Timeline Germany 1939-1944
Return to home
1939 Jan 4,
Hermann Goering appointed Reinhard Heydrich as head of Jewish
Emigration.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1939 Jan 17, The Reich issued an
order forbidding Jews to practice as dentists, veterinarians and
chemists.
(HN, 1/17/99)
1939 Jan 20, Hitler proclaimed to
German parliament his intention to exterminate all European Jews.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1939 Jan 22, A Nazi order erased
the old officer caste, tying the army directly to the Party.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1939 Feb 14, The Reich launched
the battleship Bismarck.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1939 Feb 24, Hungary signed an
anti-Communist pact with Italy, Germany and Japan.
(HN, 2/24/98)
1939 Mar 15, Germany occupied
Bohemia and Moravia, Czechoslovakia. Slovakia became independent
(Voruta #27-28, Jul 1996, p.2)(WSJ, 12/12/96,
p.A13)(HN, 3/15/98)(MC, 3/15/02)
1939 Mar 16, Germany occupied the
rest Czechoslovakia.
(HN, 3/16/99)
1939 Mar 18, The U.S. raised the
duties on German imports by 25 percent.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1939 Mar 21, Nazi Germany demanded
Gdansk (Danzig) from Poland.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1939 Mar 21, Ghandi called on the
world to disarm, thinking that Hitler would follow.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1939 Mar 22, Germany marched into
Klaipeda (Memel), Lithuania. The Lithuanian warship Prezidentas Smetona
was left without a harbor. The ship soon settled at Latvia’s port of
Liepaja. In December Ltn. P. Labanauskas was named captain. In 1940
Soviet occupiers called for the ship to raise the Soviet flag, but
Captain Labanauskas sailed the ship out of Soviet territory. The ship
was later handed over to the Soviet Baltic fleet. On Jan 11, 1945, it
hit a mine and sank off the coast of
Finland.
(Voruta #27-28, Jul 1996,
p.2)(http://tinyurl.com/cs545k)
1939 Mar 31, Britain and France
agreed to support Poland if Germany threatened to invade. Seven French
islands were annexed by Japan.
(HN, 3/31/98)
1939 Mar, In Slovakia Germany set
up a puppet regime. The Jewish community was estimated to number 70,000
at the start of the war. Fewer than 10,000 survived the war.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.A11)
1939 Apr 5, Membership in Hitler
Youth became obligatory.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1939 Apr 16, Stalin requested a
British, French and Russian anti-Nazi pact.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1939 Apr 18, Franz von Papen
became German ambassador in Turkey.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1939 Apr 20, The Kehlsteinhous,
aka the Eagle’s Nest, a mountaintop teahouse located in the Kehlstein
mountains near Berchtesgaden, was given to Adolf Hitler as a 50th
birthday present.
(SSFC, 8/6/06, p.G4)
1939 Apr 28, Hitler claimed the
German-Polish non-attack treaty to be still in effect.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1939 May 7, Germany and Italy
announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin
Axis.
(AP, 5/7/97)
1939 May 13, The SS St Louis
departed Hamburg with some 937 passengers including over 900 Jewish
refugees. They sought refuge in Cuba, but only 22 were allowed to
disembark there. No country in the Americas would take them. It
returned to Germany where a number of the Jews were later murdered.
[see Jun 4]
(http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.+Con.+Res.+185:)(WSJ,
11/3/98, p.A20)
1939 May 22, The foreign ministers
of Germany and Italy, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Galeazzo Ciano, signed
a "Pact of Steel" committing Germany and Italy to a military alliance
forming the Axis powers.
(HN, 5/22/99)(AP, 5/22/07)
1939 May 23, Hitler proclaimed he
wants to move into Poland.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1939 May, The Ravensbruck
concentration camp opened in northern Germany. It was primarily set up
for women. Between 1939 and 1945, over 130,000 female prisoners passed
through the Ravensbrück camp system; only 40,000 survived.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravensbr%C3%BCck)
1939 Jun 4, During what became
known as the "Voyage of the Damned," the SS St. Louis, carrying 907
Jewish refugees from Germany, was turned away from the Florida coast.
Also denied permission to dock in Canada and Cuba, the ship eventually
returned to Europe. The passengers were divided among England, France,
Belgium and Holland and a number of the refugees later died in Nazi
concentration camps. By 2003 efforts to track their fates identified
935 out of the 937 passengers. Some 260 ended in Nazi killing centers.
(AP, 6/4/99)(SFC, 10/4/99, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/7/03, Par
p.5)(Econ, 6/24/06, p.44)
1939 Jun 16-1939 Jun 20, Jewish
refugees, whose quest for freedom in the Americas was denied, began to
disembark the SS St. Louis back in Europe. Holland took 181, France
received 224, 228 went to Great Britain, and 214 went to Belgium. [see
May 13 and June 4]
(www.iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1999/ushmm-and-st-louis2.htm)
1939 Jun 28, Richard Meinertzhagen
(1877-1967, a British army colonel, met with Adolf Hitler to plead on
behalf of the Jews in Germany. He later claimed to have smuggled a
pistol into the chancellery but lost his nerve and failed to shoot
Hitler. In 2007 Brian Garfield authored “The Meinertzhagen Mystery.”
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P9)
1939 Jul 3, Ernst Heinkel
demonstrated an 800-kph rocket plane to Hitler.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1939 Jul 6, Nazis closed the last
Jewish enterprises.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1939 Aug 23, German Foreign
Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Commissar for Foreign
Affairs Vyacheslav M. Molotov signed a Treaty of Non-Aggression, the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact freeing Hitler to invade Poland and Stalin to
invade Finland. Secret protocols, made public years later, were added
that assigned Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia to be within the
Soviet sphere of influence. Poland was partitioned along the rivers
Narev, Vistula and San. Germany retained Lithuania enlarged by the
inclusion of Vilnius. Just days after the signing, Germany invaded
Poland, and by the end of September, both powers had claimed sections
of Poland.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A16)(AP, 8/23/97) (HNPD,
8/22/98)(HN, 8/23/98)
1939 Aug 27, Nazi Germany demanded
Danzig and Polish corridor.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1939 Aug 27, The world's first
jet-propelled plane, the Heinkel He-178, made its first flight at
Marienehe, north Germany. Hans von Ohain’s aircraft became the first
jet-powered airplane to fly. It remained airborne for 7 minutes. Erich
Warsitz made the 1st jet-propelled flight.
(SFC, 8/10/96, p.A20)(Reuters, 8/28/01)(MC, 8/27/01)
1939 Sep, 1, At 4:40 a.m., World
War II began. The Germans attacked Poland with their strategy of
Blitzkrieg, or lightning war. The war started at dawn with salvos from
the cruiser Schleswig-Holstein at the Polish garrison in Gdansk. In
1989 Donald Cameron Watt authored “How War Came.”
(WSJ, 4/26/95, p.A-16)(AP, 9/1/97)(WSJ, 1/14/07,
p.P8)
1939 Sep 1, Hitler ordered the
extermination of mentally ill.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1939 Sep 1, US Sen. William Borah
of Idaho said 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this
might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is
— the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly
discredited by history." In 2008 Pres. Bush quoted these words in a
speech to the Israeli Knesset.
(AP, 5/17/08)
1939 Sep 3, British envoy Sir
Neville Henderson delivered Britain’s final ultimatum to the Reich’s
Foreign Ministry.
(DrEE, 10/26/96, p.4)
1939 Sep 3, Britain and France
declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland.
After Germany ignored Great Britain's ultimatum to stop the invasion of
Poland, Great Britain declares war on Germany, marking the beginning of
World War II in Europe. France follows 6 hours later quickly joined by
Australia, NZ, South Africa & Canada.
(AP, 9/3/97)(HN, 9/3/98)(MC, 9/3/01)
1939 Sep 3, The British passenger
ship Athenia was sunk by a German submarine in the Atlantic, with 30
Americans among those killed. American Secretary of State Cordell Hull
warns Americans to avoid travel to Europe unless absolutely necessary.
(HN, 9/3/98)
1939 Sep 4, German troops stormed
into Danzig (Gdansk).
(MC, 9/4/01)
1939 Sep 4, The Nazis marched into
Czestochowa, Poland, two days after they invaded Poland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cz%C4%99stochowa)
1939 Sep 4, The Polish ghetto of
Mir was exterminated.
(MC, 9/4/01)
1939 Sep 5, In Czestochowa,
Poland, approximately 150 Jews were shot dead by the Germans. The day
was remembered as “Bloody Monday.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cz%C4%99stochowa)
1939 Sep 6, The 1st WW II German
air attack on Great Britain took place.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1939 Sep 6, The Union of South
Africa declared war on Germany.
(AP, 9/6/07)
1939 Sep 8, Gen. Von Reichenau's
panzer division reached the suburbs of Warsaw.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1939 Sep 9, Nazi army reached
Warsaw.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1939 Sep 10, Canada declared war
on Nazi Germany.
(AP, 9/10/97)
1939 Sep 14, British fleet sank
the German U-39 U-boat.
(http://www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsUboats.htm)
1939 Sep 17, The German U-29 sank
the British aircraft carrier Courageous, 519 died.
(http://www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsUboats.htm)
1939 Sep 19, Lord Haw-Haw became
the radio host of Reichsrundfunk Berlin.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1939 Sep 19, Wehrmacht (German
regular army) murdered 100 Jews in Lukov, Poland.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1939 Sep 20, After sinking
trawlers off the northern Hebrides, German U-27 was located and sunk by
destroyers "Fortune" and "Forester."
(www.naval-history.net/WW2CampaignsUboats.htm)
1939 Sep 21, Reinhard Heydrich met
in Berlin to discuss final solution of Jews.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1939 Sep 25, German Luftwaffe
struck Warsaw with fire bombs.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1939 Sep 25, Andorra and Germany
finally signed an official treaty ending WW I. The 1919 Versailles
Peace Treaty failed to include Andorra.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1939 Sep 27, Germany occupied
Warsaw. Poland surrendered after 19 days of resistance to invading
forces from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Poland had endured a
brutal 3 day bombing campaign by the German Luftwaffe.
(AP, 9/27/97)(HN, 9/27/98)
1939 Sep 28, The Boundary and
Friendship Treaty between the USSR and Germany was supplemented by
secret protocols to amend the secret protocols of Aug 23. Among other
things Lithuania was reassigned to the Soviet sphere of influence.
Poland’s partition line was moved eastwards from the Vistula line to
the line of the Bug. Germany kept a small part of south-west Lithuania,
the Uznemune region. A separate Soviet mutual defense pact was signed
with Estonia that allowed 25,000 Soviet troops to be stationed there.
(DrEE, 9/28/96, p.3)(DrEE, 10/26/96, p.4)(DrEE,
10/26/96, p.4)(AP, 9/28/97)
1939 Sep 29, Germany and the
Soviet Union reached an agreement on the division of Poland. [see Sep
28]
(HN, 9/29/98)
1939 Sep 30, The French Army was
called back into France from it's invasion of Germany. The attack, code
named Operation Saar, only penetrated five miles.
(HN, 9/30/99)
1939 Sep 30, Germany and Russia
agreed to partition Poland. [see Sep 28,29]
(MC, 9/30/01)
1939 Sep, 41 U-boats were sunk
this month.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1939 Oct 4, Last Polish troops
surrendered to German Wehrmacht.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1939 Oct 6, In an address to the
Reichstag, Adolf Hitler denied having any intention of war against
France and Britain.
(AP, 10/6/97)
1939 Oct 6, Hitler announced plans
to resolve "The Jewish problem."
(MC, 10/6/01)
1939 Oct 8, Germany annexed
Western Poland.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1939 Oct 14, The German U-47,
commanded by Kapitan Gunther Prien, sank the British battleship HMS
Royal Oak at Scapa Flow, Scotland, and 833 people were killed. This
prompted Churchill to order the creation of concrete barriers at the
eastern entrance of Scapa Flow.
(SFEM, 10/10/99,
p.49)(http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/hoy/scapa/)
1939 Oct 19, Reichsmarshal Hermann
Goering began plundering art treasures throughout Nazi occupied areas.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1939 Oct 24, Nazis required Jews
to wear star of David.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1939 Oct 28, Anti-German
demonstrations and strikes took place in Czechoslovakia.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1939 Oct 28, A Spitfire shot down
a German Heinkel-111 over Scotland.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1939 Oct 30, German U boat failed
in an attack of English battleship Nelson with Winston Churchill,
Dudley Pound and Charles Forbes aboard.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1939 Oct 30, USSR and Germany
agreed on partitioning Poland. Hitler deported Jews.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1939 Oct 31, 27 U boats were sunk
this month (135,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1939 Nov 1, 1st jet plane, a
Heinkel He 178, was demonstrated to German Air Ministry.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1939 Nov 8, There was a failed
assassination attempt on Hitler in Burgerbraukeller, Munich.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1939 Nov 9, In the Venlo-incident,
German Abwehr killed 2 English agents.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1939 Nov 15, Nazis began their
mass murder of Warsaw Jews.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1939 Nov 16, German U-boat
torpedoed the tanker Sliedrecht near Ireland.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1939 Nov 17, German U-boat
torpedoed a passenger ship.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1939 Nov 24, In Czechoslovakia,
the Gestapo executed 120 students who were accused of anti-Nazi
plotting.
(HN, 11/24/98)
1939 Nov 25, Nazis reported four
British ships sunk in the North Sea, but London denied the report.
(HN, 11/25/98)
1939 Dec 1, Reichsfuhrer-SS
Heinrich Himmler ordered the deportation of Polish Jews.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1939 Dec 13, In the Battle at La
Plata 3 British cruisers fought the German "pocket battleship," Graf
Spee, which took refuge in Montevideo, Uruguay. The following day, the
badly damaged ship left port, deliberately ran aground in the bay,
where the officers led the crew in scuttling and exploding the Graf
Spee. Two days later, the commander of the German warship committed
suicide in his Buenos Aires hotel room. Today, at low tide, water
commuters between Buenos Aires and Montevideo can see part of the
superstructure breaking the surface. [see Dec 13]
(MC, 12/13/01)
1939 Dec 17, In the Battle of
River Plate near Montevideo, Uruguay, the British trapped the German
pocket battleship Graf Spee. German Captain Langsdorf sank his ship
believing that resistance was hopeless. [see Dec 17]
(AP, 12/17/97)(HN, 12/17/98)
1939 Dec 20, Hans Langsdorff,
German captain of the Graf Spee, committed suicide.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1939 Dec 21, Heinrich Himmler and
Reinhard Heydrich named Adolf Eichmann leader of "Referat IV B," the
group in charge of transport of Jews for Final Solution.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1939 Dec 22, 99 died in 2nd train
wreck at Friedrichshafen, Germany.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1939 Dec 22, 125 died in train
wreck at Magdeburg, Germany.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1939 Berthold Brecht wrote his
play "Mother Courage and Her Children." It was set during the Thirty
Years War (1618-1648) between the German Catholics and Swedish
Lutherans.
(WSJ, 1/24/97, p.A13)(WSJ, 10/23/01, p.A24)
1939 Christopher Isherwood wrote
"Goodbye to Berlin." It included a story about a singer called Sally
Bowles that became the basis for the 1951 play "I Am a Camera," the
1955 film "I Am a Camera," the 1966 musical play "Caberet" and the 1972
musical film "Cabaret." His Berlin books also included "The Last of Mr.
Norris," and "I Am a Camera." In 1998 Norman Page published "Auden and
Isherwood: The Berlin Years."
(WSJ, 3/23/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 9/27/98, BR p.8)
1939 Gen. Kurt von
Hammerstein-Equord implored Hitler to visit the French front where he
planned to kill Hitler and form a new government, but Hitler refused
the offer.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A19)
1939 By this time Heinrich
Himmler’s Ahnenerbe, an organization dedicated to studying the Aryan
roots for purposes of propaganda, included 137 scholars and scientists
plus 82 members of support staff. In 2006 Heather Pringle authored “The
Master Plan,” an account of the Ahnenerbe.
(WSJ, 2/9/06, p.D8)
1939-1945 Heinrich Mohn and his associates used the
war to transform Bertelsmann from a German provincial publisher of
religious texts into the largest supplier of war literature to Hitler’s
army.
(WSJ, 12/23/02, p.A6)
1939-1945 During WW II some 5-15,000 homosexual men
were sent to prison camps and marked for special treatment with a pink
triangle on their uniforms. The majority died in the camps.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.A18)
1939-1945 During WW II the Germans and Ukrainians
used Transdniestria as a killing field to purge Europe of some 150,000
Jews.
(SSFC, 2/12/06, p.E2)
1939-1945 Ball bearing, aircraft and oil production
factories share top billing on the Allied bombing planners’ hit list.
Ball bearings were vital to keep the German military machinery running,
and Schweinfurt factories produced more than 40 percent of the
country’s needs. The German aviation industry alone consumed an average
of 2.4 million bearings per month.
(HNQ, 8/14/01)
1940 Jan 10, German planes
attacked 12 ships off the British coast; three sank and 35 were dead.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1940 Jan 16, Hitler canceled an
attack in the West due to bad weather and the capture of German attack
plans in Belgium.
(HN, 1/16/99)
1940 Jan 25, Nazis established a
Jewish ghetto in Lodz, Poland.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1940 Jan 26, Nazis forbade Polish
Jews to travel on trains.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1940 Feb 12, The USSR signed a
trade treaty with Germany to aid against the British blockade.
(HN, 2/12/97)
1940 Feb 15, Hitler ordered that
all British merchant ships would be considered warships.
(HN, 2/15/98)
1940 Feb 20, Christoph Eschenbach,
pianist, conductor, was born in Breslau, Germany.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1940 Feb 21, The Germans began
construction of a concentration camp at Auschwitz. Hans Munch was an SS
doctor at the camp and later reported his experiences there in detail
for the 1998 TV documentary "People’s Century."
