London, England · September 3, 1939 Addressing a national audience by radio, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain intoned the following words: “This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a…
London, England and Paris, France · September 2, 1939 Shortly after British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Édouard Daladier confirmed for themselves the German invasion of Poland on September 1, the two leaders gave the order for general mobilization and evacuation of children and mothers from their main cities. Both leaders also prepared…
Warsaw, Poland · September 1, 1939 World War II in Europe began on this date in 1939 in Danzig (present-day Gdańsk), Poland, when the German training ship Schleswig-Holstein bombarded the Polish naval base in Danzig harbor. After a fierce day-long fight, Danzig fell and was annexed by the Reich the next day. Meanwhile, Hermann Goering’s…
Berlin, Germany · August 31, 1939 On August 22, 1939, Adolf Hitler told his generals he would concoct a story to justify his planned aggression against neighboring Poland. The plan was for Nazi SS operatives to dress in Polish uniforms, attack a German customs post and a German radio transmitter station in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia…
Warsaw, Poland · August 30, 1939 After Adolf Hitler’s sudden decision on Friday, August 25, 1939, to cancel his invasion of Poland, he ordered preparations for a second planned invasion. From the Army’s Quartermaster General, he learned that the earliest date on which mobilization could be completed was Thursday, August 31. Therefore, he set Friday, September 1, as…
Berlin, Germany · August 29, 1939 Adolf Hitler ordered the German invasion of Poland to begin on August 26, 1939. Troops, panzers, and aircraft had been lining up near Poland’s western border since mid-August. Though planned since late March 1939, the invasion was bound to rile Poland’s eastern neighbor, the Soviet Union. That concern was…
London England; Paris, France; Warsaw, Poland · August 28, 1939 Public opinion in Europe had shifted from dread of war and a longing for peace evident in the Czech Sudeten crisis of September 1938 to a fatalistic acceptance that war was now unavoidable. British and French politicians were more confident that they could take their…
Berlin, Germany; Warsaw, Poland; and London, England · August 27, 1939 On this date in 1939, one day after Adolf Hitler aborted his plan to invade neighboring Poland, German mobilization continued. Between August 25 and 31, a further twenty-one infantry divisions and two motorized divisions were in place along the German-Polish frontier, while armaments for other…
Berlin, Germany · August 26, 1939 Serious discussions between the Nazi and Soviet regimes began secretly in late July 1939. On August 21 Germany announced that Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop had been invited to Moscow. Two days later the world learned that Ribbentrop and his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, had initialed a non-aggression pact (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact)…
Kyūshū Island, Japan · August 25, 1945 On this date in 1945, ten days after Japan had agreed to unconditional surrender, two U.S. Army pilots flying P‑38 Lightnings on armed reconnaissance landed on Kyūshū Island, the southernmost Japanese home island, after one of the P‑38s ran low on fuel. The two pilots became the first Americans…