1914 and was not allowed to leave. The US Navy seized it
in 1917 for a troop carrier as the US entered the war. After the war it
served as an American passenger liner under the name Leviathan and
continued service to 1938.
(SFC, 8/8/07, p.G2)
1913 Franz Schneider
patented a gun synchronizing device in Germany, France and Great
Britain. In 1915 it was developed as the "Fokker Scourge" to fire
bullets through an airplanes propellers.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1913 The German Tendaguru
expedition to East Africa (later Tanzania) yielded a huge collection of
dinosaur bones from the late Jurassic. The collection was taken to the
Berlin Museum of Natural History.
(WSJ, 1/31/03, p.A1)
1914 July 27, Germany informed
Belgium and Luxembourg of its intention to pass its troops through
their countries. German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg
reportedly called the 1839 London Treaty, in which all the European
powers had guaranteed Belgian neutrality, "a scrap of paper" not worth
fighting over. Bethmann-Hollweg was trying to persuade Britain not to
declare war based on the treaty. Unsuccessful in his efforts, Britain
and Belgium declared war when German troops entered Belgium on August 4.
(HNQ, 7/24/98)
1914 Jul 31, German Kaiser Wilhelm
II threatened war and ordered Russia to demobilize.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1914 Aug 1, France and Germany
mobilized.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1914 Aug 1, Germany declared war
on Russia at the onset of World War I.
(AP, 8/1/07)
1914 Aug 2, Germany invaded
Luxembourg.
(HN, 8/2/98)
1914 Aug 2, German press falsely
reported that French bombed Nuremberg.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1914 Aug 2, Russian troops invade
Eastern Prussia.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1914 Aug 3, Germany invaded
Belgium and declared war on France at the onset of World War I. The
German plan for victory in France was known as the Schlieffen Plan, and
was based on a quick strike and the capture of Paris.
(HN, 8/3/98)(AP, 8/3/08)(ON, 8/08, p.5)
1914 Aug 3, German Admiral
Souchon, commander of the battle cruisers Goeben and Breslau, received
an unexpected change in his orders. After attacking the Algerian coast
he was no longer to sail west to the Atlantic Ocean. Instead, he was
now ordered to turn around and sail east to Turkey. His new mission was
to persuade the neutral Turkish government to enter the war on the side
of Germany. The 2 ships were sold to Turkey and Souchon was made
commander of the Turkish navy. He took the ships into the Black Sea,
where he bombarded the Russian cities of Odessa, Sebastopol and
Novorossiysk without the knowledge or consent of the Turkish government.
(http://www.worldwar1.com/sfgb.htm)(ON, Dec, 1995)
1914 Aug 4, Britain and Belgium
declared war after German troops entered Belgium. The United States
proclaimed its neutrality.
(HNQ, 7/24/98)(AP, 8/4/97)
1914 Aug 6, A German Zeppelin
bombed Liege City and killed 9 people.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1914 Aug 6, Austria-Hungary
declared war against Russia and Serbia declared war against Germany.
(AP, 8/6/00)
1914 Aug 10, At Luik, German
12"/16.5" guns reached Belgian boundary.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1914 Aug 16, Liege, Belgium, fell
to the German army.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1914 Aug 18, Germany declared war
on Russia.
(HN, 8/18/00)
1914 Aug 20, German forces
occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War I.
(AP, 8/20/07)
1914 Aug 20, Russia won an early
victory over Germany at Gumbinnen.
(HN, 8/20/98)
1914 Aug 22, Von Ludendorff and
von Hindenburg moved into East Prussia enroute to Russia.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1914 Aug 23, Gen. von Hausen
executed 612 inhabitants of Dinant, Belgium. Felix Fivet (3 weeks old),
Belgian baby, was among those executed by German troops.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1914 Aug 23, Japan sided with the
Allies and declared war on Germany in World War I.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)(AP, 8/23/97)
1914 Aug 25, German army began 6
week plundering of Leuven, Belgium. German Zeppelins bombed Antwerp,
Belgium, and 10 died.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1914 Aug 25, German troops marched
into France and pushed the French army to the Sedan.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1914 Aug 27, 2nd day of battle at
Tannenberg: Germany bombed Usdau.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1914 Aug 28, Three German cruisers
were sunk by ships of the Royal Navy in the Battle of Heligoland Bight,
the first major naval battle of World War I. The Germans lost four
ships and 1,000 sailors; British casualties were 33 killed.