(HN, 2/21/98)(WSJ, 6/8/98, p.A21)
1940 Feb 22, German air force sank
2 German destroyers killing 578.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1940 Mar 1, U.S. envoy, Sumner
Welles met with Hitler in Berlin.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1940 Mar 3, A Nazi air raid killed
108 on a British liner in the English Channel.
(HN, 3/3/99)
1940 Mar 9, Britain freed captured
Italian coal ships on the eve of German Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop's
visit to Rome.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1940 Mar 15, Reichsmarshal Herman
Goering said 100-200 church bells are enough for Germany and smelted
the rest.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1940 Mar 16, Germany launched an
air raid on British fleet base at Scapa Flow.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1940 Mar 18, Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini held a meeting at the Brenner Pass across the Alps
during which the Italian dictator agreed to join in Germany's war
against France and Britain.
(AP, 3/18/97)
1940 Mar 20, The British RAF
conducted an all-night air raid on the Nazi airbase at Sylt, Germany.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1940 Mar 27, Himmler ordered the
building of Auschwitz concentration camp. [see Feb 21]
(MC, 3/27/02)
1940 Apr 8, German battle cruisers
sank British aircraft carrier Glorious.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1940 Apr 9, The Nazi army invaded
and occupied Denmark and Norway. German forces landed along the
Norwegian coast and made a paratrooper assault on Oslo and Stavanger.
After the Nazi invasion most of Denmark’s police were killed.
(WSJ, 4/29/96, p.C-1)(SFEC, 1/26/97, p.A14)(AP,
4/9/97)(ON, 11/05, p.3)
1940 Apr 10, The HMS Hunter, a
British destroyer, went down with 110 men in the fist Battle of Narvik
as the Royal Navy tried to keep German forces from overrunning a
strategic Norwegian port. Germany lost 4 destroyers in the battle. In
2008 a Norwegian minehunter found the wreck
(AP, 3/9/08)
1940 Apr 13, In the 2nd battle of
Narvik, 8 German destroyers were destroyed.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1940 Apr 28, Rudolf Hoess became
commandant of concentration camp Auschwitz.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1940 Apr, The Germans sealed the
Jewish ghetto in Lodz, Poland, with barbed wire. Lodz at this time had
some 231,000 Jews, about one-third of the city’s population. Some
45,000 Jews from other parts of Nazi-occupied Europe were forced into
the ghetto as well as some 5,000 Gypsies. Many died under forced labor
and horrific conditions. Those remaining were killed in August, 1944.
(SSFC, 8/30/09, p.A17)
1940 May 1, 140 Palestinian Jews
died as German planes bombed their ship.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1940 May 8, German commandos in
Dutch uniforms crossed the Dutch border to hold bridges for the
advancing German army.
(HN, 5/8/99)
1940 May 10, German forces began a
blitzkrieg of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, skirting
France's "impenetrable" Maginot Line. Belgium was invaded by Germany
and maintained resistance for 18 days.
(WSJ, 8/1/95, p.A-8)(WSJ, 4/29/96, p.C-1)(HN,
5/10/02)
1940 May 12, The Nazi blitz
conquest of France began with the crossing at the Muese River.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)
1940 May 14, The Netherlands
(Holland) surrendered to Nazi Germany after the bombing of Rotterdam
that left 600-900 dead.
(HN, 5/14/98)(MC, 5/14/02)
1940 May 14, German breakthrough
at Sedan, France.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1940 May 15, German troops
occupied Amsterdam. Gen Winkelman surrendered.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1940 May 15, German armor division
moved into Northern France.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1940 May 16, Jacques Goudstikker,
Dutch art dealer, fell on a staircase of the SS Bodegraven as the ship
was refused entry at Dover. He died from a broken neck. His inventory
in Amsterdam totaled some 1,400 works, which Reichsmarschall Herman
Goring, Hitler’s 2nd in command, soon snapped up.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.D7)
1940 May 17, The Nazis occupied
Brussels, Belgium, during World War II.
(AP, 5/17/97)
1940 May 18, German forces under
Field Marshal Georg von Kuchler (1881-1968) occupied Antwerp,
Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_von_K%C3%BCchler)
1940 May 21, Nazis surrounded the
British Army at Dunkirk.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1940 May 21, British tank forces
attacked General Erwin Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division at Arras, slowing
his blitzkrieg of France.
(HN, 5/21/99)
1940 May 24, Hitler ordered a halt
to his forces converging on Dunkirk and the British, who were backed to
the sea. This event and the next 4 days were described in the 1999
book: "Five Days in London, May 1940" by John Lukacs.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A48)
1940 May 24, Hitler affirmed Gen.
von Rundstedt's "Stopbevel."
(MC, 5/24/02)
1940 May 24, German tanks reached
Atrecht, France.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1940 May 25, German troops
conquered Boulogne.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1940 May 28, During World War II,
the Belgian army surrendered to invading German forces.
(AP, 5/28/97)(HN, 5/28/98)
1940 May 29, Germans captured
Ostend and Ypres in Belgium and Lille in France.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1940 Jun 3, The German Luftwaffe
hit Paris with 1,100 bombs.
(HN, 6/3/98)
1940 Jun 4, German forces entered
Paris.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1940 Jun 5, The Battle of France
began during World War II. Germany attacked French forces along the
Somme line.
(HN, 6/5/99)(AP, 6/5/07)
1940 Jun 9, Norway surrendered to
the Nazis during World War II, effective at midnight.
(AP, 6/9/07)
1940 Jun 11, The German invasion
of France was under way and the British had been forced to abandon
their defense of northwestern France and Belgium at Dunkirk.
(WSJ, 4/29/96, p.C-1)
1940 June 14. The Nazis opened
their concentration camp at Auschwitz. In German-occupied Poland the
first inmates arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp. They were
all Polish political prisoners.
(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, A-10)(AP, 6/14/97)(AP,
6/14/98)
1940 Jun 15, The French fortress
of Verdun was captured by Germans.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1940 Jun 17, France asked Germany
for terms of surrender in World War II. Marshal Henri Petain replaced
Paul Reynaud, who chose to resign over surrender, as prime minister and
announced his intention to sign an armistice with the Nazis. In 2000
Ernest R. May authored "Strange Victory," an account of the French
defeat.
(AP, 6/17/97)(WSJ, 9/14/00, p.A24)(MC, 6/17/02)
1940 Jun 19, German 7th Armour
division under gen-maj Rommel occupied Cherbourg.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1940 Jun 21, German occupiers
disbanded the Dutch States-General, Council of State.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1940 Jun 22, During World War II,
Adolf Hitler gained a stunning victory as France was forced to sign an
armistice eight days after German forces overran Paris. France and
Germany signed an armistice at Compiegne, on terms dictated by the
Nazis. Alsace again became part of Germany.
(AP, 6/22/97)(HN, 6/22/98)(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.T4)
1940 Jun 25, Adolf Hitler viewed
the Eiffel tower and tomb of Napoleon in Paris.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1940 Jun, Hitler confided to
Mussolini his plan to ship Jews to Madagascar.
(WSJ, 3/23/04, p.D8)
1940 Jun, The Germans began to
loot the artwork of Paris and more than 70,000 residences were
plundered. A lot of artwork was sold to the Emil Buhrle Foundation in
Switzerland, the largest buyer of confiscated French art. The story is
told by Hector Feliciano in his 1997 book: "The Lost Museum." The best
book on the fate of European art in WW II was reported to be "The Rape
of Europa" by Lynn Nicholas.
(SFEC, 7/6/97, BR p.7)
1940 Jul 9, German Evangelist
Church protested against euthanasia programs.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1940 Jul 10, During World War II,
the 114-day Battle of Britain began as Nazi forces began attacking
southern England by air. By October 31, Britain managed to repel the
Luftwaffe, which suffered heavy losses. Reginald Mitchell (1895-1937),
the designer of the Spitfire, and Sydney Camm, the designer of the
Hurricane, were both saviors. Both fighters were necessary to win the
battle. The R.A.F.’s Fighter Command began the Battle of Britain with
about 650 Hurricanes and Spitfires, and lost over 900 of same during
the course of the battle; enormous production of replacements made good
the losses to such an extent that at times during the battle, Fighter
Command had over 900 operational Hurricanes and Spitfires. In his book
"The Air War 1939-1945," Richard J. Overy wrote, ". . . the Spitfire
took two and a half times the man hours that it took to produce a
Hurricane fighter." In overall performance the Spitfire was slightly
better than the Hurricane, but the above production figures give some
clue to the Hurricane’s importance. Re the Luftwaffe heavy bomber: The
Luftwaffe had a couple of four-engine bombers, the Heinkel He-177 and
the Focke Wulf FW-200, but neither were produced in large numbers, and
neither were in the same league as the American B-17, B-24, or B-29, or
the British Lancaster. Hitler was fascinated by high-tech "super
weapons" and attempted to produce them at the expense of more
worthwhile, conventional ones. This was a guy who, when nearly everyone
else knew Germany was finished, wanted to build a 1,500-ton tank and a
long-range rocket to attack the United States!
(AP, 7/10/97)(ON, 3/07, p.2)(ExH, 3/23/98)
1940 Jul 10-1940 Oct 31, The
Battle of Britain in July-October of 1940 was an earth-shakingly
decisive campaign (not just a battle). Hermann Goering’s Luftwaffe
gathered over 2,500 combat planes for a bombing campaign that would be
a prelude to "Operation Sea Lion" (an invasion of Britain). British Air
Marshall Hugh C. Dowding’s Royal Air Force’s Fighter Command could
muster about 650 decent fighters (Hurricanes and Spitfires). The
Luftwaffe came perilously close to wearing down the R.A.F., but at
about that time, a German bomber accidentally dropped bombs on London,
Churchill bombed Berlin, and Hitler switched the Luftwaffe’s attack
from the R.A.F. to London, giving the R.A.F. a breather. The
Luftwaffe’s bombers carried too small a bomb load for a strategic
bombing campaign and were inadequately armed to defend themselves
against R.A.F. fighters. The Luftwaffe’s Me-109 fighter lacked the
range to provide sufficient escort for the bombers, which were
massacred by Hurricanes and Spitfires. The Germans knew that the
British radar installations existed, and did launch some attacks upon
them, but never realized how vital radar truly was in directing R.A.F.
fighters to intercept raiding aircraft. In 1969 the film “Battle of
Britain” starred Laurence Olivier as Hugh C. Dowding. In 2010 James
Holland authored “The Battle of Britain: Five Months That Changed
History.”
(ExC, JWL, 3/20/98)(WSJ, 1/9/09, p.W10)(Econ,
5/15/10, p.93)
1940 Jul 14, A force of German
Ju-88 bombers attacked Suez, Egypt, from bases in Crete.
(HN, 7/14/98)
1940 Jul 19, Hitler ordered Great
Britain to surrender.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1940 Jul 23, German bombers began
the "Blitz," the all-night air raids on London.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1940 Jul 31, Reich's Kommissar
Seyss-Inquart banned homosexuals.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1940 Aug 8, The German Luftwaffe
attacked Great Britain for the first time, beginning the Battle of
Britain.
(HN, 8/8/98)
1940 Aug 11, 38 German aircrafts
were shot down over England.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1940 Aug 12, Luftwaffe bombed
British radar stations and lost 31 aircraft.
(MC, 8/12/02)
1940 Aug 13, Der Adler Tag (Eagle
Day) was the name given to the day the German Luftwaffe launched an
all-out offensive against the Royal Air Force and the British aircraft
industry in southern England. With this action, Adolf Hitler hoped to
knock out any aerial resistance to his planned invasion of the British
Isles. RAF fighter pilots successfully held off the numerically
superior Luftwaffe, in spite of the loss of 415 pilots out of a force
of 1,500.
(HNPD, 8/13/98)
1940 Aug 15, In the largest–scale
raids in the history of aerial warfare, hundreds of Germany planes
struck against London and its suburbs. Hitler’s planned Operation Sea
Lion was to have commenced on this day. However it was cancelled on Aug
17 following heavy German air raid losses. In 2008 Michael Korda
authored “With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain.”
(WSJ, 1/9/09, p.W10)
1940 Aug 16, 45 German aircrafts
were shot down over England.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1940 Aug 18, 71 German aircraft
were shot down above England.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1940 Aug 23, German Luftwaffe
began night bombing on London.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1940 Aug 24, Luftwaffe bombed
London.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1940 Aug 25, The 1st (British)
night bombing of Germany was over Berlin.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1940 Sep 3, In Germany the SS
banned Free Masons, Rotary & Red Cross.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1940 Sep 7, Nazi Germany began its
initial blitz on London during the World War II Battle of Britain. The
German Luftwaffe blitzed London for the 1st of 57 consecutive nights.
Nazi Germany launched the aerial bombing of London that Adolf Hitler
believed would soften Britain for an invasion. The invasion, "Operation
Sea Lion," never materialized. The Luftwaffe lost 41 bombers over
England. The blitz only strengthened Britain's resistance. The defense
of London was for the Royal Air Force what Churchill called
"their finest hour."
(AP, 9/7/97)(HN, 9/7/98)
1940 Sep 9, 28 German aircraft
were shot down above England.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1940 Sep 13, Buckingham Palace was
hit by German bombs causing superficial damage.
(http://www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/september13.html)
1940 Sep 15, The tide turned in
Battle of Britain in WW II. A reported 185 German planes were shot down
by Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots, forcing Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to
abandon his invasion plans.
(AP, 9/15/97)
1940 Sep 16, The Luftwaffe bombed
the Bristol Aeroplane Company.
(http://www.fishponds.freeuk.com/nluftbri1.htm)
1940 Sep 17, Nazis deprived Jews
of possessions.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1940 Sep 19, A Nazi decree forbade
gentile woman to work in Jewish homes.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1940 Sep 24, Luftwaffe bombed the
Spitfire factory in Southampton. [see Sep 25]
(MC, 9/24/01)
1940 Sep 25, German High
Commissioner in Norway set up the Vidikun Quisling government.
(MC, 9/25/01)
1940 Sep 25, Luftwaffe bombed the
Spitfire factory in Southampton. [see Sep 24]
(MC, 9/25/01)
1940 Sep 27, 55 German aircrafts
were shot down above England.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1940 Sep 27, Nazi-Germany, Italy
and Japan signed a formal alliance called Tripartite Pact, a 10 year
military and economic alliance strengthening the Axis alliance.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1940 Sep, 59 U-boats were sunk
this month.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1940 Oct 4, Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini conferred at Brenner Pass in the Alps, where the Nazi
leader sought Italy's help in fighting the British.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1940 Oct 4, 12 German aircrafts
were shot down above England.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1940 Oct 8, German troops occupied
Romania.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1940 Oct 15-16, London's Waterloo
Station was bombed by Germans. The bombing continued on London for 2
days and killed 400 people.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1940 Oct 16, The Warsaw Ghetto was
formed by Nazi SS troops.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1940 Oct 20, German troops reached
the approaches to Moscow.
(HN, 10/20/98)
1940 Oct 24, Hitler met Marshal
Petain.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1940 Oct 24, Protestant churches
[in Germany?] protested against the dismissal of Jewish civil servants.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1940 Oct 25, German troops
captured Kharkov and launched a new drive toward Moscow.
(HN, 10/25/98)
1940 Oct 25, Hitler visited
Mussolini in Florence.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A23)
1940 Oct 28, A meeting between
Hitler and Mussolini took place in Florence.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1940 Oct 31, 63 U boats were sunk
this month (325,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1940 Oct 31, In the Battle of
Britain, the German and British duel for control of English Channel,
ended.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1940 Nov 14, During World War II,
German planes destroyed most of the English town of Coventry.
(AP, 11/14/97)
1940 Nov 19, A German air raid on
Birmingham failed.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1940 Dec 6, The Gestapo arrested
Helen Ernst, German resistance fighter and poster artist.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1940 Dec 13, Hitler issued
preparations for Operation Martita, the German invasion of Greece.
(HN, 12/13/98)
1940 Dec 18, Hitler dictated
Directive No. 21 to crush Russia in a quick campaign. Adolf Hitler
signed a secret directive ordering preparations for a Nazi invasion of
the Soviet Union. Operation "Barbarossa" was launched in June 1941.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A23)(AP, 12/18/97)
1940 Dec 29, During World War II,
Germany began dropping incendiary bombs on London.
(AP, 12/29/97)
1940 Richard Strauss composed the
opera "Die Liebe der Danae." The libretto by Joseph Gregor was based on
a scenario by Hugo von Hoffmanstahl and conflated two stories, the love
affair of Jupiter and Danae and the story of King Midas.
(WSJ, 1/31/00, p.A42)
1940 Gen’l. Eduard Dietl led a
surprise capture of Narvik, the Norwegian Atlantic ice-free port.
(SFC, 3/19/97, p.A12,14)
1940 After the Nazi invasion most
of Denmark’s police were killed.
(SFEC, 1/26/97, p.A14)
1940 From Greece the occupying
Germans started transporting the 50,000 Jews of Thessaloniki to
Auschwitz.
(WSJ, 4/29/97, p.A20)
1940 In Poland "the Nazis packed
450,000 human beings into 75 square blocks of the Warsaw ghetto, then
walled it off and left them to starve."
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A7)
1940-1941 A secret Nazi program, code-named T4,
killed an estimated 70,000 disabled or mentally ill adults in specially
established death camps during this period.
(SFC, 10/7/06, p.A9)
1940-1941 German paratroopers were decimated in the
battle for Crete.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A23)
1940-1944 Germany occupied France. In 1998 Ian Ousby
published "Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940-1944." In 2009
Frederic Spotts authored “The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and
Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation.” In 2009 Charles glass
authored “American in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation
1940-1944.”
