This is where the Daily Chronicles are posted
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Berlin, Germany · February 6, 1941 During the German invasion of France in 1940, an ambitious general named Erwin Rommel distinguished himself as the “lead from the front” commander of the 7th Panzer Division. His armored formation was nicknamed the “Ghost Division” owing to its rapid thrusts and independence. Adolf Hitler had more than a…
Stockholm, Sweden · February 5, 1945 Within five months from the start of the German conquest of Norway in April 1940 the first Norwegian political prisoners were deported to Germany. Two years later, in September 1943, the first deportations of Danish prisoners and Jews to Germany began after German civil and military authorities assumed direct…
Berlin, Germany · February 4, 1937 On this date in 1937, in a bold, sweeping decree, Adolf Hitler assumed command of the entire German armed forces, or Wehrmacht. He abolished the Reichskriegsministerium (Ministry of War), in the act liquidating the traditional power of the army general staff as the ultimate controller and director of Germany’s…
Manila, Philippines · February 3, 1945 On this date in 1945, 35,000 soldiers of the U.S. Sixth Army under Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, supported by 3,000 Filipino guerrillas, began entering Manila, capital of the Philippines, and soon liberated nearly 6,000 Allied and Filipino prisoners. Some of them, like the 64 U.S. Army nurses, were taken captive in 1942…
Washington, D.C. · February 2, 1945 The Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) was the supreme military staff for the western Allies during World War II. CCS members were drawn from the British Chiefs of Staff Committee and the American Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and typically met in Washington, D.C. On occasion Soviet military officers attended….
New Delhi, India · February 1, 1943 On this date in 1943 in New Delhi, delegates from Great Britain, the U.S., and China opened a conference to develop a campaign plan (codenamed Anakim) for the reconquest of Burma (also called Myanmar), then a British colony, and to reopen the land supply route to China. The…
Stalingrad, Soviet Union · January 31, 1943 On this date in 1943 Red Army staff officers arrived at German Sixth Army headquarters in Stalingrad (present-day Volgograd) to discuss surrender terms for an invading enemy now bereft of ammunition, food, and effective command. Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus’ defensive perimeter had shrunk to 300 yards when he surrendered…
Berlin, Germany · January 30, 1933 At noon on this date in 1933 in Berlin, German president and World War I hero Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler, an Austrian now with German citizenship, Reichskanzler of the Weimar Republic, a parliamentary representative democracy that had replaced the imperial form of government in 1919. Hindenburg reversed his…
Berlin, Germany · January 29, 1929 On this date in 1929 Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (German, Im Westen Nichts Neues) debuted in book form after being serialized in a German newspaper in late 1928. In the story Remarque, who was a conscript during the First World War, described the German…
Savannah, Georgia · January 28, 1942 On this date in 1942 the fledgling U.S. Eighth Air Force was activated at Savannah Air Force Base in Georgia. Second-in-command Brig. Gen. Ira Eaker was sent to England to form and organize its bomber command, the VIII Bomber Command. An advanced detachment was established at RAF Bomber Command Headquarters in…