(HN, 8/28/98)(RTH, 8/28/99)
1914 Aug 29, 4th day of
Tannenberg: Russian Narev-army panics, Gen Martos caught.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1914 Aug 30, The 1st German plane
bombed Paris and 2 people were killed.
(SFC, 8/24/96, p.E3)(MC, 8/30/01)
1914 Aug 31, Germany defeated
Russia at the battle at Tannenberg. Some 30,000 Russians died.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1914 Aug, Berlin stockyards were
slaughtering 25,000 pigs a week. By September, 1916, the number dropped
to 350 a week.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.73)
1914 Sep 4, General von Moltke
ceased German advance in France.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1914 Sep 5, The First Battle of
the Marne began during World War I. The German First Army was led by
Gen. Alexander von Kluck.
(AP, 9/5/97)(WSJ, 12/31/99, p.A10)
1914 Sep 6, In the Battle of Marne
German forces bypassed Paris to chase retreating allied forces. French
Gen. Gallieni orchestrated an attack using the British Expeditionary
Force along with the French 3rd, 5th and 6th armies.
(ON, 8/08, p.5)
1914 Sep 7, In the Battle of Marne
French Gen. Gallieni commandeered some 600 hundred Paris taxicabs to
deliver overnight 6,000 men of the 3rd army to reinforce the 6th Army
at the Battle of the Marne, which allowed the French army to hold.
(ON, 8/08, p.5)
1914 Sep 9, In the Battle of Marne
the German advance stalled and a retreat began back to the Aisne River.
(ON, 8/08, p.5)
1914 Sep 12, The First Battle of
the Marne ended in an Allied victory against Germany. The German
advance into France was stopped. 20th century history turned on this
pivotal event.
(WSJ, 12/31/99, p.A10)(AP, 9/12/06)
1914 Sep 15, The Battle of Aisne
began between Germans and French during WW I.
(MC, 9/15/01)
1914 Sep 18, Gen. von Hindenburg
was named commander of German armies on the Eastern Front.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1914 Sep 18, Battle of Aisne ended
with Germans beating the French during WW I.
(MC, 9/18/01)
1914 Sep 22, The German cruiser
Emden shelled Madras, India, destroying 346,000 gallons of fuel and
killing only five civilians.
(HN, 9/22/99)
1914 Sep 22, A German submarine
sank 3 British ironclads, 1,459 died. The Aboukir, the Hogue, and the
Cressy, were all sunk in just over one hour. This loss
alerted the British to the deadly effectiveness of the submarine,
which had been generally unrecognized up to that time.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1914 Sep 22, The RNAS attempted
their first air attack on the Zeppelins at Dusseldorf and Cologne.
There was little damage done.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Sep 24, In the
Alsace-Lorraine area between France and Germany, the German Army
captured St. Mihiel.
(HN, 9/24/98)
1914 Oct 4, The first German
Zeppelin raided London.
(HN, 10/4/98)
1914 Oct 8, The RNAS attempted
another air attack on the Zeppelins at Dusseldorf and Cologne. The
dirigible shed at Dusseldorf was destroyed.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Oct 9, German troops took
Antwerp after a 12-day siege in WW I crushing the resistance of over
100,000 Belgian troops and violating Belgian neutrality.
(HN, 10/9/98)(MC, 10/9/01)
1914 Oct 19, The German cruiser
Emden captures her thirteenth Allied merchant ship in 24 days.
(HN, 10/19/99)
1914 Oct 21, Battle of Warsaw
ended with a German defeat.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1914 Oct 28, The German cruiser
Emden, disguised as a British ship, steamed into Penang Harbor near
Malaya and sank the Russian light cruiser Zhemchug.