(SFEC, 8/16/98, Par p.8)(WSJ, 1/3/09, p.W6)(Econ,
5/2/09, p.84)
1940-1945 In 2006 the 2002 German book “The Fire: The
Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945” by Jorg Friedrich (b.1944), was made
available in English.
(Econ, 12/2/06, p.85)
1941 Jan 10, The Soviets and the
Germans agreed on the East European borders and the exchange of
industrial equipment.
(HN, 1/10/99)
1941 Jan 11, Adolf Hitler ordered
forces to be prepared to enter North Africa to assist the Italian
effort, marking the establishment of the Afrika Korps.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1941 Jan 11, Emanuel Lasker
(b.1868), German mathematician and chess player, died. In 1927 he
authored “Lasker’s Manual of Chess.”
(WSJ, 3/22/08,
p.W10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Lasker)
1941 Jan 20, Hitler met with
Mussolini and offered aid in Albania and Greece.
(HN, 1/20/99)
1941 Feb 10, Iceland was attacked
by German planes.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1941 Feb 11, Lt-Gen Erwin Rommel
arrived in Tripoli.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1941 Feb 14, German Afrika Korps
landed in Tripoli, Libya.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1941 Feb 19, Nazi police were
attacked and driven away from Koco, Amsterdam by young Jews. Nazis
raided Amsterdam and rounded up 429 young Jews for deportation.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1941 Feb 20, The 1st transport of
Jews to concentration camps left Plotsk, Poland.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1941 Feb 20, Nazis ordered Polish
Jews barred from using public transportation.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1941 Feb 22, IG Farben started
building Buna-Werke in the Auschwitz extermination camp.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1941 Feb 27, Jewish musicians came
together in Berlin and performed Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony. In
2001 Martin Goldsmith authored "The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True
Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany."
(SSFC, 4/8/01, BR p.5)
1941 Mar 1, Bulgaria joined the
Axis as the Nazis occupy Sofia.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(HN, 3/1/98)
1941 Mar 1, Himmler inspected the
Auschwitz concentration camp.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1941 Mar 3, Netherlands NSB-leader
Mussert visited Göring in Berlin.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1941 Mar 4, Serbian Prince Paul
visited Hitler.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1941 Mar 7, Gunther Prien, German
U-boat commander and war hero (U-47), died in battle.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1941 Mar 13, Hitler issued an
edict calling for an invasion of the USSR
(HN, 3/13/98)
1941 Mar 20, Nazi German-Yugoslav
pact was drawn.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1941 Mar 24, German troops
occupied El Agheila, Libya.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1941 Mar 27, Hitler signed
Directive 27 for an assault on Yugoslavia.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1941 Mar 30, The U.S. seized
Italian, German and Danish ships in 16 ports.
(HN, 3/30/98)
1941 Mar 30, The German Afrika
Korps under General Erwin Rommel began its first offensive against
British forces in Libya.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1941 Mar 31, Germany began a
counter offensive in North Africa.
(HN, 3/31/98)
1941 Apr 1, Nazi's forbade Jews
access to cafes in Paris.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1941 Apr 3, Churchill warned
Stalin of German invasion.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1941 Apr 5, German commandos
secured docks along the Danube River in preparation for Germany's
invasion of the Balkans.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1941 Apr 6, German Foreign
Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop gave orders for the attack on
Yugoslavia to roll forward. Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to bomb
Belgrade prior to the final drive into the capital. From August 6 to
10, more than 500 bombing sorties were flown against Belgrade,
inflicting more than 17,500 fatalities. Most of the government
officials fled, and the Yugoslav army began to collapse. German
Luftwaffe Marshall Alexander Lohr commanded a surprise air attack on
Belgrade and 17,000 died. Lohr was later tried and executed for the
bombings.
(www.thehistorynet.com/wwii/blbelgradebybluff/)(SFC,
4/8/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/20/99, p.A21)
1941 Apr 6, German troops invaded
Yugoslavia and Greece. Italian and Albanian forces attacked and jointly
occupied Yugoslavia. Germany, with support of Italy and other allies
defeated Greece and Yugoslavia.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A20)(www,
Albania, 1998)
1941 Apr 9, In Czestochowa,
Poland, a ghetto for Jews was created. By the end of WW II some 45,000
of Czestochowa's Jews were murdered by the Germans, almost the entire
Jewish community living there.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cz%C4%99stochowa)
1941 Apr 11, Germany bombers
blitzed Coventry, England.
(HN, 4/11/98)
1941 Apr 11, The Jewish Weekly
newspaper was taken control by Nazis.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1941 Apr 12, Alain Le Ray
(1910-2006), a leader in the French Resistance, become the first to
escape from the infamous Colditz prison in Germany. Le Ray had been
captured in June 1940. The Nazis had touted the jail as escape proof,
and his exploits were recounted in the 1976 book "Premiere a Colditz"
("First in Colditz").
(AP,
6/8/07)(www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/naziprison/cold_01.html)
1941 Apr 12, Vichy-France's head
of government Admiral Dalan consulted with Hitler.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1941 Apr 13, There was a heavy
German assault on Tobruk.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1941 Apr 14, The 1st massive
German raid in Paris rounded up 3,600 Jews.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1941 Apr 17, Yugoslavia
surrendered to Germany ending 11 days of futile resistance against the
invading German Wehrmacht. More than 300,000 Yugoslav officers and
soldiers were taken prisoner. Italian and Albanian forces attacked and
jointly occupied Yugoslavia.
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A20)(AP, 4/17/97)(MC, 4/17/02)
1941 Apr 19, B. Brecht's 1939 play
"Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and her Children),"
premiered in Zurich.
(www.theatre.ubc.ca/mother_courage/subject.shtml)
1941 Apr 20, 100 German bombers
attacked Athens.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1941 Apr 21, Greece surrendered to
Nazi Germany.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1941 Apr 27, The Greek army
capitulated to the Germans. Greece and the Greek islands were secured
by Hitler.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A23)(HN, 4/27/98)
1941 May 1, A German assault took
place on Tobruk.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1941 May 2, Martin Bormann
succeeded Rudolf Hess as Hitler's deputy.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1941 May 3, There was a German air
raid on Liverpool.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1941 May 3, Pierre Seel (17) was
arrested in Alsace-Lorraine by the German Gestapo and tortured for 10
days for his homosexuality. In 1994 he authored the memoir “I, Pierre
Seel, Deported Homosexual.”
(SFC, 12/2/05, p.B5)
1941 May 9, The German submarine
U-110 was captured at sea by the Royal Navy, revealing considerable
Enigma material. Enigma was the German machine used to encrypt messages
during World War II.
(HN, 5/9/99)(HNQ, 8/30/00)
1941 May 10, Rudolf Hess (d.93), a
deputy of Adolf Hitler, parachuted into Scotland to see the Duke of
Hamilton on what he claimed was a peace mission. Hess ended up serving
a life sentence at Spandau prison until 1987, when he apparently
committed suicide.
(AP, 5/10/97)(ON, 4/02, p.7)
1941 May 11, The 1st Messerschmidt
109F was shot down above England.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1941 May 13, Martin Bormann was
named head of Nazi Party Chancellery in Germany.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1941 May 15, All preparations for
the German attack against Russia in Operation Barbarossa were to be
finalized.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A23)
1941 May 15, Nazi occupiers in
Netherlands forbade Jewish music.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1941 May 16, The last great German
air attack on Great Britain was at Birmingham.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1941 May 19, German occupiers in
Holland forbade bicycle taxis.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1941 May 19, The new 823.5-foot
Nazi battleship Bismarck left Gdynia, Poland, under the command of
Commander Gunther Lutjens.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck)(ON, 10/09,
p.1)
1941 May 20, Germany invaded Crete
by air.
(HN, 5/20/98)
1941 May 24, The German battleship
Bismarck sank the British dreadnought HMS Hood in the North Atlantic.
1416 died with only three survivors.
(AP, 5/24/97)(HN, 5/24/99)(ON, 10/09, p.2)
1941 May 26, Ark Royal airplane
sighted the German battleship Bismarck.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1941 May 26, German occupiers
began youth labor.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1941 May 27, The German battleship
Bismarck was sunk off France by British naval and air forces with a
loss of more than 2,100 lives. British ships rescued 4 officers and 106
of the crew. A German fishing vessel was reported to have rescued
another 100 men.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck)(AP,
5/27/07)(ON, 10/09, p.5)
1941 Jun 1, Germany banned all
Catholic publications.
(DTnet 6/1/97)
1941 Jun 1, The German Army
completed the capture of Crete as the Allied evacuation ended.
(HN, 6/1/99)
1941 Jun 3, German occupiers
stamped "J" on Jewish passports.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1941 Jun 4, Wilhelm II von
Hohenzollern, emperor (Germany, 1888-1918), died.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1941 Jun 18, Turkey signed a peace
treaty with Nazi Germany.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1941 Jun 22, German troops invaded
Russia and thereby violated the 1939 Russo-German non-aggression pact.
Under the codename Barbarossa, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the
largest invasion of another country in history. In 2005 Constantine
Pleshakov authored “Stalin’s Folly,” and David E. Murphy authored ”What
Stalin Knew.” Both provide accounts of the invasion and Stalin’s
refusal to acknowledge warning signs.
(AP, 6/22/97)(HN, 6/22/98)(WSJ, 6/22/05, p.D12)
1941 Jun 24, The entire Jewish
male population of Gorzhdy, Lithuania, was exterminated.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1941 Jun 24, Germans advanced into
Russia and took Vilnius, Brest-Litovsk and Kaunas.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1941 Jun 25, Germans invaded
Dubno, Poland, and encouraged the Ukrainians to do whatever they want
to 12,000 Jews living there.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1941 Jun 28, German and Romanian
soldiers killed 11,000 Jews in Kishinev.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1941 Jun 28, German troops
occupied Galicia, Poland.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1941 Jun 29, Nazi divisions in a
surprise assault made sweeping advances toward Leningrad, Moscow, and
Kiev. Joseph Stalin had ignored warnings that Hitler would betray the
1939 Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Over 500,000 square miles of
Russian territory were taken in the first two months of the invasion.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1941 Jul 5, German troops reached
the Dnieper River in the Soviet Union.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1941 Jul 6, German planes attacked
the SS Devon off the east coast of England. Reginald Earnshaw (14) died
in the attack after serving for several months. In 2010 he was hailed
as the youngest known British service casualty in World War II.
(AP, 2/5/10)
1941 Jul 7, Nazis executed 5,000
Jews in Kovno, Lithuania.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1941 Jul 8, Twenty B-17s flew in
their first mission with the Royal Air Force over Wilhelmshaven,
Germany.
(HN, 7/8/98)
1941 Jul 12, Moscow was bombed by
the German Luftwaffe for the first time.
(HN, 7/12/98)
1941 Jul 18, SS troops drowned 40
Jews in Dvina River in Belorussia.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1941 Jul 21, Himmler ordered the
building of the Majdanek concentration camp. The camp was built in
eastern Poland as a principal site to exterminate Jews. It contained 7
gas chambers.
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A14)(MC, 7/21/02)
1941 Jul 24, Nazis massacred the
entire Jewish population of Grodz, Lithuania.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1941 Jul 27, The German army
entered Ukraine.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1941 Jul, The 16,000 sq. mile area
of the Ukraine named Transnistria was granted by Hitler to the Romanian
dictator Ion Antonescu for Romania’s participation in the war against
the soviet Union. Jews from Bessarabia, Bukovina and were Moldova were
transferred here and many thousands were murdered from 1941-1944 by the
Romanian Gendarmeric, the Einsatrzgruppe D, Ukrainian police and
Sonderkommando R.
(WSJ, 7/30/97, p.A15)
1941 Aug 1, Luftwaffe bombed the
German 23rd division.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1941 Aug 2, German 11th Army
surrounded 20 Russian divisions at Uman.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1941 Aug 5, The German army
completed taking 410,000 Russian prisoners in Uman and Smolensk pockets
in the Soviet Union.
(HN, 8/5/98)
1941 Aug 11, Soviet bombers raided
Berlin but caused little damage.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1941 Aug 12, French Marshal Henri
Philippe Petain announced full French collaboration with Nazi Germany.
(HN, 8/12/98)
1941 Aug 14, Josef Jakobs, German
spy, was executed in Tower of London.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1941 Aug 20, Adolf Hitler
authorized the development of the V-2 missile.
(HN, 8/20/98)
1941 Aug 21-Sep 26, The Soviet
Union's greatest defeat in WWII occurred during the encirclement of the
Ukrainian city of Kiev. The Germans took some 665,000 Soviet prisoners.
(HNQ, 8/12/98)
1941 Aug 22, Nazi troops reached
Leningrad.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1941 Aug 25, German troops
conquered Novgorod, Leningrad.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1941 Aug 28, The German U-boat
U-570 was captured by the British and renamed Graph.
(HN, 8/28/98)
1941 Aug 29, The German
Einsatzkommando in Russia killed 1,469 Jewish children.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1941 Aug 30, The World War II
siege of Leningrad began as Nazi forces took Mga.
(AP, 8/30/97)
1941 Aug, In Germany public
protests curtailed the Nazi euthanasia program that had already gassed
some 70,000 mentally handicapped German adults and children.
(WSJ, 3/23/04, p.D8)
1941 Aug, 23 German U-boats were
sunk this month (80,000 ton).
(MC, 8/31/01)
1941 Sep 1, Jews living in Germany
were required to wear a yellow Star of David. [see Oct 24, 1939]
(MC, 9/1/02)
1941 Sep 3, Nazis made the 1st use
of Zyclon-B gas in Auschwitz on Russian prisoners of war.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1941 Sep 4, German submarine U-652
fired at the U.S. destroyer Greer off Iceland, beginning an undeclared
shooting war.
(HN, 9/4/98)
1941 Sep 6, Jews over the age of 6
in German-occupied areas were ordered to wear yellow Stars of David.
(AP, 9/6/97)(HN, 9/6/98)
1941 Sep 8, The German Blockade of
Leningrad (St Petersburg) began.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1941 Sep 12, The US ship Busko
captured the 1st German ship in WW II.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1941 Sep 15, Nazis killed 800
Jewish women at Shkudvil, Lithuania.
(MC, 9/15/01)
1941 Sep 19, German army conquered
Kiev.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1941 Sep 19, The Nazi's forced all
German Jews from the age of 6 to wear the Star of David.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1941 Sep 21, The German Army cut
off the Crimean Peninsula from the rest of the Soviet Union.
(HN, 9/21/98)
1941 Sep 23, Germans staged an air
raid on the Russian naval base at Kronstadt. The battleship Marat sank.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1941 Sep 24, There was a bomb
explosion in German headquarters in Hotel Continental in Kiev.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1941 Sep 26, In Ukraine some
33,761 Jews of Kiev were killed over 3 days before Yom Kippur in the
ravine at Babi Yar by the Nazis. Over the next 2 years some 100-200
thousand more people, mostly Jews, were killed at the site.
(SFC, 10/29/96, p.A6)(SFC, 6/25/01, p.A8)(SFC,
6/26/01, p.A8)(MC, 9/26/01)
1941 Sep 29, 30,000 Jews were
gunned down in Kiev when Henrich Himmler sent four strike squads to
exterminate Soviet Jewish civilians and other "undesirables."
(HN, 9/29/00)
1941 Sep 30, 3,721 Jews were
buried, some still alive, at Babi Yar ravine (near Kiev) Ukraine. [See
Sep 26,29]
(MC, 9/30/01)
1941 Sep, 53 U-boats sunk this
month.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1941 Oct 2, Operation Typhoon, a
German all-out drive against Moscow, began in earnest. In 2006 Rodric
Braithwaite authored “Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War.”
(AP,
10/2/97)(http://www.bartcop.com/arc4110.htm)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.95)
1941 Oct 2, 6 Paris synagogues
were bombed by Gestapo. [see Oct 3]
(MC, 10/2/01)
1941 Oct 3, Adolf Hitler declared
in a speech in Berlin that Russia is "broken" and would "never rise
again."
(AP, 10/3/97)
1941 Oct 3, Nazi's blew up 6
synagogues in Paris. [see Oct 2]
(MC, 10/3/01)
1941 Oct 3, All elderly Jewish men
of Kerenchug Ukraine, were killed by SS.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1941 Oct 6, German troops renewed
their offensive against Moscow.
(HN, 10/6/98)
1941 Oct 8, Construction began on
the Birkenau extermination camp.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1941 Oct 10, German U-boat
torpedoes hit the US destroyer Kearney.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1941 Oct 10, Soviet troops halted
the German advance on Moscow.
(HN, 10/10/98)
1941 Oct 12, Russian government
moved from Moscow to Volga as Nazis closed in on Moscow.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1941 Oct 13, Nazis killed 11,000
Jewish children and old people.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1941 Oct 15, The 1st mass
deportation of German Jews to Eastern Europe.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1941 Oct 16, Germany advanced
within 60 miles of Moscow.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1941 Oct 17, The U.S. destroyer
Kearney was damaged by a German U-boat torpedo off Iceland; 11 people
were killed.
(AP, 10/17/08)
1941 Oct 20, Nazi occupiers
murdered 500 inhabitants of Kragujevac, Serbia.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1941 Oct 24, Adolph Hitler met
with Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, and Reinhard Heydrich, the man
in charge of the forthcoming genocide program, and pronounced: "It’s
not a bad idea, by the way, that public rumor attributes to us a plan
to exterminate the Jews."
(WSJ, 4/12/00, p.A26)
1941 Oct 25, Germany attacked
Moscow.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1941 Oct 31, The US Navy destroyer
"Reuben James" was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Iceland, killing
115, even though the United States had not yet entered World War II.
(www.archives.gov/exhibits/a_people_at_war/prelude_to_war/uss_reuben_james.html)
1941 Oct 31, 13 U boats were sunk
this month (62,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1941 Oct-1941 Nov, Nazi doctor
Aribert Heim, dubbed "Dr. Death," worked at the Mauthausen
concentration camp near Linz, Austria, as camp doctor. Heim fled
Germany in 1962.
