Berlin, Germany · June 22, 1941 The largest military force ever assembled—three million soldiers, 4,300 tanks, nearly 4,400 aircraft, and some 46,000 artillery pieces—assaulted the Soviet Union on this date in 1941. Since the 1920s Adolf Hitler had championed a crusade against “Jewish Bolshevism,” with its political, ideological, and economic center in Moscow. Hitler believed that only when…
Crete, Eastern Mediterranean · May 20, 1941 With the start of marathon German operations against the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, a month away, Adolf Hitler needed to ensure that his Romanian oil supplies in and around Ploiești would not come under bomber attack from stationary bases in the Eastern Mediterranean. The most likely source…
Berlin, Germany · May 12, 1941 On this date in 1941, two days after Deputy Reich Fuehrer Rudolf Hess had embarked on his historic “peace mission” to England, Adolf Hitler finally confirmed June 22 as the start date for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Among Hitler’s goals was the eradication of the “Jewish…
London, England · April 16, 1941 This night and early the next morning in 1941, when London’s historic St. Paul’s Cathedral was bombed and damaged, marked the start of the final phase of the Blitz (September 7, 1940, to May 21, 1941), which reached its climax on May 10 with a deadly raid that hit the House of…
London, England · April 13, 1939 Following the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia’s German-speaking Sudetenland in October 1938 and the invasion and incorporation of the rest of Czechoslovakia into the Reich in mid-March 1939, Great Britain, France, Poland, Greece, and Romania entered into mutual assistance pacts in case of a military invasion by “a European power,”…
Berlin, Germany · February 25, 1941 The first flight of the German prototype Me 321 Gigant (“Giant”) took place on this date in 1941. The previous October German aircraft maker Messerschmitt had been given just 14 days to submit a proposal for a large-capacity troop- and cargo-carrying glider. The prototype glider’s maiden flight encouraged Messerschmitt to…
London, England · December 29, 1940 On this date in 1940, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt appealed to the nation in a radio “fireside chat” to support his proposal to strengthen the U.S. military in light of developments in Europe, the German Luftwaffe delivered a massive attack on the British capital, London. Almost 3,000 civilians were…
Berlin, Germany · December 25, 1941 On this date in 1941 Japanese citizens celebrated the 15th anniversary of the succession to the Imperial Throne of Emperor Hirohito (posthumously referred to as Emperor Shōwa), according to tradition the 124th direct descendant of Jimmu, the legendary first ruler of the Empire of the Rising Sun. Festive toasts invoked the Imperial…
London, England · December 19, 1939 The Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union broke out on November 30, 1939, 2‑1/2 months after Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin had partitioned Poland between themselves. The French and British governments strongly desired to aid the Finns with volunteers and war materiel. The only possible route for such aid…
Berlin, Germany · December 18, 1940 On this date in 1940 in Berlin, one day before receiving the credentials of the new Soviet ambassador to Germany, Adolf Hitler signed Fuehrer Directive 21, Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa), thereby initiating the secret preparations and military operations that led to the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22,…