(HN, 10/28/99)
1914 Nov 1, Von Hindenburg was
named marshal of Eastern front.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1914 Nov 1, A German squadron
engaged the British fleet under Adm. Craddock near Coronel Bay, Chile.
The ships Good Hope and Monmouth were sunk and 1,600 men were lost
including Adm. Craddock.
(MC, 11/1/01)(ON, 3/02, p.11)
1914 Nov 7, Japan attacked a
German concession on Chinese peninsula of Shanghai.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1914 Nov 9, Lt. Captain Hellmuth
Karl von Mucke (1892-1957) led a squad of men in 3 small boats from the
German cruiser Emden to destroy the British telegraph station at
Direction Island in the Cocos archipelago. Separated from the Emden von
Mucke commandeered the old schooner Ayesha and led his men to Padang,
where he sunk the Ayesha and took command of the German merchant SS
Choising. They reached Yemen on Jan 8, 1915.
(ON, 4/05, p.4)
1914 Nov 9, The Australian light
cruiser HMAS Sydney wrecked the German cruiser Emden, forcing her to
beach on a reef on North Keeling Island in the Indian Ocean.
(HN, 11/9/99)
1914 Nov 21, The RNAS attempted an
air attack on the Zeppelins at Friedrichshafen. They succeeded in doing
considerable damage.
(AHM, 1/97)
1914 Nov 25, Hindenburg called off
Lodz offensive 40 miles from Warsaw, Poland. The Russians lost 90,000
to the Germans’ 35,000 in two weeks of fighting.
(HN, 11/25/98)
1914 Dec 4, The first Seaplane
Unit formed by the German Navy officially came into existence and began
operations from Zeebrugge, Belgium.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1914 Dec 6, German troops over ran
Lodz.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1914 Dec 8, The German cruisers
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nurnberg, and Liepzig were sunk by a British
force under Adm. Sturdee in the Battle of the Falkland Islands. 1,800
German sailors were killed including Adm. Von Spee and his 2 sons. Over
2,500 lives were lost in a single day.
(HN, 12/8/98)(ON, 3/02, p.11)(SSFC, 10/6/02, p.C12)
1914 Dec 24, 577,875 Allied
soldiers were to spend Christmas as prisoners in Germany. World War I
was only months old on Christmas Eve 1914 when an extraordinary
unofficial truce occurred in many places along the Western Front. "We
were all moved and felt quite melancholy," wrote one German soldier,
"each of us taken up with his own thoughts of home." German and English
troops, often less than one hundred yards from each other, set aside
warfare to trade Christmas greetings and sing familiar carols in two
languages. The truce, probably observed by two-thirds of the British
and German troops, ended with the holiday, but reasserted the basic
decency of ordinary men like these British and German soldiers caught
up in war.
(HN, 12/24/98)(HNPD, 12/24/98)
1914 Dec 25, German and British
troops declared an unofficial truce to celebrate Christmas during World
War I.
(HN, 12/25/98)
1914 Dec 25, The British Royal
Navy Air Force attempted to bomb the German Zeppelin shed at Cuxhaven.
Fog obscured the mission and the bombs were dropped on other sites,
i.e. a seaplane base on Langeoog Island, the light cruisers Stralsund
and Graudenz and the city of Wilhemshaven. An audacious British air
attack on a Zeppelin base in northern Germany caught the Germans with
their defenses down.
(AHM, 1/97)(HN, 3/22/97)
1914 Dec 29, The production of
Belgian newspapers was halted to protest German censorship.
(HN, 12/29/98)
1914 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
(1880-1938), German Expressionist painter, created his “Potsdamer
Platz.”
(WSJ, 5/25/04, p.d8)
1914 Ludwig Meidner (1884-1966),
German expressionist artist, published his sequence of drawings titled
“Krieg,” a grotesque taste of the ghastliness of war to come.
(Econ, 1/5/08, p.80)
1914 Gen’l. Ludendorf defeated the
Russian army in a battle that he named after the 1410 battle of
"Tannenberg," which was fought nearby.