(AP, 8/24/08)
1941 Nov 2, German troops occupied
Rostov.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1941 Nov
6, Einsatz death groups killed some 18 thousand Jews
of Rovno, Ukraine. “Einsatzgruppen” were special soldiers who followed
the fighting forces and “cleaned up” the area.
(www.members.tripod.com/~ebionite/zikkar.htm#nov)
1941 Nov 7,
British air attacks hit Berlin, Mannheim and Ruhrgebied.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1941 Nov 12, Germany's drive to
take Moscow halted.
(MC, 11/12/01)
1941 Nov 13, A German U-boat, the
U-81 torpedoed Great Britain's premier aircraft carrier, the HMS Ark
Royal. The ship sank the next day.
(HN, 11/13/99)
1941 Nov 15, The German final
attack on Moscow began. They advanced to within 25 miles of the center
of Moscow.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A23)
1941 Nov 17, German Luftwaffe
general and World War I fighter-ace Ernst Udet committed suicide. The
Nazi government told the public that he died in a flying accident.
(HN, 11/17/00)
1941 Nov 19, The ship HMAS Sydney
was sunk off the west coast of Australia in a battle with the German
raider Kormoran, with the loss of all 645 on board. The Kormoran also
sank, but 318 of the German vessel's crew of 397 were rescued. The
9,500 ton Kormoran had been disguised as a Dutch merchant ship when it
opened fire on the Sydney. The government banned all media from
reporting the news for 12 days as it scrambled to explain what
happened. In March, 2008, the wrecks of the Kormoran and the Sydney
were found. In 2009 a military inquiry said Navy Capt. Joseph Burnett
made "errors of judgment" in the tragedy.
(AFP, 8/10/07)(AP, 3/16/08)(Reuters, 4/8/08)(AP,
11/19/08)(AP, 8/12/09)
1941 Nov 22, British cruiser
Devonshire sank the German sub Atlantis.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1941 Nov 23, German troops
conquered Klin, NW of Moscow.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1941 Nov 24, "Life Certificates"
were issued to some Jews of Vilna. The rest were exterminated.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1941 Nov 24, Indian infantry
attacked German tanks at Sidi Omar.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1941 Nov 27, USSR began a counter
offensive, causing Germans to retreat.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1941 Nov 28, German troops vacated
Rostov.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1941 Nov, Some 4,000 who remained
in Gomel, Belarus, were shot by the Nazis. Most of the 40,000 who had
lived there had managed to escape before the Nazis arrived.
(AP, 4/12/08)
1941 Nov, Nazis in the Ukraine set
up a concentration camp near the village of Gvozdavka-1, near Odessa,
and killed about 5,000 Jews. Their mass grave was found in 2007.
(AP, 6/5/07)
1941 Dec 3, Hitler viewed Poltava,
Ukraine.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1941 Dec 4, Nazi ordinances placed
the Jews of Poland outside protection of courts.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1941 Dec 4, Operation Taifun
(Typhoon), which was launched by the German armies on October 2, 1941
as a prelude to taking Moscow, was halted because of freezing
temperatures and lack of serviceable aircraft. Temperatures near Moscow
fell to 40 degrees below zero the breech-blocks of German rifles froze
solid. The engines of their vehicles would not start. The Soviets began
a counter-attack with 17 armies and their T-34 tanks that included 25
Siberian divisions and the Nazis were forced to retreat in panic.
(SFC,10/29/97, p.A23)(HN, 12/4/98)
1941 Dec 5, Russian offensive in
Moscow drove out the Nazi army.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1941 Dec 7, The 8 month German
siege of Tobruk ended.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1941 Dec 8, The Nazi Chelmno
extermination camp opened in Poland.
(WUD, 1994 p.252)(MC, 12/8/01)
1941 Dec 8, Russians took
Krijukovo back from Germany.
(d.com, 12/8/02)
1941 Dec 9, Hitler ordered US
ships torpedoed.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1941 Dec 9, China declared war on
Japan, Germany and Italy.
(AP, 12/9/97)
1941 Dec 11, The US declared war
on Germany and Italy. Germany and Italy declared war on the United
States; the U.S. responded in kind.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(TL, 1988, p.112)(AP, 12/11/97)
1941 Dec 12, German occupying army
searched house to house in Paris looking for Jews.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1941 Dec 13, U-81 torpedoed the
British aircraft carrier Ark Royal.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1941 Dec 14, German Field Marshal
Wilhelm Keitel ordered the construction of defensive positions along
the European coastline.
(HN, 12/14/99)
1941 Dec 17, German troops led by
Rommel began to retreat in North Africa.
(MC, 12/17/01)
1941 Dec 18, German submarine
U-434 sank.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1941 Dec 19, Hitler took complete
command of German Army.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1941 Sigmar Polke, artist, was
born.
(WSJ, 4/7/99, p.A20)
1941 Luise Rinser (d.2002)
authored "The Glass Rings." Nazis blocked a 2nd edition and arrested
her in 1944 for high treason. In 1946 she published "A Woman’s Prison
Journal."
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.A20)
1941 Pelham Graham (PG) Wodehouse
(1881-1975), English-US writer, made 5 radio broadcasts from Nazi
Germany. This kept him out of England for the last 34 years of his life.
(Econ, 11/20/04, p.87)
1941 Germany invaded Yugoslavia
and Ante Pavelic led a pro-Nazi dictatorship that controlled
newly-independent Croatia. Alojzije Stepinac, archbishop of Zagreb,
initially embraced the Pavelic government.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.A22)
1941 The amber room in St.
Petersburg was dismantled by German officers and shipped to Konigsburg
for safekeeping. The Allied bombing in 1945 was thought to have
destroyed the work.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A16)
1941 Nazi documents from this year
showed that the Einsatzgruppe, a Nazi-run Serbian police unit, executed
11,164 people, mostly Serbian Jewish men, suspected communists and
Gypsies. The unit was allegedly run by Peter Egner, who emigrated to
the US in 1960, and received citizenship in 1966. In 2009 Serbian
authorities sought his extradition. In 2010 Serbia issued an
international warrant for the arrest of Egner (88), who has denied the
accusations.
(AP, 4/14/09)(AP, 4/2/10)
1941-1945 In Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, the
German SS ran Jewish ghetto as a holding station for Jews on their way
to death camps.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A11)
1941-1945 Sweden maintained neutrality during the war
but allowed German troops to cross its territory to invade the Soviet
Union. It also allowed 250,000 German troops to use the railroad system
to travel between occupied Norway and Germany. The Swedish navy
provided escort service for German military supply ships and Swedish
industry helped make up for German losses in their ball-bearing
industry due to Allied bombing raids.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.A13)
1940-1945 Turkey supplied Germany and the Allies with
chromite ore, an essential metal for stainless steel.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.A13)
1942 Jan 5, 55 German tanks
reached North-Africa.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1942 Jan 20, Top Nazis met at
Grossen-Wannsee, outside Berlin, and there formulated the infamous
"Final Solution" to the Jewish question. Chaired by SS General Reinhard
Heydrich, the one-day conference was designed to address the Nazi
efforts at removing the Jews. The 15 top-ranking men of the German
Reich agreed upon a blueprint for the extermination of Europe’s Jews.
Their "final solution" called for exterminating Europe's Jews. Until
this time, the plan had been to deport all Jews to the island of
Madagascar off Africa, but by 1942 this plan was rejected in favor of
transporting Jews to the east where the able-bodied would become slave
laborers for the Reich. SS chief Heinrich Himmler would be in charge.
Those unfit to work would be, the conference minutes noted,
"appropriately dealt with." This phrase was left unexplained, but there
was no doubt of its sinister meaning. After approving genocide as Nazi
policy, the conference attendees adjourned for lunch. The minutes were
taken by Adolf Eichmann. In 2004 Christopher R. Browning authored "The
Origins of the Final Solution."
(AP, 1/20/98)(WSJ, 4/28/97, p.A17)(HNPD,
1/20/99)(MC, 1/20/02)(WSJ, 3/23/04, p.D8)
1942 Jan 21, In North Africa,
German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel launched a drive to push the British
eastward.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1942 Jan 29, German and Italian
troops took Benghazi in North Africa.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1942 Jan, The high Nazi
bureaucracy received word of the decision to exterminate all Jews at
the Wannsee Villa Conference.
(WSJ, 12/31/96, p.5)
1942 Feb 11, The German
battleships Gneisenau, Scharnhorst and Prinz Eugen began their famed
channel dash from the French port of Brest. Their journey took them
through the English Channel on their way back to Germany.
(HN, 2/11/99)
1942 Feb 12, 3 German battle
cruisers escaped via Channel to Brest, N. Germany.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1942 Feb 13, Hitler's invasion of
England was cancelled.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1942 Feb 16, German submarines
attacked an Aruba oil refinery and sank the tanker Pedernales.
(MC, 2/16/02)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.C11)
1942 Feb 24, The Voice of America
went on the air for the first time with broadcasts in German. The US
State Dept. made William Winter (d.1999) its first Voice of America
three months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
(AP, 2/24/98)(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A23)(MC, 2/24/02)
1942 Feb 26, German battle cruiser
Gneisenau was deactivated by bomb.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1942 Feb 26, Werner Heisenberg
informed Nazis about uranium project "Wunderwaffen."
(SC, 2/26/02)
1942 Feb 27, British Commandos
raided a German radar station at Bruneval on the French coast. The
warrior spies of the Abwehr, Germany's intelligence agency, were the
Brandenburg commandos.
(HN, 2/27/98)
1942 Feb 27, The 1st transport of
French Jews left to Nazi Germany.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1942 Feb 28, The German submarine
U-578 torpedoed and sank the US destroyer Jacob Jones off the New
Jersey coast. Only 11 of some 102 crew members survived.
(SFC, 1/15/05,
p.B8)(http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/2174.html)
1942 Feb, The first transport of
Jews arrived at Auschwitz, Poland, and the adjoining Birkenau camp. Dr.
Josef Mengele (d.1979), the "angel of death," worked at Auschwitz and
fled secretly to Sao Paolo, Brazil, after the war. Rudolf Hoess was the
last commander of Auschwitz and kept a diary that was used in the 1961
trial of Adolf Eichmann.
(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, A-10)(SFC, 4/8/97,
p.A10)(WSJ, 4/28/97, p.A17)
1942 Mar 17, The Nazis began
deporting Jews to the Belsen camp.
(HN, 3/17/98)
1942 Mar 17, Belzec Concentration
Camp opened. 30,000 Lublin Polish Jews were transported.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1942 Mar 20-22, There was a major
German assault on Malta.
(MC, 3/20/02)(MC, 3/21/02)(MC, 3/22/02)
1942 Mar 25-26, The 1st 700 Jews
from Polish Lvov-district reached concentration camp Belzec. The
Germans began sending Jews to Auschwitz in Poland.
(HN, 3/25/98)(MC, 3/25/02)(SS, 3/26/02)
1942 Mar 26, A German offensive
took place in North-Africa under Colonel-General Rommel.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1942 Mar 27-28, Allies raided the
Nazi submarine base at St. Nazaire, France.
(HN, 3/27/98)(MC, 3/27/02)
1942 Mar 28, British naval forces
continued the raid on the Nazi-occupied French port of St. Nazaire.
British Bomber Command launched an attack on the German city of Lubeck
with 234 RAF bombers.
(AP, 3/28/97)(HN, 3/28/98)(MC, 3/28/02)
1942 Mar 28, A British ship, the
HMS Capbeltown, a Lend-Lease American destroyer, which was specifically
rammed into a German occupied dry-dock in France, exploded, knocking
the area out of action for the German battleship Tirpitz.
(HN, 3/28/00)
1942 Mar 29, German submarine
U-585 sank.
(MC, 3/29/02)
1942 Mar 30, SS murdered 200
inmates of Trawniki labor camp.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1942 Apr 7, There was a heavy
German assault on Malta.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1942 Apr 14, Destroyer Roper sank
German U-85 of US east coast.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1942 Apr 20, Heavy German assault
on Malta.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1942 Apr 20, The battle for Moscow
ended. It officially lasted from September 30, 1941, to April 20, 1942,
but in reality spanned more than those 203 days of unremitting mass
murder, and marked the first time that Hitler's armies failed to
triumph with their Blitzkrieg tactics. In 2007 Andrew Nagorski authored
“The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for
Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II.”
(WSJ, 1/11/08, p.W6)
1942 Apr 23, A 4-day allied
bombing of Rostock began.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1942 Apr 23, Luftwaffe bombed
Exeter.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1942 Apr 24, Luftwaffe bombed
Exeter.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1942 Apr 26, Luftwaffe bombed Bath.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1942 Apr, A stenographic record of
Hitler’s conferences with his generals from this time until Apr, 1945,
was published in 2003 as: "Hitler and His Generals." It was edited by
Helmut Heiber and David M. Glantz."
(WSJ, 2/5/03, p.D10)
1942 Apr, In Germany the Gestapo
closed the Grosse Hamburgerstrasse School, the last Jewish school
operating in Berlin. A film was made in 1996 of surviving pupils
reuniting at the site.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A16)
1942 May 3, The Luftwaffe bombed
Exeter.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1942 May 3, Nazis executed 72 in
reprisal in Sachsenhausen, Netherlands. Johan H. Westerveld, lt.-Col,
leader Order Service, was among the executed.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1942 May 7, A Nazi decree ordered
all Jewish pregnant women of Kovno Ghetto executed.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1942 May 8, German summer
offensive opened in Crimea.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1942 May 12, A Nazi U-boat sank an
American cargo ship at mouth of Mississippi River.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1942 May 12, The Soviet Army
launched its first major offensive of the war and took Kharkov in the
eastern Ukraine from the German army.
(HN, 5/12/99)
1942 May 17, Dutch SS vowed
loyalty to Hitler.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1942 May 26, Tank battle at Bir
Hakeim: African corps vs. British army.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1942 May 27, German General Erwin
Rommel began a major offensive in Libya with his Afrika Korps.
(HN, 5/27/99)
1942 May 27, Nazi overlord and SS
general Reinhard Heydrich was killed in Prague by Czech commandos, who
had parachuted into Czechoslovakia and ambushed his car. Hitler
promptly ordered the deaths of 10,000 residents of Lidice, near Prague.
Heydrich died of his wounds a week later. The commandos had been
sheltered in Lidice and as a result the entire population was either
executed or driven out. This has become a hallmark of Nazi brutality.
Heydrich was the man charged with "The Final Solution of the Jewish
Problem." Heydrich was responsible for the development of an espionage
system outside Germany. As an SS general he was the first administrator
of the concentration camps and the program to eliminate Jews from
Europe.
(HNQ, 10/20/99)(MC, 5/27/02)
1942 May 28, Jean F. van Royen,
German secretary PTT (camp Amersfoort), died.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1942 May 29, The German Army
completed its encirclement of the Kharkov region of the Soviet Union.
The Red Army had lost over 250,000 men including many prisoners.
(HN, 5/29/99)
1942 May 30, The Royal Air
Force launched the first 1,000 plane raid over Germany. 1,047 RAF
bombers bombed Cologne.
(HN, 5/30/98)(MC, 5/30/02)
1942 May 30, Reichsfuhrer Heinrich
Himmler arrived in Prague.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1942 May 31, Luftwaffe bombed
Canterbury.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1942 Jun 9, German-Neth press
reported that 3 million Dutch were sent to East-Europe.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1942 Jun 10, German Gestapo
massacred 173 male residents of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, in retaliation
for the killing of SS Gen Reinhard Heydrich. All together, 340 people
died in the Nazi reprisal (192 men, 60 women and 88 children). The
death toll resulting from the effort to avenge the death of Heydrich is
estimated at 1,300. This count includes relatives of the partisans,
their supporters, Czech elites suspected of disloyalty and random
victims like those from Lidice.
(AP, 6/10/97)(HN,
6/10/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice)
1942 Jun 13, 1st V-2 rocket launch
from Peenemunde, Germany, reached 1.3 km.
(MC, 6/13/02)
1942 Jun 20, Adolf Eichmann
proclaimed the deportation of Dutch Jews.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1942 Jun 21, German General Erwin
Rommel captured the port city of Tobruk in North Africa.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1942 Jun 24, The German Africa
Corps occupied Egypt.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1942 Jun 25, Some 1,000 British
Royal Air Force bombers raided Bremen, Germany, during World War II.
(AP, 6/25/97)
1942 Jun 28, German troops
launched “Operation Blue,” an offensive to seize Soviet oil fields in
the Caucasus and the city of Stalingrad.
(HN, 6/28/98)(WSJ, 1/14/07, p.P8)
1942 Jun 30, Col-gen Von Paulus'
6th Army stormed into the Ukraine.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1942 Jun, By this month 100,000
people of the Nazi imposed Warsaw ghetto had died due to disease or
starvation.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A7)
1942 Jul 1, German troops captured
Sevastopol, Crimea, in the Soviet Union.
(HN, 7/1/98)
1942 Jul 4, 1st American bombing
mission over enemy-occupied Europe (WW II). US air offensive against
nazi-Germany began.
(Maggio)
1942 Jul 10, Himmler ordered the
sterilization of all Jewish woman in Ravensbruck Camp.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1942 Jul 13, 5,000 Jews of Rovno,
Polish Ukraine, were executed by Nazis.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1942 Jul 13, SS shot 1,500 Jews in
Josefov, Poland.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1942 Jul 18, The German
Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe, the first jet-propelled aircraft to fly
in combat, made its first flight. Walter Nowotny was a rising your star
in the Luftwaffe, chosen by Hitler to be the point man to lead the new
jet fighter under the tutelage of General of Fighters Adolf Galland who
was assigned to prove the airplane in battle. The Axis hopes were
dashed when Nowotny was attacked by American pilots during landing and
crashed. Col. Edward R. "Buddy" Haydon was one of those American pilots.
(www.fighter-planes.com/info/me262.htm)(HNQ, 9/2/02)
1942 Jul 19, German U-boats were
withdrawn from positions off the U.S. Atlantic coast due to effective
American anti-submarine countermeasures.
(HN, 7/19/98)
1942 Jul
22, Nazi’s began their transport of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the
death at Treblinka.
(www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/TreblinkaEng.html)
1942 Jul 23, A 2nd Treblinka
Camp opened for the extermination of European Jews, as the evacuation
of the Warsaw ghetto began. Nearly 750,000 people died in the gas
chambers of Treblinka.
(www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/TreblinkaEng.html)
1942 Jul 24, The Soviet city of
Rostov was captured by German troops.
(HN, 7/24/98)
1942 Jul 26, RAF bombed Hamburg.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1942 Jul 27, The advance of German
army was halted in the first battle of El Alamein, Egypt.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_El_Alamein)
1942 Jul 30, The US
passenger-freighter Robert E. Lee with 268 passengers was sunk by the
German U-166 submarine. 15 crew members and 10 passengers died. In 2001
wreckage of the U-166 was found in the Gulf of Mexico and it appeared
that it was sunk by Coast Guard PC-566 right after the attack. U-166
had 52 crew members. [see Aug 1, 1942]
(SFC, 6/9/01, p.A5)
1942 Jul 30, German SS
einsatzgruppen death battalions killed 25,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1942 Jul 31, The German SS gassed
some 1,000 Jews in Minsk, Belorussia.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1942 Jul, Hitler made his fateful
decision to split the armies engaged in the offensive and to occupy the
city of Stalingrad with the weaker of the 2 groups.
(WSJ, 1/14/07, p.P8)
1942 Aug 1, Ensign Henry C. White,
while flying a J4F Widgeon plane, sank U-166 as it approaches the
Mississippi River, the first U-boat sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard. In
the summer of 1942, German submarines put saboteurs ashore on American
beaches. [see Jul 30, 1942]
(HN, 8/1/98)(SFC, 6/9/01, p.A5)
1942 Aug 4, The 1st train with
Jews departed Mechelen, Belgium, to Auschwitz.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1942 Aug 6, Goering proclaimed
occupied areas "thoroughly empty to plunder."
(MC, 8/6/02)
1942 Aug 6, The Soviet city of
Voronezh fell to the German army.
(HN, 8/6/98)
1942 Aug 7, Transport 16 departed
with French Jews to Nazi-Germany.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1942 Aug 8, Six convicted Nazi
saboteurs who had landed in the United States were executed in
Washington, D.C. Two others received life imprisonment.
(AP, 8/8/97)
1942 Aug 8, Gerhart Riegner
(d.2001 at 90), World Jewish Congress official in Geneva, cabled the US
vice consul to describe Hitler’s plan to deport an estimated 4 million
Jews to Eastern Europe and to annihilate them.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A19)
1942 Aug 9, Carmelite nun Teresa
Benedicta of the Cross, whose given name was Edith Stein (b.1891), was
executed by the Nazis at Auschwitz for her Jewish heritage. A Roman
Catholic convert from Judaism, Stein was an educator, nun, philosopher
and spiritual writer and is generally regarded as a modern saint and
martyr. Born in Germany on October 12, 1891, she joined the Carmelites
in 1934 and wrote a number of important philosophical and spiritual
works, including "Finite and Eternal Being." With Hitler's 1942 order
for the arrest of all non-Aryan Catholics, Stein was seized and shipped
to the concentration camp at Auschwitz where she died in the gas
chamber with her sister Rosa. A woman of singular intelligence and
learning, she left behind a body of writing notable for its doctrinal
richness and profound spirituality. She was beatified by Pope John Paul
II at Cologne on May 1, 1987. She was made a saint in 1998.
(HNQ, 10/6/98)(SFC, 10/12/98, p.A1)
1942 Aug 11, The German submarine
U-73 attacked a Malta bound British convoy and sank the HMS Eagle, one
of the world's first aircraft carriers.
(HN, 8/10/98)
1942 Aug 19, About 5,000 Canadian
and 2,000 British soldiers launched a disastrous raid against the
Germans at Dieppe, France. Over 3,600 men perished in this
battle. The information gathered from this landing was considered
valuable for planning the successful Allied landings in Northern
Africa, Sicily, and Normandy, France. Brit. Col. Pat Porteous
(d.2000) received a Victoria Cross for his valor in the attack which
was aimed at gaining experience for the later D-Day invasion.
(AP, 8/19/97)(HN, 8/19/98)(SFC, 10/16/00, p.A22)(MC,
8/19/02)
1942 Aug 19, Gen. Paulus ordered
the German 6th Army to conquer Stalingrad.
(MC, 8/19/02)
1942 Aug 23, German forces began
an assault on the major Soviet industrial city of Stalingrad. From Aug.
to Feb. 1943, The Battle of Stalingrad, 600 miles southeast of Moscow,
was fought and ended with the encirclement and destruction of the
German 6th Army Group. Stalingrad has since been renamed to Volgograd.
In 1998 Antony Beevor published "Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege." The
German in charge was Gen’l. Friedrich Paulus. 600 Luftwaffe bombers
killed some 40,000 people in the first week of fighting.
(WSJ, 2/21/96, p.A-15)(WSJ, 7/8/98, p.A13)(HN,
8/23/98)(MC, 8/23/02)
1942 Aug 25, German SS began
transporting Jews of Maastricht, Neth.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1942 Aug 27, Cuba declared war on
Germany, Japan and Italy.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1942 Aug 31, The British army
under General Bernard Law Montgomery defeated Field Marshal Erwin
Rommel's Afrika Korps in the Battle of Alam Halfa in Egypt.
(HN, 8/31/98)
1942 Sep 2, German troops entered
Stalingrad.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1942 Sep 5, British & US
bombed Le Havre & Bremen.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1942 Sep 7, The Red Army pushed
back the German line northwest of Stalingrad. The Krummer Lauf allowed
German infantry and motorized artillery units to actually fire around
corners.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1942 Sep 10, RAF dropped 100,000
bombs on Dusseldorf.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1942 Sep 17, British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill met with Soviet Premier Josef Stalin in
Moscow as the German Army rammed into Stalingrad.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1942 Sep 21, Nazis executed 116
hostages in Paris.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1942 Sep 23, At Auschwitz Nazis
began experimental gassing executions.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1942 Sep 23, The Russian counter
offensive at Stalingrad began.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1942 Sep 27, Heavy German assault
in Stalingrad.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1942 Sep 27, Reinhard Heydrich,
"Butcher of Prague," was appointed SS-general.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1942 Sep 28, Luftwaffe bombed
Stalingrad.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1942 Sep 30, The German SS
exterminated some 3,500 Jews in Zelov Lodz, Poland, in 6 week period.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1942 Sep, 98 U-boats sunk this
month.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1942 Sep, In Theresienstadt,
Czechoslovakia, some 50,000 Jews were held by the German SS in crowded
conditions and half the inmates died that year from disease.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A11)
1942 Oct 1, The German Army ground
to a complete halt within the city of Stalingrad.
(HN, 10/1/98)
1942 Oct 3, In Germany the
rocket-development team of Werner von Braun conducted the 1st
successful test flight of an A-4/V-2 missile from the Peenemünde
test site. It flew perfectly over a 118-mile course to an altitude of
53 miles (85 km). The 13-ton, 46-foot long V2 rocket was the world’s
1st long-range ballistic missile.
(HN, 10/3/98)(AM, 5/01, p.63)(WSJ, 2/21/09, p.A5)
1942 Oct 7, A single salvo
Katyusha rocket destroyed a Nazi battalion in Stalingrad.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1942 Oct 18, Hitler orders allied
commandos to be killed.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1942 Oct 23, During World War II,
Britain launched a major offensive against Axis forces at El Alamein in
Egypt.
(AP, 10/23/97)
1942 Oct 25, Field marshal Erwin
Rommel returned to North-Africa.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1942 Oct 29, Nazis murdered some
16,000 Jews in Pinsk, Soviet Union.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1942 Oct 31, 94 U boats were sunk
this month (619,000 ton).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1942 Oct 31, The 9th day in battle
at El Alamein (Egypt).
(MC, 10/31/01)
1942 Oct, By this month some
300,000 occupants of the Warsaw ghetto had been shipped off to the Nazi
gas chambers at Treblinka, Poland.
(SFC, 7/10/97, p.A7)
1942 Nov 4, The 13th day of battle
at El Alamein: Axis Africa corps retreated from El Alamein in North
Africa in a major victory for British forces commanded by Field Marshal
Bernard Montgomery.
(AP,
11/4/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_El_Alamein)
1942 Nov 5, Nazis raided on Greek
Jews in Paris.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1942 Nov 6, Nazis executed 12,000
Minsk ghetto Jews.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1942 Nov 8, Hitler proclaimed the
fall of Stalingrad from Munich beer hall.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1942 Nov 9, Transport #44 departed
with French Jews to Nazi Germany.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1942 Nov 11, 745 French Jews were
deported to Auschwitz.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1942 Nov 11, Germany completed its
occupation of France.
(AP, 11/11/04)
1942 Nov 19, During World War II,
Russian forces launched their winter offensive against the Germans
along the Don front. Soviet forces took the offensive at Stalingrad
(AP, 11/19/97)(HN, 11/19/98)
1942 Nov 20, Hitler named field
marshal Erich von Manstein to command.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1942 Nov 22, Gen-major Rodin's
26th Panzer corps recaptured Ostrov. Hitler ordered Rommel's Africa
Korps to fight to last man.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1942 Nov 22, Soviet troops
completed the encirclement of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad.
(HN, 11/22/98)
1942 Nov 23, Gen. Von Paulus asked
Hitler's permission to surrender at Stalingrad. The German 4th and 6th
Army were surrounded at Stalingrad.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1942 Nov 24, Field marshal Erich
von Manstein arrived in Starobelsk.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1942 Nov, German troops arrived in
Tunisia. The nation was home to some 100,000 Jews at the time. The
Germans imposed anti-Semitic policies that included fines, forcing Jews
to wear Star of David badges and confiscating property. More than 5,000
Jews were sent to forced labor camps, where 46 are known to have died.
About 160 Tunisian Jews in France were sent to European death camps.
(AP, 1/30/07)
1942 Nov, A Royal Air Force bomber
and 2 gliders, carrying 34 British commandos, crash landed in Norway.
This was part of Operation Freshman, which planned a raid on the
heavy-water plant at Vemork. The survivors were captured by German
soldiers and executed by the Gestapo.
(ON, 4/07, p.2)
1942 Dec 5, Arthur Seyss-Inquart
ordered students in Nazi Germany to work.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1942 Dec 18, Hitler met with
Mussolini and Pierre Laval.
(HN, 12/18/98)
1942 Dec 28, Ober Kommando
Wehrmacht ordered strategic flights out of the Caucasus.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1942 Richard Strauss wrote his
final opera "Capriccio" with a libretto by Clemens Krauss. In the work
a poet and composer declare their love for a countess who will decide
the "words vs. music" debate.
(WSJ, 1/21/98, p.A20)
1942 In Germany artifacts of the
German Baroque were taken from the Green Vault in Dresden to Fortress
Konigstein. In 1958 the Soviets returned the lot to Communist Dresden.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.95)
1942 Nazi documents of this
year showed that the Einsatzgruppe, a Nazi-run Serbian police unit,
killed 6,280 Serbian Jewish women and children who were held as
prisoners. In two months, those women and children allegedly were taken
from a camp and forced into a specially designed van, in which they
were gassed with carbon monoxide. The unit was allegedly run by Peter
Egner, who emigrated to the US in 1960, and received citizenship in
1966 [see 1941]. In 2010 Serbia issued an international warrant for the
arrest of Egner (88), who has denied the accusations.
(AP, 4/14/09)(AP, 4/2/10)
1942 Emil von Stauss (65), chief
of Deutsche Bank, died. He was a friend of Hitler and helped finance
the Nazi war machine. He had acquired a 9% stake in the Wertheim retail
chain in a forced sale.
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.A8)
1942-1944 SS Captain Bruno Melmer was in charge of
valuables stolen from Nazi victims. Gold objects were turned over to
the Reichsbank, which sent it to the Degussa smelting company for
processing into gold bars.
(SFC, 5/26/98, p.A6)
1942-1944 Gen’l. Eduard Dietl (d.1944) led the 20th
mountain army and was later found to be responsible for the slaughter
of hundreds of prisoners in northern Europe.
(SFC, 3/19/97, p.A14)
1942-1945 Victor Klemperer (b.1881), a professor in
Dresden, in 2000 authored part 2 of his diaries that covered this
period: "I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1942-1945."
His first volume went up to 1941 and was published in 1998.
(WSJ, 3/22/00, p.A20)
1943 Jan 9, Soviet planes dropped
leaflets on the surrounded Germans in Stalingrad requesting their
surrender with humane terms. The Germans refused.
(HN, 1/9/99)
1943 Jan 10, Russian offensive
began against German 6th and 4th Armies near Stalingrad.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1943 Jan 11, The Soviet Red Army
encircled Stalingrad.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1943 Jan 18, The Soviets announced
they'd broken the long Nazi siege of Leningrad. It was another year
before the siege was fully lifted.
(AP, 1/18/98)
1943 Jan 18, Jews in Warsaw Ghetto
began an uprising against the Nazis. [see Apr 19, 1943]
(MC, 1/18/02)
1943 Jan 21, A Nazi daylight air
raid killed 34 in a London school.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1943 Jan 24, Hitler ordered Nazi
troops at Stalingrad to fight to death.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1943 Jan 25, The last German
airfield in Stalingrad was captured by the Red Army.
(HN, 1/25/99)
1943 Jan 27, Some 50 bombers
struck Wilhelmshaven and Emden in the first all-American air raid
against Germany during World War II.
(AP, 1/27/98)(HN, 1/27/99)
1943 Jan 30, Field marshal
Friedrich von Paulus surrendered himself and his staff to Red Army
troops in Stalingrad.
(HN, 1/30/99)
1943 Jan 31, The Battle of
Stalingrad ended as small groups of German soldiers of the Sixth Army
under Gen Friedrich von Paulus surrendered to the victorious Red Army
forces.
(HN, 1/31/99)(MC, 1/31/02)
1943 Jan 31, Chile broke contact
with Germany and Japan.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1943 Feb 2, The remainder of Nazi
forces from the Battle of Stalingrad surrendered in a major World War
II victory for the Soviets. 23 generals, 2,000 officers, and at least
130,000 German troops surrendered. This was later considered as the
turning point of WW II.
(AP, 2/2/97)(HN, 2/2/99)(WSJ, 3/28/03, p.A1)
1943 Feb 11, Transport # 47
departed with French Jews to Nazi Germany.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1943 Feb 13, There was a German
assault on Sidi Bou Zid, Tunisia, as Gen. Eisenhower visited the front.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1943 Feb 14, A German offensive
was made through the de Faid pass in Tunisia.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1943 Feb 14, David Hilbert
(b.1862), German mathematician, died. He is considered the father of
modern mathematics.
(Econ, 4/2/05,
p.73)(www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs462/Hall/hilbert.html)
1943 Feb 15, The Germans broke the
U.S. lines at the Fanid-Sened Sector in Tunisia.
(HN, 2/15/98)
1943 Feb 16, Withdrawing Africa
Corps reached the Mareth-line in North Africa.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1943 Feb 16, Sign on Munich
facade: "Out with Hitler! Long live freedom!" was posted by the "White
Rose" student group. They were caught on 2/18 and beheaded on 2/22.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1943 Feb 16, The Red army
conquered Kharkov.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1943 Feb 18, Munich resistance
group "White Rose" was captured by Nazis.
(http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rose.html)
1943 Feb 18, Rommel took three
towns in Tunisia, North Africa. The intercepted communications of an
American in Cairo provided a secret ear for the Desert Fox.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1943 Feb 19, German tanks under
brig. general Buelowius attacked Kasserine Pass, Tunisia.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1943 Feb 20, German troops of the
Afrika Korps broke through the Kasserine Pass, defeating U.S. forces.
(HN, 2/20/99)
1943 Feb 21, German tanks and two
infantry battalions broke the Allied line and took Kasserine Pass in
North Africa.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1943 Feb 22, In Germany Christoph
Probst (22), Hans (24) and Sophie Scholl (21), student members of the
Die Weisse Rose (White Rose) resistance, were executed by the Nazis.
(SFC, 9/7/98,
p.A21)(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rose.html)
1943 Feb 23, German troops pulled
back through the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1943 Feb 26, U.S. Flying
Fortresses and Liberators pounded the Reich docks and U-boat lairs at
Wilhelmshaven.
(HN, 2/26/98)
1943 Feb 26, The German assault
moved to Beja, North Tunisia.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1943 Feb 28, In Operation
Gunnerside Norwegian commandos flown in from Britain bombed the Nazi
heavy water plant near Rjukan. The raid was later depicted in the 1965
film "The Heroes of Telemark." The 9 commandos included Claus Helberg
(d.2003) and Knut Haukelid (d.1994).
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.A27)(ON, 4/07, p.4)
1943 Feb, German women
demonstrated outside a Berlin community center where their Jewish
husbands and children had been rounded up for deportation to Auschwitz.
1,200 men and children were released a week later and survived the war.
It was the only public protest by Germans against Nazi persecution of
the Jews.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.C2)
1943 cFeb, German dictator Adolf
Hitler had a pet German Shepherd named Blondi. The dog was given to
Hitler by Martin Borman in an attempt to cheer up the downcast dictator
after the defeat at Stalingrad. High-ranking Nazi Albert Speer claimed
Blondi meant more to Hitler than any human being.