(DrEE, 11/9/96, p.6)
c1914 When WW I began New Zealand
pried Western Samoa from the Germans.
(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.45)
1914 In 2002 "German Atrocities,
1914: A History of Denial" was published.
(NW, 9/30/02, p.72)
1914-1918 The German campaign in East Africa was
directed by General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. German looting and
raiding caused at least 300,000 civilian deaths. By attacking Northern
Rhodesia they invaded British territory. Of 1 million porters recruited
by the British, 95,000 died. In 2007 Edward Paice authored “Tip and
Run: The Untold Tragedy of the Great War in Africa. In 2008 Edward
Paice authored “World War I: The African Front.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.87)(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W8)
1914-1933 Sebastion Haffner (d.1999) covered this
period of the Weimar in a memoir that was cut short by his death. The
English version was published in 2002 as "Defying Hitler."
(WSJ, 9/19/02, p.D12)
1915 Jan 1, German submarine
U-24 sank the British battleship Formidable in the English Channel
whilst on patrol and exercise with the 5th Battle Squadron. She sank
rapidly with the loss of 547 crew. The 5BS had been steaming slowly
(10knots), not zigzagging and were without destroyer escort. Admiral in
charge Lewis Bayly was dismissed from his position over the loss.
(www.worldwar1.co.uk/sunk15.htm)
1915 Jan 14, The French abandoned
five miles of trenches to the Germans near Soissons.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1915 Jan 19, The first German air
raids on Britain inflicted minor casualties. A Zeppelin attack over
Great Britain killed 4 people.
(HN, 1/19/99)(MC, 1/19/02)
1915 Jan 24, The German cruiser
Blücher was sunk by a British squadron in the Battle of Dogger
Bank.
(HN, 1/24/99)
1915 Jan 28, The German navy
attacked the U.S. freighter William P. Frye, loaded with wheat for
Britain.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1915 Jan 31, Germans used
poison gas for the 1st time on the Russians at Bolimov.
(HN, 1/31/99)(MC, 1/31/02)
1915 Jan 31, German U-boats
sank two British steamers in the English Channel.
(HN, 1/31/99)
1915 Feb 4, Germans decreed
British waters part of war zone; all ships were to be sunk without
warning.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1915 Feb 7, Field marshal Paul von
Hindenburg moved on Russians at Masurian Lakes.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1915 Feb 10, President Wilson
blasted the British for using the U.S. flag on merchant ships to
deceive the Germans. He also warned the Kaiser that he would hold
Germany "to a strict accountability" for U.S. lives and property
endangered. In Europe [Lithuania], the Germans encircled and captured
100,000 Russians near Nieman River. When the United States entered
World War I, propagandist George Creel set out to stifle anti-war
sentiment.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1915 Feb 14, The Kaiser invited
the U.S. Ambassador Gerard to Berlin in order to confer on the war.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1915 Feb 22, Germany began
"unrestricted" submarine warfare.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1915 Feb 23, Germany sank US ships
Carib & Evelyn and torpedoed the Norwegian ship Regin.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1915 Feb 26, The 1st flame-thrower
was used by the Germans at Malancourt, Argonnen.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1915 Mar 1, The Allies announced
their aim to cut off all German supplies, and assured the safety of the
neutrals.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1915 Mar 9, The Germans took
Grodno on the Eastern Front.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1915 Mar 13, The Germans repelled
a British Expeditionary Force attack at the battle of Neuve Chapelle in
France.
(HN, 3/13/99)
1915 Mar 14, The British Navy sank
the German battleship Dresden off the Chilean coast.
(HN, 3/14/98)
1915 Mar 22, A German Zepplin made
a night raid on Paris railway stations.
(HN, 3/22/97)
1915 Apr 1, Roland Garros
(d.1918), French aviator, shot down 2 German aviators over Belgium,
with bullets shot through his propellers. Corp. August Spachholz and
Lt. Walter Grosskopf became the 1st to be killed by an enemy pilot
flying alone.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1915 Apr 22, Germans made the
first use of poison gas in World War I at the Second Battle Ypres.
Chlorine gas was used along 4 miles of the French line at Ypres.