(HN, 3/29/00)
1943 Mar 1, The British RAF
conducted strategic bombing raids on all European railway lines. From
1939 to 1945, R.A.F. pilots and air crews waged war on Germany from
inside Hitler's Reich.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1943 Mar 2, The center of Berlin
was bombed by the RAF. Some 900 tons of bombs were dropped in a half
hour.
(HN, 3/2/99)
1943 Mar 2, Sea battle in Bismarck
Sea ended with victory for US and Australia.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1943 Mar 2, 1st transport of Jews
from Westerbork, Netherlands, to Sobibor concentration camp.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1943 Mar 5, In desperation due to
war losses, fifteen and sixteen year olds are called up for military
service in the German army.
(HN, 3/5/99)
1943 Mar 5, RAF bombed Essen,
Germany. [see Mar 6]
(MC, 3/5/02)
1943 Mar 6, British RAF fliers
bombed Essen and the Krupp arms works in the Ruhr, Germany.
(HN, 3/6/98)
1943 Mar 6, Battle at Medenine,
North-Africa: Rommel's assault attack.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1943 Mar 8, 335 allied bombers
attacked Nuremberg.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1943 Mar 10, Hitler called Rommel
back from Tunisia in North Africa. The intercepted communications of an
American in Cairo provided a secret ear for the Desert Fox.
(HN, 3/10/98)
1943 Mar 13, There was a failed
assassination attempt on Hitler during the Smolensk-Rastenburg flight.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1943 Mar 13, Germans closed the
Krakow ghetto in Poland.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1943 Mar 17, The German
occupation authority closed Lithuanian schools of higher education and
the Academy of Education.
(LHC, 3/17/03)
1943 Mar 18, The Reich called off
its offensive in Caucasus.
(HN, 3/18/98)
1943 Mar 20, German U-384
was bombed and sank.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1943 Mar 21, An assassination
attempt on Hitler failed.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1943 Mar 22, SS police chief
Rauter threatened to kill half Jewish children.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1943 Mar 23, Germans counter
attacked US lines in Tunisia.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1943 Mar, Britain hatched the
Doctor Project, a secret plan to assassinate German Field Marshall
Rommel. It was never executed.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.C2)
1943 Apr 5, The British 8th Army
attacked the next blocking position of the retreating Axis forces at
Wadi Akarit.
(HN, 4/5/99)
1943 Apr 7, Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini met for an Axis conference in Salzburg.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1943 Apr 7, Lt. Colonel Claus von
Stauffenberg was seriously wounded during allied air raid.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1943 Apr 13, Nazi's discovered a
mass grave of Polish officers near Katyn. [see Apr 13, 1990]
(MC, 4/13/02)
1943 Apr 17, SS lt. General Jurgen
Stoop arrived in Warsaw.
(MC, 4/17/02)
1943 Apr 19, Willy Graf, Kurt
Huber and Alexander Schmorell, German resistance fighters, were
beheaded.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1943 Apr 19, In Warsaw, Poland,
young Jews under Mordechai Anielewicz directed an uprising against the
Nazis. During World War II, tens of thousands of Jews living in the
Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant but futile battle against Nazi forces.
SS-Gen Jurgen Stroop led the destruction of the ghetto of Warsaw: "The
Warsaw Ghetto is no more!" he wrote proudly to Heinrich Himmler and
Adolf Hitler. Stroop was hanged on the site of the Warsaw ghetto after
the war.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.T11)(AP, 4/19/97)(HN, 4/19/97)(MC,
4/19/02)
1943 Mar 20, The Allies attacked
Rommel's forces on the Mareth Line in North Africa.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1943 Apr 22, There was German
counter attack in North Tunisia.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1943 Apr 22, RAF shot down 14
German transport planes over Mediterranean Sea.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1943 Apr 28, German-Italian forces
launched a counter offensive in North-Africa.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1943 Apr 29, Internationally
prominent theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer was arrested by Nazis.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1943 Apr 30, Bergen-Belsen,
located near Hanover, formed as a POW camp.
(HNQ, 4/13/00)(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Dutch struck against
forced labor in Nazi Germany's war industry.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Etty Hillesum, Dutch
diarist, died in Auschwitz.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 May 1, A German plane sank a
boat loaded with Palestinian Jews bound for Malta.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1943 May 1, German forces were
deployed in the following places: Norway (200,000), France (900,000),
Africa (150,000), Balkans (80,000), Finland (180,000), Eastern Europe
(210,000), Caucasus (260,000), Russia (1,900,000).
(WSJ, 5/12/99, p.A23)
1943 May 9, The 5th German Panzer
army surrendered in Tunisia.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1943 May 11, Hermann Goering
division in Tunisia surrendered.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1943 May 12, The Axis forces in
Tunisia and all of North Africa surrendered.
(AP, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)
1943 May 15, Halifax bombers sank
U-463.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1943 May 15, Warsaw ghetto
uprising ended in it's destruction by Nazi-SS troops.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1943 May 16, "Skipping bombs" were
used for the first and only time to breach three massive Ruhr Valley
dams--the Eder, the Mohne and the Sorpe--that supplied water and
hydroelectric power to Germany's vital armament factories. The bombs
were designed to bounce over anti-torpedo nets and explode at the base
of the dams. Despite only two months of training, Royal Air Force Wing
Commander Guy Gibson and his "Dambusters" breached the Eder and the
Mohne dams and damaged the Sorpe. While subsequent flooding in the Ruhr
Valley claimed 1,294 lives, German industrial production was affected
only briefly while the dams were repaired.
(HNPD, 5/15/99)
1943 May 16, German troops
destroyed the synagogue of Warsaw. Jewish resistance in the Warsaw
ghetto ended after 30 days of fighting.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1943 May 19, Berlin was declared
"Judenrien" (cleansed of Jews).
(MC, 5/19/02)
1943 May 23, Thomas Mann began
writing his novel Dr. Faustus.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1943 May 23-24, Some 826 Allied
bombers attacked Dortmund.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1943 Jun 1, A civilian flight
from Lisbon to London was shot down by the Germans during World War II,
killing all those aboard, including actor Leslie Howard.
(DTnet 6/1/97)
1943 Jun 5, German occupiers
arrested Louvain University's chancellor.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1943 Jun 10, The Allies began
bombing Germany around the clock.
(HN, 6/10/98)
1943 Jun 23, RAF discovered and
bombed Werner von Braun's V1/V2-base in Peenemunde.
(MC, 6/23/02)
1943 Jun 24, Royal Air Force
Bombers hammered Muelheim, Germany in a drive to cripple the Ruhr
industrial base.
(HN, 6/24/98)
1943 Jun 29, Germany began
withdrawing U-boats from North Atlantic in anticipation of the Allied
invasion of Europe.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1943 Jul 3, Liberator bombers sank
U-628.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1943 Jul 5, The battle of Kursk,
the largest tank battle in history, began as German tanks attacked the
Soviet salient.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1943 Jul 6, In the 2nd day of
battle at Kursk some 25,000 Germans were killed.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1943 Jul 7, Adolf Hitler made the
V-2 missile program a top priority in armament planning.
(HN, 7/7/98)
1943 Jul 7, In the 3rd day of
battle at Kursk the Germans occupied Dubrova. Erich Hartmann shot 7
Russian aircraft at Kursk.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1943 Jul 8, The 4th day of battle
at Kursk: Gen Model used his last tank reserve.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1943 Jul 11(Jun 11), Heinrich
Himmler ordered the liquidation of Polish ghettos.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1943 Jul 12, Pope Pius XII
received Baron von Weizsacker, the German ambassador.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1943 Jul 12, Russians beat Nazis
in a tank battle at Prochorowka. Some 12,000 died.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1943 Jul 13, Greatest tank battle
in history ended with Russia's defeat of Germany at Kursk. Almost 6,000
tanks took part and 2,900 were lost by Germany.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1943 Jul 18, The U.S. Navy airship
K-74 was shot down by anti-aircraft fire from a German U-boat.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1943 Jul 23, Battle of Kursk,
USSR, ended in Nazi defeat. 6,000 tanks took part.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1943 Jul 24-1943-Aug 2, The RAF
and American planes bombed Hamburg. Firestorms from the bombing left at
least 40,000 dead in the 1st 3 days. American B-17 Fortresses flew 252
daylight sorties in the two days following the first of 4 RAF night
raids. Sir Arthur Harris directed 4 major raids against Hamburg in the
space of ten nights, known as “Operation Gomorrah.”
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWhamburg.htm)
1943 Aug 1, Over 177 B-24
Liberator bombers attacked the German oil fields in Ploesti, Romania,
for a second time. Of 1,762 airmen on the mission, 532 were killed,
captured, interned or listed as missing in action. In 2007 Duane
Schultz authored “Into the Fire: Ploesti” The Most Fateful Mission of
World War II.
(HN, 8/1/98)(WSJ, 11/13/07, p.D5)
1943 Aug 2, The 10-day allied
bombing of Hamburg, Germany, ended.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWhamburg.htm)
1943 Aug 2, In Poland at the Nazi
Treblinka concentration camp some 600 prisoners staged an uprising and
fled into the woods. Only 40 survived. In 1999 Ian MacMillan authored
"Village of a Million Spirits: A Novel of the Treblinka Uprising."
(SFEC, 8/22/99, BR p.5)
1943 Aug 9, Franz Jaegerstaetter,
an avowed conscientious objector, was executed outside Berlin for
treason after his request to be excused from regular army service for
religious reasons was denied. The married father of four was
posthumously exonerated in 1997 by a Berlin court. In 2007 he was
beatified by the Roman Catholic Church.
(AP, 10/27/07)
1943 Aug 10, Hitler watched the
lynching of allied pilots.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1943 Aug 16, Bulgarian czar Boris
III visited Adolf Hitler.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1943 Aug 18, The Royal Air Force
Bomber Command completed the first major strike against the German
missile development facility at Peenemunde.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1943 Aug 18, The Heinkel-111 of
Otto Skorzeny, Waffen SS commander, was shot down at Sardinia.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1943 Aug 18, Hans Jeschonnek,
German air force general, chief-staff, committed suicide.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1943 Sep 10, German troops
occupied Rome and took over the protection of Vatican City.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1943 Sep 12, German paratroopers
took Benito Mussolini from the hotel where he was being held by Italian
resistance forces. Waffen-SS troops under Otto Skorzeny freed Mussolini
at Gran Sasso in the Abruzzi Mountains.
(AP, 9/12/97)(MC, 9/12/01)
1943 Sep 13, Germans counter
attacked at Salerno.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1943 Sep 14, German troops
abandoned the Salerno front in Italy.
(HN, 9/14/98)
1943 Sep 18, Hitler ordered the
deportation of Danish Jews (unsuccessful).
(MC, 9/18/01)
1943 Sep 19, Liberator bombers
sank U-341.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1943 Sep 22, The Destroyer Keppel
sank U-229.
(MC, 9/22/01)
1943 Sep 25, The Red Army retook
Smolensk from the Germans who were retreating to the Dnieper River in
the Soviet Union.
(HN, 9/25/98)
1943 Sep, Pope Pius XII offered
Vatican assets to ransom Jews from the Nazis and in Italy ran an
extensive network of hideouts for escaping Jews.
(WSJ, 4/25/97, p.A18)
1943 Sep, Jeannie Rousseau, code
name Amniarix, collected enough information on V-2 rockets from German
officers in France to send a detailed report to England. Reginald
Jones, chief of Britain's scientific intelligence, included her text in
his book "The Wizard War."
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.A10)
1943 Oct 1, Germans attacked Jews
in Denmark.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1943 Oct 4, German occupiers
forbade the flying of kites. Violation carried a 6 month jail sentence.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1943 Oct 6, Himmler ordered the
acceleration of "Final Solution."
(MC, 10/6/01)
1943 Oct 13, During World War II,
Italy declared war on Germany, its one-time Axis partner.
(AP, 10/13/97)
1943 Oct 14, US 8th Air Force lost
60 B-17 bombers during assault on Schweinfurt.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1943 Oct 14, In Germany Rev. Max
Josef Metzger was sentenced to death for treason by Roland Freisler,
chief judge of the Nazi’s People’s Court. He had written a letter to
the British government that denounced the Nazis and called for a German
state based on Christian democratic and legal principles. He was
exonerated by a Berlin court in 1997
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A10)
1943 Oct 14, Some 300 of 600
prisoners escaped from the Nazi’s Sobibor death camp in Poland. The
event was later documented in the book "Escape from Sobibor" by Richard
Rashke (1982) and the film of the same name with Alan Arkin. Josef
Vallaster, an Austrian guard, was among 11 SS officers and 11
Ukrainians killed in the escape. Most of the escaped prisoners were
killed as they fled. Only 50 prisoners survived the war. Vallaster had
operated the motor that funneled gas into Sobibor’s shower rooms.
(HC, 5/30/98)(SFC, 7/11/03, p.A19)(SSFC, 2/17/08,
p.A8)
1943 Oct 17, British Liberators
sank U-540 and U-631.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1943 Oct 28, The German U-220 sank.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1943 Oct 29, 3 Allied officers
escaped the German camp Stalag Luft 3.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1943 Oct, Germans demolished the
ghetto buildings of Minsk, known as the Yama, or Pit, in an effort to
find Jews in hiding. 2,000 remaining Jews were rounded up and killed.
More than 100,000 Jews were killed there from August 1941.
(AP, 10/21/08)
1943 Nov 3, William Reid (died
2001 at 79), RAF bomber pilot, flew his badly damaged Lancaster bomber
on a bombing mission to a ball-bearing factory in Duesseldorf, Germany,
and managed to return the crippled plane to England.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A25)
1943 Nov 3, SS and police units
shot at least 6,000 Jewish inmates of the Trawniki and Dorohucza Labor
Camps.
(www.ushmm.org/wlc_ie/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007397)
1943 Nov 3-1943 Nov 4, In Poland
the 2-day "Operation Harvest" at the Majdanek concentration camp
executed men, women and children. Nazi officer Alfons Goetzfried later
admitted to having personally shot 500 people. Over 42,000 people,
mostly Jews, were killed in the operation. In 1999 Alfons Goetzfrid
(79) was convicted for assisting in the murders of 17,000 Jews at the
camp. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. During the so-called
"Mission Harvest Festival" massacres tens of thousands of Jews in the
district of Lublin were shot by Nazi officers. Among them were members
of Erich Steidtmann’s Hamburg Polizeibataillon 101 company. In 2010
prosecutors reopened an investigation on Steidtmann’s role in the
massacre.
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A14)(SFC, 5/21/99, p.D2)(AP, 4/22/10)
1943 Nov 9, Bernhard Lichtenberg
(67), German clergyman and antifascist, died.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1943 Nov 16, One hundred and forty
American bombers flew from British bases to Vemork, Norway, to destroy
the Nazi heavy water facility near Rjukan, where production had resumed
despite a commando raid in February. Only 14 of some 700 bombs hit the
plant killing 24 civilians. The bombing did not harm the basement level
where the heavy water was collected and stored.
(ON, 4/07, p.5)
1943 Nov 18, 444 British bombers
attacked Berlin.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1943 Nov 18, U-211 sank in the
Atlantic Ocean.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1943 Nov 19, U-536 sank in
Atlantic Ocean.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1943 Nov 20, U-538 sank in the
Atlantic Ocean.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1943 Nov 22, RAF began bombing of
Berlin.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1943 Nov 25, U-600 sank in the
Atlantic Ocean.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1943 Nov 29, U-86 sank in the
Atlantic Ocean.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1943 Nov, Michael Negele joined
the Death’s Head Battalion of the Waffen-SS. He later immigrated to the
US and withheld information on his wartime activities. In 1997 a
Missouri court acted to strip him of US citizenship.
(SFC, 9/3/97, p.A3)
1943 Nov, The 2-day Nazi
"Operation Harvest" at the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland
executed men, women and children. Nazi officer Alfons Goetzfried later
admitted to having personally shot 500 people. Over 42,000 people,
mostly Jews, were killed in the operation. In 1999 Alfons Goetzfrid
(79) was convicted for assisting in the murders of 17,000 Jews at the
camp. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A14)(SFC, 5/21/99, p.D2)
1943 Dec
2, The 1st RSHA (Reichsicherheitshauptamt, the central SS-department)
transport out of Vienna reached Birkenau camp (Poland). One of the
powers of the RSHA was the imposition of "Protective Custody," which
meant the deportation to a concentration camp without trial or the
possibility of appeal for the victims.
(www.wsg-hist.uni-linz.ac.at/Auschwitz/HTML/RSHA.html)
1943 Dec 12, The German Army
launched Operation Winter Tempest, the relief of the Sixth Army trapped
in Stalingrad. The attempt to relieve Stalingrad fell short due to
stubborn Soviet resistance and the Germans' indecision within the
besieged city.
(HN, 12/12/98)
1943 Dec 16, The German battleship
Scharnhorst sank off Norway following an Allied attack led by the
British battleship Duke of York. Only 36 of the 1,900 crew survived.
Researchers found the wreck in 2000. [see Dec 26]
(SFC, 10/4/00, p.A12)
1943 Dec 26, Count Claus von
Stauffenberg tried in vain to plant a bomb in Hitler's
headquarters.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1943 Dec 26, The 32,000-ton German
battleship, Scharnhorst was sunk by British ships in an Arctic fight.
[see Dec 16]
(HN, 12/26/98)
1943 The German propaganda film
"Titanic" was produced.
(SFC, 1/2/98, p.C15)
1943 In Norway Operation
Gunnerside destroyed the Nazi heavy water plant near Rjukan. The raid
was later depicted in the 1965 film "The Heroes of Telemark." The 9
commandos included Claus Helberg (d.2003).
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.A27)
1943 Karlrobert Kreiten, a piano
virtuoso, was executed by the Nazis after a neighbor denounced him for
offhand remarks about Hitler.
(SFC,11/28/97, p.B8)
1944 Jan 11, Crakow-Plaszow
Concentration Camp was established.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1944 Jan 13, Three Reich plane
plants were wrecked; 64 U.S. aircraft were lost in an air attack in
Germany.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1944 Jan 15, The U.S. Fifth Army
successfully broke the German Winter Line in Italy with the capture of
Mount Trocchio.
(HN, 1/15/99)
1944 Jan 20, RAF dropped 2300
1-ton bombs on Berlin.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1944 Jan 21, Some 649 British
bombers attacked Magdeburg.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1944 Jan 21, Some 447 German
bombers attacked London.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1944 Jan 27, The Soviet Union
announced the end of the deadly German siege of Leningrad, which had
lasted 880 days with 600,000 killed.
(AP, 1/27/98)(MC, 1/27/02)
1944 Jan 28, 683 British bombers
attacked Berlin.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1944 Jan 28, U-271 & U-571
sank off Ireland.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1944 Jan 31, U-592 sank off
Ireland.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1944 Feb 2, The Germans stopped an
Allied attack at Anzio, Italy.
(HN, 2/2/99)
1944 Feb 7, The Germans launched a
[counteroffensive] second attack against the Allied beachhead at Anzio,
Italy. They hoped to push the Allies back into the sea.
(AP, 2/7/97)(HN, 2/7/99)
1944 Feb 9, U-734 and U-238 sank
off Ireland.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1944 Feb 11, U-424 sank off
Ireland.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1944 Feb 15, 891 British bombers
attacked Berlin.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1944 Feb 19, The U.S. Eighth Air
Force and Royal Air Force began "Big Week," a series of heavy bomber
attacks against German aircraft production facilities.
(HN, 2/19/99)
1944 Feb 19, U-264 sank off
Ireland.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1944 Feb 20, During World War II,
U.S. bombers began raiding German aircraft manufacturing centers in a
series of attacks that became known as "Big Week."
(AP, 2/20/98)
1944 Feb 20, A time-bomb planted
by Norwegian commando Knut Haukelid sank the Lake Tinn ferry Hydro,
which carried heavy water canisters from the Vemork plant destined for
Germany. 12 German soldiers and 14 civilian passengers drowned.
Rescuers saved 23 Norwegians and 4 Germans.
(ON, 4/07, p.5)
1944 Mar 1, U-358 sank in
Atlantic.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1944 Mar 4, A squadron of American
B-17 bombers hit Berlin for the first time during daylight hours. Col.
H. Griffin Mumford (d.2007) led a group 4-engine Flying Fortresses over
Berlin.
(SFC, 7/20/07,
p.B12)(www.100thbg.com/mainmenus/history/historysummary_home.htm)
1944 Mar 6, US heavy bombers hit
Berlin during World War II.
(AP, 3/6/98)
1944 Mar 8, U.S. bombers resumed
bombing Berlin.
(AP, 3/8/98)
1944 Mar 15, Otto von Below (86),
German commandant (WW I), died.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1944 Mar 16, A US plane named “God
Bless Our Ship” was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Berlin and
crash-landed outside the city. Lt. George Lymburn (1924-2005) was
captured and sent to Stalag Luft 1, where he was liberated by Russian
soldiers in April, 1945.
(SFC, 4/13/05, p.B7)
1944 Mar 19, The German 352nd
Infantry Division deployed along the coast of France.
(HN, 3/19/01)
1944 Mar 19, Nazi German soldiers
occupied Hungary.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1944 Mar 22, Over 600 8th Air
Force bombers attacked Berlin.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1944 Mar 24, 76 Allied officers
escaped Stalag Luft 3. In 1949 Paul Brickall authored "The Great
Escape." The story of Jackson Barrett Mahon (d.1999 at 78), an American
fighter pilot, and the Allied POW escape from Stalag Luft III in
Germany during WW II. The 1963 film "The Great Escape" starred Steve
McQueen, was directed by John Sturges and was based on the true story.
In 1999 Arthur A. Durand published Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story."
When the Russian Army closed in tens of thousands of POWs were marched
240 miles south to a new camp and thousands died in the "Black March."
(TVM, 1975, p.222)(SFC, 8/11/99, p.C5)(SFC,
12/23/99, p.A27)(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.1)(SFC, 1/22/03,
p.A19)(www.b24.net/pow/greatescape.htm)
1944 Mar 24, 811 British bombers
attacked Berlin.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1944 Mar 24, In occupied Rome, the
Nazis executed more than 300 civilians in reprisal for an attack by
Italian partisans the day before they killed 32 [33] German soldiers
[policemen]. The Ardeatine Cave massacre near Rome, Italy, took place.
In retaliation to the systematic murder of Nazi officers by the Italian
underground, an SS officer ordered that 10 Italian civilian men be shot
for every Nazi officer killed. The age of the civilians did not matter
and so many teenagers and boys were among the dead found in the caves.
Argentina extradited former Nazi officer, Erich Priebke, to Rome in
1995 to face trial for his role in the Ardeatine Caves massacre.
(AP, 3/23/97)(WSJ, 10/3/95, p.A-21)(WSJ, 11/21/95,
p.A-1)(HN, 3/24/98)
1944 Mar 26, 705 British bombers
attacked Essen.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1944 Mar 27, One-thousand Jews
left Drancy, France for the Auschwitz concentration camp.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1944 Mar 27, Thousands of Jews
were murdered in Kaunas, Lithuania. Forty Jewish policemen were shot in
the Riga, Latvia, ghetto by the Gestapo.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1944 Mar 30, 781 British bombers
attacked Nuremberg.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1944 Apr 3, British dive bombers
attacked the battle cruiser Tirpitz.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1944 Apr 6,
German trucks rolled up to the safehouse of Sabina Zlatin in Izieu-Ain,
France, and 44 children and 7 teachers including Mr. Zlatin were
arrested. The raid was ordered by Klaus Barbie, head of the German
police in Lyons.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.B2)(MC, 4/6/02)
1944 Apr 13, Transport No. 71
departed with French Jews to Nazi Germany.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1944 Apr 14, 1st Jews transported
from Athens arrived at Auschwitz.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1944 Apr 22, Hitler and Mussolini
met at Obersalzburg.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1944 Apr 24, British air force
bombers hammered a former Jesuit college housing the Bavarian Academy
of Science. Anton Spitaler (1910-2003), an Arabic scholar at the
academy, later lamented the loss of a unique photo archive of ancient
manuscripts of the Quran. His story however was a lie, and the
collection survived hidden in his hands.
(WSJ, 1/12/08, p.A1)
1944 Apr 28, Exercise "Tiger"
ended with 750 US soldiers dead in D-Day rehearsal after their convoy
ships were attacked by German torpedo boats.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1944 May 1, The Messerschmitt Me
262 Sturmvogel, the 1st jet bomber, made its first flight.
(HN, 5/1/98)(MC, 5/1/02)
1944 May 6, The USS Buckley, a
destroyer escort, engaged and sank the German U-66. Hand to hand
fighting broke out after the Buckley, under Lt. Cmdr. Brent Maxwell
Abel (1916-2006), rammed the submarine. When the U-boat sank 36 German
sailors were rescued and taken captive.
(SFC, 1/6/06, p.B7)
1944 May 7, There was a German
assault on Tito's hideout in Drvar, Bosnia.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1944 May 14, 91 German bombers
harassed Bristol.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1944 May 14, Gens Rommel, Speidel
and von Stulpnagel plotted to assassinate Hitler.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1944 May 15, A partisan attack on
a movie theater killed 5 German soldiers in Genoa. 4 days later SS
Officer Friedrich Engel ordered the killing of 59 Italian prisoners in
reprisal. In 2002 Engel (93) was sentenced to 7 years in prison for the
order.
(SFC, 7/6/02, p.A14)(AP, 2/14/06)
1944 May 16, The 1st of over
180,000 Hungarian Jews reached Auschwitz.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1944 May 19, 240 gypsies were
transported to Auschwitz from Westerbork Neth.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1944 May 19, Friedrich Engel
(1909-2006), a Nazi SS officer, oversaw the massacre of 59 Italian
prisoners near Genoa. An Italian military court convicted Engel in
absentia in 1999 and sentenced him to life for war crimes connected to
a total of 246 deaths. In 2002 a German court convicted Engel of 59
counts of murder and handed him a suspended seven-year term.
(AP, 2/14/06)
1944 Jun 2, Allied "shuttle
bombing" of Germany began, with bombers departing from Italy and
landing in the Soviet Union.
(HN, 6/2/98)
1944 Jun 3, Nazis pulled out of
Rome.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1944 Jun 4, The U-505 became the
first enemy submarine captured by the U.S. Navy under Admiral Dan
Gallery. The keel for the U-505 was laid on June 12, 1940. It launched
from Hamburg the following year. During its career, the U-505
gained the unwelcome but lucky distinction of being the most heavily
damaged U-boat to manage to return to port. Under the command of Harald
Lange, the boat was attacked by an American task group led by the USS
Guadalcanal. Crewmen from the destroyer escort USS Pillsbury managed to
capture the U-505 before the submariners could in scuttle her. This
represented the first time since 1815 that the US Navy captured an
enemy warship on the high seas (the capture remained a secret). After
the war, Navy plans to scuttle the U-boat in a gunnery exercise were
themselves scrapped when the president of Chicago’s Museum of Science
& Industry voiced interest and a plan to use the entire submarine
as part of an exhibit. The U-505 was dedicated as a permanent exhibit
and war memorial at the museum on September 25, 1954. In 2005 a $35
million project restored the ship and moved it to a specially
constructed underground hall.
(HN, 6/4/98)(HNQ, 3/29/01)(WSJ, 8/5/05, p.W2)
1944 Jun 6, On D-Day Brig. General
Norman "Dutch" Cota was the first American General to step foot on
Omaha Beach. Cota, assistant commander of the 29th Infantry Division,
heroically spurred his men to cross the beach under withering German
fire. He went on to lead his infantrymen across France to the Siegfried
Line and in the battle of Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge.
(HNQ, 4/15/99)
1944 Jun 6, Cherokee tribal
members communicated via radios in their native language on the
Normandy beaches. Some 6,603 Americans were killed along the coast of
France during the D-day invasion. A total of 9,758 Allied soldiers died
during the invasion. "D-Day" by Stephen Ambrose was published in 1994.
(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A6)(SFEC, 6/6/99, p.A22)(SFC,
5/30/00, p.A2)(WSJ, 8/20/01, p.A1)
1944 Jun 6, The code name for the
beach used by the Canadians for the D-day invasion of Normandy was Juno.
(HNQ, 8/13/98)
1944 Jun 6, By the end of D-Day
156,000 Allied soldiers had come ashore on the Normandy beaches with
losses of 2,500 men. By the end of the day, the Allies had established
a tenuous beachhead that would lead to an offensive that pinned Adolf
Hitler's Third Reich between two pincers--the Western Allies and the
already advancing Soviets--accelerating the end of World War II. A
million Allied troops, under the overall command of General Dwight D.
Eisenhower, moved onto five Normandy beachheads in three weeks.
Operations “Neptune” and “Overlord” put forces on the beaches and
supplies aimed at the liberation of Europe and the conquest of Germany.
Operation Overlord landed 400,000 Allied American, British, and
Canadian troops on the beaches of Normandy, France. In addition, US and
British airborne forces landed behind the German lines and US Army
Rangers scaled the cliffs at Pointe de Hoc. More than 6,000 trucks of
the Red Ball Express kept gasoline and other vital supplies rolling in
as American troops and tanks pushed the Germans back toward their
homeland.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.B9)(HN, 6/6/98)(HNPD, 6/6/99)(ON,
2/08, p.12)
1944 Jun 6, Gerrit John van de
Peat (41), artist, resistance fighter, was executed.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1944 Jun 6, Nazi troops executed
96 prisoners by firing squad.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1944 Jun 7, Italian partisans shot
at least one German soldier in a radio transmitter unit that included
Matthias Defregger. Eventually, 17 men, ranging from 17 to 65, were
shot in retaliation, and much of the village of Filetto di Camarda was
burned. Defregger later became a Bishop and faced charges in 1969 for
the murders. The charges were dropped in 1970.
(www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901076,00.html)
1944 Jun 9, 99 inhabitants of
Tulle were hanged by the SS.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1944 Jun 10, German troops of the
armored SS Division "Das Reich", as they headed toward Normandy to
combat D-Day invasion forces, slaughtered 642 men, women and children
in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, France. In 1983 a court in East
Berlin convicted Heinz Barth (1921-2007), a former SS officer, and
sentenced him to life in prison. In addition to involvement in the
massacre, East German judges also found that Barth volunteered to
participate in an execution of 92 Czech civilians in 1942. In 1997 his
sentence was commuted to probation.
(AP, 8/14/07)
1944 Jun 13, Only one week after
the Normandy invasion, the first German V-1 buzz bomb, also called the
doodlebug (Fieseler Fi-103), was fired at London. The first guided
missile to be used in force, the V-1 was powered by a pulse-jet engine
and resembled a small aircraft. Only one of the four missiles London
saw that day caused any casualties, but a steady stream of V-1s causing
severe damage and casualties fell on London in coming months. At times,
nearly 100 bombs fell each day. Many German buzz bombs never reached
their targets because of primitive guidance systems or because they
were destroyed in flight by anti-aircraft fire or intercepting Allied
fighters.
(AP, 6/13/97)(HNQ, 6/13/98)(MC, 6/13/02)
1944 Jun 18, The U.S. First Army
broker through the German lines on the Cotentin Peninsula and cut off
the German held port of Cherbourg.
(HN, 6/18/98)
1944 Jun 20, Nazis began mass
extermination of Jews at Auschwitz.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1944 Jun 21, Very heavy bombing
took place on Berlin.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1944 Jun 25, British assault at
Caen, Normandy.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1944 Jun 26, German troops near
the Italian village of Falzano di Cortona herded 11 civilians into a
barn and blew it up. Gino Massetti (15) survived and in 2008 testified
in the trial of former Wehrmacht Lt. Josef Scheungraber, the company
commander accused of ordering the reprisal killings and four others
after two German soldiers were killed. In 2009 Scheungraber (90) was
convicted of 10 murders and jailed for life.
(AP, 10/7/08)(AFP, 8/11/09)
1944 Jun 27, During World War II,
American forces completed their capture of the French port of Cherbourg
from the Germans.
(AP, 6/27/97)(HN, 6/27/98)
1944 Jun 29, Rommel and von
Rundstedt traveled to Berchtesgaden to confer with Hitler.
(MC, 6/29/02)
1944 Jun 29, A Russian assault
battalion opened fire on German forces on the outskirts of Bobruisk,
Belarus. As many as half of the 10,000 German soldiers were killed. In
1962 Nikolai Litvin, a Russian soldier present that day, completed his
memoir. It was finally published in 2007 under the title ”800 Days on
the Eastern Front.”
(WSJ, 6/30/07, p.P6)
1944 Jun 30, A US B-24H bomber
nicknamed "Miss Fortune," which was returning from a mission in Germany
to its base in Italy, flew into bad weather with 3 others and were shot
down by German gunners over western Hungary. The remains of Staff Sgt.
Martin F. Troy, the tail gunner on the “Miss Fortune,” were recovered
in 2007.
(AP, 8/11/07)
1944 Jun, German soldiers in the
Hermann Goering division, named after the head of Adolf Hitler's air
force, shot and killed more than 200 civilians and destroyed most of
the homes in the Tuscan town of Civitella to avenge a deadly attack by
partisans. In 2008 Italy's Court of Cassation ordered Berlin to pay a
total of euro1 million (US$1.3 million) to nine family members of
victims of the massacre. Germany rejected the ruling.
(AP, 10/22/08)
1944 Jul 1, Over 2500 were killed
in London and SE England by German flying bombs.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1944 Jul 1, Count Claus von
Stauffenberg was promoted to colonel.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1944 Jul 4, Gestapo arrested
German Social Democrat Julius Leber.
(Maggio)
1944 Jul 12, The Theresienstadt
Family camp disbanded and some 4,000 people were executed.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1944 Jul 14, SS men Heinrich Boere
and Jacobus Petrus Besteman shot and killed Dutch pharmacist Fritz
Hubert Ernst Bicknese at his home in Breda for suspected activity in
Nazi resistance. Boere was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch
court in 1949. This was later commuted to life imprisonment. In 2009
Boere (88) was slated to stand trial for murder in Germany for the
execution-style killings of three Dutch civilians during World War II.
In 2010 a German court convicted Boere (88) of murdering the three
Dutch civilians. He was given the maximum sentence of life in prison
for the killings.
(www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/germ-n02.shtml)(AP, 7/7/09)(AP,
3/23/10)
1944 Jul 15, Greenwich Observatory
was damaged by German V1 rocket.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1944 Jul 16, Soviet troops occupy
Vilna, Lithuania, in their drive towards Germany.
(HN, 7/16/98)
1944 Jul 18, British Mosquitos
attacked Cologne and Berlin.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1944 Jul 19, Some 1,200 8th Air
Force bombers bombed targets in SW Germany. Some 500 15th Air Force
Liberators (Flying Fortresses) bombed the Munich vicinity.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1944 Jul 19, Count Claus von
Stauffenberg visited a RC church in Berlin-Dahlem.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1944 Jul 19, Swedish diplomat
Raoul Wallenberg 1st met SS ober Sturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1944 Jul 20, A branch of the
German resistance led by Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg planted a
bomb underneath the table where Hitler was standing at Hitler’s
Rastenburg headquarters in East Prussia that wounded but did not kill
Hitler. This incited the Fuhrer to wipe out the Prussian aristocracy.
This is covered in Otto Friedrich’s book on the Moltke family: "Blood
and Iron." [see 1800, Helmuth and/or 1840, James von Moltke] Carl
Goerdeler, Mayor of Leipzig, was among those arrested and executed for
the plot.