(NH, 10/98, p.18)(HN, 4/22/99)
1915 May 1, A German submarine
sank the U.S. ship Gulflight I.
(HN, 5/1/98)
1915 May 5, German U-20 sank the
Earl of Lathom.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1915 May 6, German U-20 sank
Centurion SE of Ireland.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1915 May 7, In the 2nd year of
WWI, the British Cunard ocean liner Lusitania, on a voyage from New
York to Liverpool, sank off the coast of Ireland in only 18-21 minutes
after being struck by a torpedo fired by the German U-boat U-20. Of
1,959 [1,978] passengers and crew, 1,195 died. Of the fatalities, 123
were Americans. Even though the Germans maintained the liner was
carrying arms purchased in America to Britain, the sinking of a
passenger ship aroused intense anger against the German policy of
unrestricted submarine warfare and hastened America's entrance into the
war. In 2002 Diana Preston authored "Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy" and
David Ramsay authored "Lusitania: Saga and Myth."
(CFA, '96, p.46)(AP, 5/7/97)(HN, 5/7/98)(HNPD,
5/7/99)(HN, 5/7/99)(WSJ, 5/8/02, p.AD9)
1915 May 9, German and French
forces fought the Battle of Artois.
(HN, 5/9/98)
1915 Jun 20, There was a German
offensive in Argonne.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1915 Jun 21, Germany used poison
gas for the first time in warfare in the Argonne Forest.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1915 Jun 22, Austro-German forces
occupied Lemberg on the Eastern Front as the Russians retreated.
(HN, 6/22/98)
1915 Jul 9, Germany’s South West
Africa surrendered to Gen. Botha of the Union of South Africa.
(http://home.wanadoo.nl/rhodesia/swatf.htm)
1915 Aug 5, The Austro-German Army
took Warsaw, in present-day Poland, on the Eastern Front.
(HN, 8/5/98)
1915 Aug 14, British transport
Royal Edward was sunk a by German U boat and some 1000 people were
killed.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1915 Aug 19, The British ocean
liner Arabic was sunk by Germany. After the sinking Germany promised
that no more merchant ships would be torpedoed without warning. Two
Americans were aboard and Germany feared U.S. entry into World War I.
Earlier, in May 1915, a German U-boat sank the British liner Lusitania,
killing 60 percent of those on board-some 1,198-of whom 128 were
Americans. The threat of American intervention receded until the
beleaguered Germans believed it was necessary to resume unrestricted
submarine warfare to break the British blockade. On January 31, 1917,
Berlin’s announcement that its submarines would "sink on sight" brought
the United States into the war.
(HNQ, 4/7/99)
1915 Aug 20, Paul Ehrlich (61),
German genealogist (Chemotherapy, Nobel 1908), died.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1915 Sep 2, Austro-German armies
took Grodno, Poland.
(HN, 9/2/98)
1915 Sep 4, Rudolf Schock, German
opera and operetta tenor, was born.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1915 Sep 6, Franz Josef Strauss,
Germany, Nazi and minister of defense (1956-62), was born.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1915 Sep 8, Germany began a new
offensive in Argonne on the Western Front.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1915 Sep 25, An allied offensive
was launched in France against the German Army.
(HN, 9/25/98)
1915 Sep 25, At the Battle at
Loos: 8,246 British and 0 German casualties.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1915 Oct 5, Germany issued an
apology and promises for payment for the 128 American passengers killed
in the sinking of the British ship Lusitania.
(HN, 10/5/98)
1915 Oct 8, The WWI Battle of Loos
ended with virtually no gains for either side. There was loss of over
one hundred thousand French, British, and German lives in this battle.
It marked the first use of poisonous gas by the British, which drifted
back to the British trenches.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1915 Oct 12, English nurse Edith
Cavell was executed by the Germans in occupied Belgium during World War
I.
(AP, 10/12/97)
1915 Oct 28, Richard Strauss'
Alpine Symphony premiered in Berlin.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1915 Dec 3, The U.S. expelled
German attaches on spy charges.