(WSJ, 11/7/95, p.A-21)(AP, 7/20/97)(HN,
7/20/98)(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.A30)
"In fact, although many of the
conspirators were tortured, beheaded and strangled by piano wire hung
from meat hooks... Col. Stauffenburg and three of his fellow officers
were executed by firing squad in the courtyard of the Benderblock
around midnight of that fateful day." The 20th of July Special
Commission of the Third Reich was created after the July 20, 1944,
assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler to find and expose conspirators
and other enemies of the regime. Some 400 investigators employed all of
the Gestapo-designed methods of torture against enemies of the Nazis
until the end of the war. Some 5,000 Germans were executed in the
months following the assassination attempt for their part in the
conspiracy or alleged sympathy with the conspirators.
(WSJ, 11/29/95, p.A-15)(HNQ,
12/3/98)
Ludwig and Kunrat
Hammerstein-Equord participated in the plot to kill Hitler and went
into hiding when the plot failed. 4 members of the family were taken to
concentration camps, but were later freed by the allies.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A19)
1944 Jul 20, A heavy storm
hampered a British offensive at Caen.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 20, US 15th Air Force
attacked Friedrichshafen and Memmingen. Flying Fortresses of US 8th Air
Force attacked Leipzig and Dessau.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1944 Jul 21, Von Kluge warned
Hitler of the impending collapse of front in Normandy.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1944 Jul 21, Henning von Tresckow,
Gen-Maj, "July 20th plotter", committed suicide.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1944 Jul 23, Bernard M. Cohen,
attorney, was killed at Belsen concentration camp.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1944 Jul 23, Helmuth J. von
Moltke, German earl (July 20th plotter), was executed.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1944 Jul 23, Soviet troops took
Lublin, Poland, as the German army retreated.
(HN, 7/23/02)
1944 Jul 24, Soviet forces
liberated the Majdanek concentration camp.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1944 Jul 25, Allied forces begin
the breakthrough of German lines in Normandy.
(HN, 7/25/02)
1944 Jul 25, The Messerschmitt 262
became the 1st jet fighter used in combat.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1944 Jul 29, Allied air force
bombed Germany for 6 hours.
(MC, 7/29/02)
1944 Jul, Operation Goodwood in
Normandy under Gen’l. Montgomery attempted to break through German
defenses. This part of the war is covered by Stephen E. Ambrose in his
1997 book: "Citizen Soldiers," a sequel to his earlier "D-Day."
(WSJ, 12/22/97, p.A16)
1944 Aug 1-1944 Oct 2, The Warsaw
Uprising was fought. The Polish underground began an uprising against
the occupying German army, as the Red Army approaches Warsaw. The
revolt lasted two months before collapsing. US Air Force Groups dropped
medicine and food to the Polish freedom fighters under heavy fire from
German fighter planes. The supply planes were also shot at by Soviet
gunners. American dead were buried in the military cemetery at Poltava,
Ukraine. The uprising ended with the Nazis killing 250,000 people.
During the 63-day uprising the insurgents, largely ill-armed teenagers,
organized a postal service to help city residents get information to
relatives. Marek Edelman (1909-2009) was among the commanders of the
uprising and managed to survive the war.
(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p. 23)(AP,
8/1/97)(HN, 8/1/98)(AP, 3/6/08)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.91)
1944 Aug 4, Nazi police
raided the secret annex of a building in Amsterdam and arrested eight
people, including 15-year-old Anne Frank, whose diary became a famous
account of the Holocaust. She died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp in the spring of 1945, just weeks before the camp was liberated.
Miep Gies (1909-2010), secretary to Anne’s father Otto, collected the
scattered pages of Anne’s diary and returned them to Otto Frank after
the war.
(AP, 8/4/02)(Econ, 1/30/10, p.95)
1944 Aug 6, All 1,200 Jewish death
marchers from Lipcani, Moldavia, died by this date.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1944 Aug 6, The deportation of
70,000 Jews from Lodz. Poland, to Auschwitz began.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1944 Aug 7, July 20th Plot trial
under Nazi judge Roland Freisler began in Berlin.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1944 Aug 7, German forces launched
a major counter attack against U.S. forces near Mortain, France.
(HN, 8/7/98)
1944 Aug 8, Erwin von Witzleben
(62), German fieldmarshal, was hanged.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1944 Aug 16, US bombers of the 8th
Air Force raided an the oil refinery at Rositz, Germany. As of 2998 21
unexploded bombs were dug up at the site.
(WSJ, 11/24/08, p.A12)
1944 Aug 19, In an effort to
prevent a communist uprising in Paris, Charles DeGualle began attacking
German forces all around the city.
(HN, 8/19/98)
1944 Aug 20, United States and
British forces closed the pincers on the German 7th Army in the
Falaise-Argentan pocket in France.
(HN, 8/20/98)(MC, 8/20/02)
1944 Aug 22, Hitler ordered Paris
to be destroyed.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1944 Aug 22, In Bordeaux, France,
Heinz Stahlschmidt (d.2010 at 92), a junior officer in the German navy,
defied his superiors plans to blow up Bordeaux's port by blowing up a
munitions depot, rendering some 4,000 fuses useless and saving the
port. Heinz Stahlschmidt became a French citizen in 1947 under the name
of Henri Salmide and a Knight of the French Legion d’Honneur in
September 2000.
(http://tinyurl.com/yesjr4g)(AP, 2/26/10)
1944 Aug 22, Last transport of
French Jews departed to Nazi Germany.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1944 Aug 23, German SS engineers
began placing explosive charges around the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Adolf
Hitler had decreed that Paris should be left a smoking ruin, but
Dietrich von Choltitz thought better of his Fuehrer’s order.
(HN, 8/23/98)
1944 Aug 23, Romanian PM Ion
Antonescu was dismissed by King Michael, paving the way for Romania to
abandon the Axis in favor of the Allies. King Michael organized a coup
against the pro-Nazi dictator, Marshal Ion Antonescu, but was
double-crossed by Joseph Stalin and betrayed by the Allies who ceded
the country to the Russians at the Yalta summit in 1945.
(SFC, 6/27/97, p.A16)(AP, 8/23/97)
1944 Aug 25, Paris, occupied since
June 1940, was liberated from German occupation by Free French Forces
under General Jacques LeClerc and his 2nd Tank division. Although
ordered by Adolf Hitler to leave Paris a smoldering ruin, Paris'
military governor Major General Dietrich von Cholitz lied to his
superiors and left the city's landmarks intact. Retreating German
troops massacred 124 of Maille's 500 residents then razed the town,
possibly in retaliation for Resistance action in the region.
(AP, 8/25/97)(HNPD, 8/25/98)(HN, 8/25/98)(AP,
7/16/08)
1944 Aug 25, In France 11 US
planes were shot down when a squadron was overwhelmed in a dogfight
with 80 German fighters. 5 pilots survived and eluded capture. 2 pilots
were captured. The remains of 3 missing were later recovered. In 2008
the remains of Army Air Force 2nd Lt. Ray Packard were identified and
returned home.
(SSFC, 11/16/08, p.B8)
1944 Aug 27, 200 Halifax bombers
attack oil-installations in Hamburg.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1944 Aug 28, German forces in
Toulon and Marseilles, France, surrendered to the Allies.
(HN, 8/28/98)
1944 Aug 31, The British Eighth
Army penetrated the German Gothic Line in Italy.
(HN, 8/31/98)
1944 Aug, Messerschmidt,
Volkswagen AG and other companies met at a Strasbourg hotel to discuss
financing plans for the Fourth Reich.
(WSJ, 4/28/97, p.A17)
1944 Sep 5, Germany launched its
first V-2 missile at Paris, France.
(HN, 9/5/98)
1944 Sep 5, Flight Sgt. Maximilian
Volke, a German ace pilot, took off from a northern Italian air base
with three other fighters to intercept a group of American bombers. He
was shot down by gunners in one of the US planes. His plane and remains
were found in 2007.
(AP, 8/14/07)
1944 Sep 7, Nazi SS-General Kurt
("Panzer") Meyer took Durnal, Belgium.
(MC, 9/7/01)
1944 Sep 8, Germany's V-2
offensive against England began.
(HN, 9/8/98)
1944 Sep 8, Erwin von Witzleben
(62), German field marshal, was hanged.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1944 Sep 12, During World War II,
U.S. Army troops entered Germany for the first time, near Trier.
(AP, 9/12/97)
1944 Sep 13, US 28th Infantry
division opened an assault on the Siegfried line, Westwall.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1944 Sep 15, British bombers hit
the German pocket battleship Tirpitz with Tallboy bombs.
(www.history.navy)
1944 Sep 17, Infantry glider
troops of the 82nd Airborne Division entered Holland. British
[American] airborne troops parachuted into Holland to capture the
Arnhem bridge as part of Operation Market Garden. The plan called for
the airborne troops to be relieved by British troops, but they were
left stranded and eventually surrendered to the Germans. The 1974 book
by Cornelius Ryan, "A Bridge Too Far," was based on this operation and
was made into the 1977 film .
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.8)(HN, 9/17/98)(HC, 12/12/01)
1944 Sep 19, The Luftwaffe bombed
Eindhoven: 200 killed.
(MC, 9/19/01)
1944 Sep 19, The 3-month battle at
Huertgen Forest on the Belgian-German border began. A 1998 HBO film
made a rough portrayal: "When Trumpets Fade."
(WSJ, 7/24/98,
p.A15)(www.angelfire.com/ak5/combat/HuertgenForest.html)
1944 Sep 27, Thousands of British
troops were killed as German forces rebuffed their massive effort to
capture the Arnhem Bridge across the Rhine River in Holland.
(HN, 9/27/98)
1944 Sep 28, At the Battle of
Arnhem the Germans defeated the British airborne in Netherlands.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1944 Sep 29-1944 Oct 5, Nazi
murders took place in Marzabotto, Italy, under SS-major Reder.
Retreating Nazi troops killed some 1,000 women, children and elderly
while allegedly pursuing resistance fighters. In 2002 German Pres. Rau
apologized for the massacre. In 2007 an Italian military tribunal gave
life sentences in absentia to 10 German former SS men for massacring
about 800 Italian villagers. They had laid waste to the villages of
Marzabotto, Grizzana and Vado di Monzuno near Bologna, as the Germans
retreated before Allied troops.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marzabotto_massacre)(USAT, 4/18/02,
p.4A)(Reuters, 1/14/07)
1944 Sep-Jan, The battle at
Huertgen Forest on the Belgian-German border was fought. A 1998 HBO
film made a rough portrayal: "When Trumpets Fade."
(WSJ, 7/24/98, p.A15)
1944 Oct 1, The U.S. First Army
began the siege Aachen, Germany.
(HN, 10/1/98)
1944 Oct 2, Nazi troops crushed
the 2-month-old (63 days) Warsaw Uprising, during which a
quarter-million people were killed.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1944 Oct 3, German troops
evacuated Athens, Greece.
(HN, 10/3/98)
1944 Oct 7, Field marshal Rommel
got orders to return to Berlin.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1944 Oct 7, Jews several hundred
prisoners assigned to Crematorium IV at Auschwitz-Birkenau rebelled
after learning that they were going to be killed. During the uprising,
the prisoners killed three guards and blew up the crematorium and
adjacent gas chamber. The prisoners used explosives smuggled into the
camp by Jewish women who had been assigned to forced labor in a nearby
armaments factory. The Germans crushed the revolt and killed almost all
of the prisoners involved in the rebellion. The Jewish women who had
smuggled the explosives into the camp were publicly hanged.
(http://tinyurl.com/9avn3)
1944 Oct 12, German army retreated
from Athens.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1944 Oct 13, The US 1st army
entered Aachen, Germany.
(AP, 10/13/97)(MC, 10/13/01)
1944 Oct 14, German Field Marshal
Rommel (52), suspected of complicity in the July 20th plot against
Hitler, was visited at home by two of Hitler's staff and given the
choice of public trial or suicide by poison. He chose suicide and it
was announced that he died of wounds.
(AP, 10/14/97)(HN, 10/14/98)
1994 Oct 16, German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl was elected to a fourth term.
(AP, 10/16/99)
1944 Oct 20, US 1st army won the
battle of Aachen.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1944 Oct 21, During World War II,
U.S. troops captured the German city of Aachen.
(AP, 10/21/97)
1944 Oct
28, The last Nazi transport of Jews to the gas chambers of
Auschwitz-Birkenau was sent from Theresienstadt.
(http://tinyurl.com/8sf5k)
1944 Nov
7, Hannah Senesh (23), Jewish poet, was executed by Nazis in Budapest.
Hannah Szenes was tortured for several months by the Gestapo before
being executed by the Nazis because she was a member of the Jewish
underground.
(www.jbuff.com/c031303.htm)
1944 Nov 11, Private Eddie Slovik
was convicted of desertion and sentenced to death for refusing to join
his unit in the European Theater of Operations.
(HN, 11/11/00)
1944 Nov 12, The RAF sank the
German battleship Tirpitz at Troms Fjord, Norway. Great Britain so
feared the Tripitz, that any hint of its use caused escort ships to
flee their convoys.
(HN, 11/12/98)(MC, 11/12/01)
1944 Nov
24, Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of the Auschwitz and
Birkenau crematoriums.
(http://tinyurl.com/9nycv)
1944 Dec 2, General Patton’s
troops entered the Saar Valley and broke through the Siegfried line. US
95th Infantry division occupied bridge at Saar.
(HN, 12/2/98)(MC, 12/2/01)
1944 Dec 3, US 5th Armour division
occupied Brandenburg, Hertzgenwald.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1944 Dec 10, The US 394th
Regiment’s Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon was ordered into the
village of Lanzareth, Belgium, to fill a gap between allied divisions
along the Western front. A German counteroffensive, launched on Dec 16,
sent through Lanzareth. The platoon surrendered after running out of
ammunition. All members survived imprisonment. In 2004 Alex Kershaw
authored “The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic
Story of World War II’s Most Decorated Platoon.”
(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.D11)(SSFC, 1/2/05, p.E1)
1944 Dec 16, The Germans mounted a
major surprise counterattack in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. As the
center of the Allied line fell back, it created a bulge, leading to the
name--the Battle of the Bulge. Hitler hoped to cripple the advance
Allies by breaking through their lines to destroy fuel supplies and
lines of communication. The striking force (the Fifth and Sixth Panzer
Armies) amounted to 24 divisions, 10 of them armored. The German attack
achieved total surprise, but slowed by the end of December due to
German supply problems and Allied resistance. Between January 8-16, in
the face of a fierce Allied counteroffensive, the Germans finally
withdrew. By January 21, the Germans had been pushed back to their
original line, having lost some 120,000 men in the offensive. The
Allies suffered 81,000 casualties including some 19,000 Americans
killed. In 1997 Charles B. MacDonald authored “A Time for Trumpets: The
Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge.”
(AP, 12/16/97)(HN, 12/16/98)(HNQ, 7/11/01)(WSJ,
12/7/04, p.D11)
1944 Dec 17, The Germans renewed
their attack on the Belgian town of Losheimergraben against the
American Army during the Battle of the Bulge.
(HN, 12/17/98)
1944 Dec 19, American troops began
pulling back from the twin Belgian cities of Krinkelt and Rocherath in
front of the advancing German Army.
(HN, 12/19/98)
1944 Dec 20, In the Battle of
Bastogne the Nazis surrounded 101st Airborne.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1944 Dec 22, During the Battle of
the Bulge, the Germans demanded the surrender of American troops at
Bastogne, Belgium; Brigadier Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe (1898-1975)
reportedly replied: "Nuts!"
(AP, 12/22/97)(HN, 12/22/98)
1944 Dec 26, In the World War II
Battle of the Bulge, the embattled U.S. 101st Airborne Division was
relieved by units of the 4th Armored Division. The Battle of the Bulge
was the final major German counter-offensive of the war and thrust deep
into allied territory in N & E Belgium and Luxembourg. US Gen
Patton's tanks repulsed the Germans. Jimmy Hendrix (19) captured 13
Germans in two 88-mm gun batteries and rescued 3 Americans under enemy
fire. Hendrix (d.2002 later awarded the Medal of Honor.
(WUD, 1994, p.195)(SFC, 9/1/96, T3)(AP,
12/26/97)(MC, 12/26/01)(SFC, 11/21/02, p.A25)
1944 Dec, Carol Deutsch, Jewish
artist, perished in the Holocaust. Deutsch created illustrations of the
Bible while in hiding from the Nazis in Belgium. He was informed upon,
and died in the Buchenwald camp. After the war, his daughter Ingrid
discovered that the Nazis had confiscated their furniture and valuables
but had left behind a single item: a meticulously crafted wooden box
adorned with a Star of David and a seven-branched menorah, containing a
collection of 99 of the artist's illustrations of biblical scenes.
(AP, 1/11/08)
1944 Theodore Adorno and Max
Horkheimer authored “Dialectic of Enlightenment,” which examined the
culture that gave birth to Auschwitz. This became the founding text of
the post modern writers (pomos), later represented by Jean-Francois
Lyotard, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.106)
1944 Felix Nussbaum, an artist
from Osnabruck, died in Auschwitz. A museum in Osnabruck, designed by
Daniel Libeskind, was later named in his honor.
(WSJ, 10/8/98, p.A16)
1944 In Germany there was mass
murder at the Treblinka labor camp in Poland. In 1997 Polish guard
Bronislaw Hajda, a retired machinist in Chicago’s Schiller Park, was
convicted by a US federal judge for taking part in the mass murder.
(SFC, 4/11/97, p.A3)
1944 By this year 360,000 of the
500,000 inmates of the Nazi Majdanek concentration camp in eastern
Poland had perished in the gas chambers or from brutal treatment by the
guards.
(SFC, 3/5/98, p.A14)
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