(HN, 12/3/98)
1915 Dec 9, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf,
soprano (Der Rosenkavalier), was born in Jarotschin, Germany.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1915 Dec 19, Alvis Alzheimer
(b.1864), German neurologist (Alzheimer Disease), died.
(www.ibro.info/Pub_Main_Display.asp?Main_ID=34)
1915 Dec 31, The Germans torpedoed
the British liner Persia without any warning; 335 are dead.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1915 Hans Leip, in training for
the Prussian Guard, authored the poem “Song of a Young Sentry.” It
reflected his recent meetings with two women named Lili and Marlene. In
1938 Norbert Schultze of Berlin put it to music. The composition was
then recorded by cabaret chanteuse Lale Anderson and became hugely as
the song “Lili Marlene.” In 2008 Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller
authored “Lili Marlene: The Soldier’s Song of World War II.”
(WSJ, 11/8/08, p.W8)
1915 Alfred Wegener, German
scientist, published his evidence for the theory of continental drift
in his book: "Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane" (The Origin of
Continents and Oceans). This expanded on his theory that continents had
drifted to their present positions from the break-up of a single
primeval super-continent, Pangaea. He acknowledged the work of F.B.
Taylor in 1908.
(DD-EVTT, p.188)(ON, 9/04, p.8)
1915 Germany lost control of South
West Africa to the British after brutally suppressing the indigenous
people.
(SFEC, 4/30/00, p.T4)
1915 Germany banned commercial
baking on Sunday to limit bread sales due to WW I.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A12)
1915 Ingush and Chechen regiments
led "the Brusilov breakthrough" on the Russian-German front. Their
horse cavalry attacked an enemy force armed with heavy artillery.
(www.chechnyafree.ru)
1916 Jan 2, The U.S. instructed
Ambassador Sharp to tell the Entente in Paris that America would reject
the German peace offer.
(HN, 1/2/99)
1916 Jan 14, British authorities
seized German attaché von Papen’s financial records confirming
espionage activities in the U.S.
(HN, 1/14/99)
1916 Jan 29, 1st bombings of Paris
by German Zeppelins took place.
(MC, 1/29/02)
1916 Feb 6, Germany admitted full
liability for Lusitania incident and recognized the United State's
right to claim indemnity.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1916 Feb 8, Demonstrators
protested against food shortages in Berlin.
(HN, 2/8/98)
1916 Feb 21, The World War I
Battle of Verdun began in France with an unprecedented German artillery
barrage of the French lines; the French were able to prevail after 10
months of fighting. German Gen’l. Erich von Falkenhayn launched the
attack.
(AP, 2/21/98)(HN, 2/21/01)(Sm, 2/06, p.38)
1916 Feb 26, Germans sank the
French transport ship Provence II, killing 930.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1916 Mar 1, Germany began
attacking ships in the Atlantic.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1916 Mar 14, In the Battle of
Verdun Germans attacked on Mort-Homme ridge, West of Verdun.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1916 Mar 18, On the Eastern Front,
the Russians countered the Verdun assault with an attack at Lake
Naroch. The Russians lost 100,000 men and the Germans lost 20,000.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1916 May 4, Responding to a demand
from President Wilson, Germany agreed to limit its submarine warfare,
averting a diplomatic break with Washington.
(AP, 5/4/97)
1916 Mar 9, Germany declared war
on Portugal.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1916 Apr 2, German troops overtook
Bois de Caillette.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1916 Apr 6, German government OK’d
unrestricted submarine warfare.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1916 Apr 9, The German army
launched it's third offensive during the Battle of Verdun.
(HN, 4/9/99)
1916 Apr 20, German-British sea
battle off Belgian coast.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1916 May 4,
Responding to a demand from Pres. Wilson, Germany agreed to limit
its submarine warfare, averting a diplomatic break with Washington.
However, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare the following
year.
(AP, 5/4/07)
1916 May 11, Einstein's Theory of
General Relativity was presented.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1916 May 11, Max [Johann BJM]
Reger (43), German composer, pianist, organist, died.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1916 May 18, US pilot Kiffin
Rockwell shot down German aircraft.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1916 May 24, US pilot William Thaw
shot down a German Fokker.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1916 May 31, During World War I,
British and German fleets fought the Battle of Skagerrak at Jutland off
Denmark and 10,000 were left dead. There was no clear-cut victor,
although the British suffered heavier losses.
(HN, 5/31/98)(AP, 5/31/06)
1916 Jun 26, Russian General
Aleksei Brusilov renewed his offensive against the Germans.
(HN, 6/26/98)
1916 Jul 1, At 7:30AM, a 5 day,
continuous, British artillery bombardment of German lines stopped, and
11 British divisions (100,000 men) went "over the top" toward the
Germans. By 9AM 22,000 were dead & another 40,000 were wounded in
what became known as the Battle of the Somme. These attacks continued
for another five months, costing the British over one million killed
& wounded. Field Marshal Douglas Haig commanded the British forces.
4 months of stalemate cost 420,00 British casualties.
(MC, 7/1/02)(AP, 7/15/09)
1916 Jul 30, German saboteurs blew
up a munitions pier on Black Tom Island, Jersey City, NJ. 7 people were
killed. Damages totaled about $20-25 million. After much legal
maneuvering a commission in 1939 ruled that Germany was guilty of
sabotaging Black Tom and another plant in Kingsland, NJ, and awarded$50
million to the claimants. In 1953 the new Federal Republic of Germany
began making payments. The last payment was made in 1979.
(AH, 10/04, p.36,77)
1916 Aug 11, The Russia army took
Stanislau, Poland, from the Germans.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1916 Aug 27, Italy declared war on
Germany.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1916 Aug 28, Germany declared war
on Romania.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1916 Aug 28, Italy's declaration
of war against Germany took effect during World War I.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1916 Aug 29, Gen Von Hindenburg
became German Chief of Staff.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1916 Sep 3, The German Somme front
was broken by an Allied offensive. Allies turned back the Germans in
the Battle of Verdun.
(HN, 9/3/98)(MC, 9/3/01)
1916 Oct 5, Corporal Adolf Hitler
was wounded in WW I.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1916 Oct 25, German pilot Rudolf
von Eschwege shoot down his first enemy plane, a Nieuport 12 of the
Royal Naval Air Service over Bulgaria.
(HN, 10/25/99)
1916 Nov 3, On the Baltic off of
Finland a German U-boat under Captain Bruno Hoppe ordered Captain E.B.
Eriksson of the Swedish schooner Jonkoping to halt for an inspection.
Beverages headed for the Russians were discovered and the ship was
evacuated and sunk. In 1998 some 1,000 bottles of 1907 Heidsieck
Monopole champagne were recovered, of which 500 were preserved in
drinking condition. Hoppe later sank the schooner Akir. The 66-ton
Joenkoeping was sunk in the Baltic Sea by a German U-boat. It carried
44 creates of champagne, 67 barrels of cognac, and 17 barrels of port
wine intended for the Russian army. Divers planned to recover the cargo
in 1998.
(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A14)(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A19)(AP,
9/21/98)
1916 Nov 8, Peter Ulrich Weiss,
German novelist and dramatist, was born. His work included "Marat/Sade"
and "The Investigation."
(HN, 11/8/00)
1916 Nov 28, The first (German)
air attack on London.
(DT internet 11/28/97)
1916 Dec 15, The French defeated
the Germans in the World War I Battle of Verdun. [see Dec 18]
(AP, 12/15/97)
1916 Dec 18, The Battle of Verdun
ended with the French and Germans each having suffered more than
330,000 killed and wounded in 10 months. [see Dec 15]
(HN, 12/18/98)
1916 The opera "Die Toten Augen"
(The Dead Eyes) by composer Eugen D'Albert (b.1864 in Glasgow) was
first performed in Dresden under Fritz Reiner.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, DB p.33)
1916 Germany reduced its
retirement age from 70, which was fixed by Bismarck, to 65.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.16)
1916 Germany adopted daylight
saving time.
(SSFC, 3/27/05, Par p.15)
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Germany
1917